Are you one of the many business owners suffering from social media overwhelm? Don’t worry, you’re not alone. In fact, it’s one of the main reasons our clients come to us in the first place, and we’ve been able to help them understand the basics and get their social media on the right track.
What is social media?
In it’s most simple terms, social media is technology that facilitates the sharing of ideas, thoughts and information through virtual networks and communities. There are a number of different social media platforms that all have their own user demographics and purposes. Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn and TikTok are among the most common and popular platforms.
With 4.62 billion social media users around the globe (as of January 2022), and the average adult spending 95 minutes a day using the platforms, it should be an essential part of your marketing efforts. It’s incredibly useful for reaching your customers, gaining valuable insights and growing your brand, giving you the ability to connect with your target audience no matter where they are, or what time of day it is.
The short and simple of it is; if you’re not using it yet, you’re missing out on a huge opportunity!
What are the different social media platforms?
Below we show you some of the key stats from the most popular social media platforms.
For users to keep in contact with friends and family, sharing pictures, music, videos, articles as well as their own thoughts and opinions.
Active Monthly Users: 2.91 billion
Largest Age Group: 25-34 (31.5%)
Gender: 43% Female / 57% male
Time spent per day: 33 minutes
Photo-sharing app that lets the user connect with brands, celebrities, friends and family.
Active Monthly Users: 2 billion
Largest Age Group: 25-34 (31.2%) and 18-24 (31%)
Gender: 48.4% Female / 51.8% male
Time spent per day: 29 minutes
TikTok
Short-form video-sharing app that allows users to create and share 15 second videos, on any topic.
Active Monthly Users: 1 billion
Largest Age Group: 10-19 (25%)
Gender: 61% female / 39% male
Time spent per day: 89 minutes
A social network that focuses on professional networking and career development.
Active Monthly Users: 810 million
Largest Age Group: 25-34 (58.4%)
Gender: 48% female / 52% male
63% of users access the network weekly, and 22% daily.
Which social media platform should my business use?
As you can see, each platform has very different purposes and the demographics vary a lot – making it important that you chose which social media platforms you should be using wisely. There would be nothing worse than spending a bunch of time creating content and posting regularly to a platform that your target audience (aka ideal client) isn’t even using.
STEPS TO SUCCESS
1 / Define your goals
Your first step should be determining what you are trying to achieve by using social media, as this will ultimately guide the majority of your social media decisions. For example, your goal could be to increase brand awareness or increase traffic to your website or landing page.
2 / Determine your target audience
What does your target audience look like? What age bracket do they fit in? What are the interests, hobbies and pet-peeves? Answering these questions (plus others!) will give you a clear idea of who you are trying to target and help you to decide which platforms are going to be best to reach them, as well as what content you should be sharing.
3 / Choose the type of content to share
Once you know your goals and who your target audience is, you can come up with ideas for content to share. It could be product imagery, short videos sharing product or service information or detailed educational information, or a mixture of everything!
4 / Decide on your social media platforms
Now that you have all pieces of the puzzle (goals ~ audience ~ content) you should be able to compare the different social media platforms to figure out which one best suits your business needs.
Need help with your business social media?
There really is a lot to take in and understand when it comes to social media. But if you follow our steps above and take the time assessing the different social media platforms, the opportunities that are available to you are endless.
If you’re still not quite sure, or simply don’t have the time to dedicate to social media, get in touch with us today and we can take control for you. We have a wide range of social media services designed to help business owners – from designing templates to ensure consistency, through to full social media strategies and implementation – we can reduce your to-do list so you can focus on your business.
