An active social media presence is essential for businesses in the modern age. As a consumer of social media, likely your first instinct when hearing about a new company is to look them up on social media. Social media is also valuable for telling your story and connecting with your customers. Customers who feel seen and heard are more likely to become brand loyalists. With so many social media platforms at your disposal, how do you know which ones to prioritize and which may not benefit your business? Here are the fundamental points to consider when determining which social media platform is best for your business.
What industry does your business fall under?
Understanding where each industry is most active on social media is the first step in determining the ideal platform on which to focus the majority of your time. Are you selling a product or service? Are you selling to other businesses?
If you’re a direct-to-consumer (D2C) brand, you’ll want to focus on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. Especially if you are selling a product- these three platforms offer a shopping feature, making it seamless for your customers to purchase directly from your posts. On the other hand, a business-to-business (B2B) company should focus its social media efforts on LinkedIn and Twitter. LinkedIn allows your brand to get directly in front of company decision-makers, and you can analyze your audience demographics based on job title and function. Twitter is a great place to send real-time updates about your company and seek out conversations your customers may be having about pain points your company could resolve. It’s also an excellent opportunity to speak directly with potential customers by inserting yourself into the conversation.
Who is your target audience?
Knowing your audience’s complete demographics is essential to understanding where they likely spend most of their time on social media. Sprout Social’s blog on social media demographics is a valuable resource for determining which social media platform is best for your business.
Analyzing audience demographics and engagement metrics is key
If you’ve been posting consistently to multiple platforms for months now, your analytics will tell you exactly where your audience is strongest. While follower count is a vanity metric, it’s the first sign of where your customers are most active. Next, take a look at your engagements and engagement rate. Engagements on a post consist of likes, comments, saves, and shares for most platforms, and engagement rate is a percentage calculated by the number of times users engaged with your content compared to the number of impressions it received during its lifetime. You can find these analytics on each post when you are logged in to a business account on most platforms.
Take a risk
It’s okay to take risks and test out content on each platform to see how your audience will react to it. You just might find that your followers take well to a cheekily-captioned Instagram post.
Need help getting started with a customized social media program? When we work together, your brand does more than show up. It shows up with a story, a purpose, a unique reason for being – and it makes an impact. At Segal Communications, we become an extension of your team – we work fast to become brand experts and make sure we’re keeping your company relevant on social media.
