Which Social Media are Best for My Small Business Goals?
Which Social Media are Best for My Small Business Goals?
Goals + Target Audience + Content = The Right Social Media for Your Small Business
I’m not a mathematician, and that summation probably won’t always work, but combining your business goals, target audience, and content availability will definitely help you narrow down which social media platforms your small business should consider joining. Let’s look at 7 of the most popular social media in the U.S. and which businesses should establish a presence on each.
Our goal through this is to help direct you to the social media platform that’s best for your business needs, but we won’t directly tell you which social media you need to be on…except Facebook. You need to be on Facebook.
Why Facebook, you ask? A great question. Facebook is the most popular social media in the world, and it’s not even close. How popular is it, you ask? Another great question. If you combined the active users on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, and LinkedIn, you’d still be about 260 million active users shy of Facebook.
When asked 62% of U.S. men reported to be on Facebook while nearly 75% of U.S. women claim to be on the platform. And don’t let age fool you either. While people claim Facebook is for older generations, it is the second most popular social media for people aged 18-24, 25-29, 30-49, and 50-64.
Which businesses should use Facebook? ALL OF THEM. But seriously, if you haven’t already, please go create your Facebook business page.
YouTube
More than 1 billion hours of videos are consumed on YouTube every single day, which is no surprise as more than 500 hours of content is uploaded to YouTube every single minute of every single day. That’s a lot of video content.
While video content isn’t necessarily as easy to create as a photo or blog post, video is the king of content (and if you remember, content is king).
Like Facebook, YouTube doesn’t cater better to men or women or different age groups–in fact, it’s the most popular social platform in the U.S. among 18-64 years olds. With 2 billions active users, YouTube can be used by just about any business to create entertaining and educational content including how-to videos, product demonstrations, comedy sketches, and just about anything else you can capture with a camera.
Which businesses should use YouTube? Most of them
It should come as no surprise that Instagram is the next most popular social media on our list, but it might come as a surprise that Instagram is owned by Facebook. Instagram is all about the visuals. From photos to videos to live casts, Instagram is a great space to show off the beauty of your business. As they say, a picture can tell a thousand words.
If you’re in the travel, hospitality, fashion, wellness, arts, food and beverage, e-commerce, beauty, or photography industry, Instagram is probably a good fit for your business. Demographically speaking, Instagram is roughly equally as popular among men and women, however, it is definitely more popular among younger generations than more experienced ones.
Which businesses should use Instagram? Any business that can capture great visuals
Pinterest is the first social media we’ll examine that fits a more niche type of business. Pinterest is meant to resemble a set of corkboards, where you tack ideas and concepts you find interesting to specific boards based on the topical area. You might pin recipes you want to try to a Foods to Try board or plans for your upcoming wedding to a Dream Wedding board.
Like with Instagram, visuals are super important on Pinterest. It’s a graphic-heavy platform which aims to capture users’ attention with captivating photos and catchy headlines.
The smallest platform on our list by active users, Pinterest is most popular among women with 41% of U.S. women claiming to be regular Pinners, while only 16% of men say the same. It’s also more popular among the 30+ crowd and even more popular with the 40+ crowd.
Which businesses should use Pinterest? Great for B2C businesses in the retail, health and wellness, travel, hospitality, fashion, arts, home and garden, and event planning industries
If you’re a professional, more than likely, you’ve at least heard of LinkedIn. As the world’s largest professional networking group, LinkedIn aims to connect businesses and business people from all around the world. The focus here is on professional networking and using the vast network to connect (“friends” on LinkedIn are even called “connections”) to grow your business and career.
As a small business, you’ll most likely find success using LinkedIn as a recruiting tool as users typically don’t scour the platform to buy products or services but rather to advance their careers.
Overall, the LinkedIn demographic is slightly more male, however, 25% of both men and women in the U.S. say they’re in the network. LinkedIn is most popular among young professionals aged 25-34, and more than 50% of college educated adults in the U.S. use LinkedIn.
Which businesses should use LinkedIn? White collar businesses and any business looking to recruit business professionals
Because of its cult following, you’d probably be surprised to learn that Twitter is actually on the smaller side of mainstream social media giants with just more than 330 million active users. The microblogging site is a great place to post business announcements and news updates, and monitor conversations happening in your industry, about your brand, and around the world.
Twitter is a great social media to use if you’re looking to provide an online space for your customer service efforts. Unhappy customers often turn to Twitter straight away if they’ve had a bad experience with your brand, but with a strong and responsive Twitter presence, you can quickly attempt to remedy an unpleasant situation and potentially turn a negative review of your business into a positive one.
Twitter is equally as popular among men as it is with women, and like LinkedIn, often supports more business-minded people in the news and information, telecom, finance, and sports industries.
Which businesses should use Twitter? Any business looking to provide an easy and immediate customer service option for its customers or looking to provide regular updates to its current and prospective customers
TikTok
The new kid on the block, TikTok quickly became the most popular social media for 13-18 year olds in 2020. Similar to the now defunct Vine, TikTok allows users to share videos that are 60 seconds or less. The most popular TikTok trends involve dancing, singing, and humor, and users often lip sync popular sounds in an attempt to add their own personal flair.
There isn’t a whole lot of data about U.S. TikTok demographics although we do know the app is more popular among girls than boys and definitely more popular among high schoolers and college students than professionals and retirees.
Which businesses should use TikTok? If your business’s target audience is 13-24 year olds
Need some help determining which platforms you should choose? Schedule a FREE 15-minute strategy session to talk through your target audience, goals, and content, and let us help you get started down the path to social media success.