How to Choose the Best Social Media Platforms for Your Company

Social media provides an accessible, convenient way to directly connect with your target audience. Companies can easily keep an eye on their target audiences, such as what their interests are, new trends within the audience and what they're talking about, by paying attention to what's happening within that demographic on social media. 

But with a plethora of social media platforms available – with new ones consistently entering the scene – how do you know which platform is the best for your company to invest its time and money? 

For starters, knowing where your audience lives online is key. 

Know Your Audience 

According to Pew Research Center's (2019) most recent fact sheet, different demographics are attracted to different platforms. Take a look at this list of preferred platforms by demographic from Pew Research Center (2019): 

(StrikeSocial also lists different demographics that make up social media platforms. You can view it here). 

So, before diving into social media marketing or creating new profiles in general, it's critical for a company to consider the above demographic information. If your target market is made up of mostly women in the 30-49-year-old range, you most likely would want to begin investing on Facebook. And if you're targeting teens no older than seniors in high school, you most likely wouldn't want to begin on LinkedIn or Twitter. 

Newberry and McLachlan (2020) write, "When choosing where to place your ads, it's also helpful to know which networks are most popular with your target audience. Where is your target group most engaged, most concentrated and most accessible?" 

And this might take a while to determine. For example, your target demographic may be the 9 percent of high schoolers that are located on LinkedIn. But, it wouldn't be first instinct to start there. Your company will need to engage in market research – specifically through focus groups and netnography – to determine where your audience spends most of its time. Then, you can begin building your influence in that social media platform through growing your profile on the platform, equipping paid ads and directly engaging with consumers. 

Diversify Yourself 

Once you've nailed down your target market and have seen ROI in your initial chosen social media platform(s), it might be time to begin marketing towards the other subgroups that may be interested in your products or services. 

Swan (2020) identifies four reasons to diversify your paid social media marketing mix: 1) your customers don't live on one social media channel, 2) Facebook advertising is increasing its prices (might be better to jump ship to other platforms your TA lives), 3) these other social media platforms have improved ways to advertise and make money to be more competitive (making your life easier), and 4) younger demographics are skipping out on Facebook. 

Look at the apps that are downloaded on your phone. I'm sure you have more than one social media platform downloaded (I have nine). You won't necessarily spend time on each of these platforms, and you certainly don't spend equal amounts of time there. Your target demographics do the same thing. Even if you're seeing success with your initially selected social media platform(s) – and have not only captured the interest of your target audience but secondary as well – you should still consider diversifying your online presence. 

Each audience that you would like to attract through your social media presence will take separate market research. 

For example, if your target audience includes mothers, age 40-45, and your secondary audiences include their children: college-aged and high schoolers, you most likely started with Facebook to attract the mothers. You might have also captured the attention of the college students and high schoolers on Facebook, but that's not necessarily where the majority of this group spends its time. You might see more interest in your products or services amongst these younger age groups through LinkedIn and TikTok. And it would be beneficial to create targeted content to each group on each of these platforms to see a greater ROI. 

Offer Space for Community 

Marketing on social media is different than just about any other type of marketing your company will do. Where in billboards, TV commercials and Google Ads, it's critical to pass along the information consumers need quickly – and be the loudest in the room, social media works a little differently. You'll see greater engagement rates and interest amongst your company when consumers feel like they're part of the conversation. Rather than talking at them with the information you have to offer, it'll be more beneficial to talk with them about a topic relating to your products or services. 

Wendy's is kind of the Twitter poster child for doing this, right? Their Twitter persona is snarky, bold and hilarious, and people eat it up. Wendy's is constantly responding to tweets about their company or their competitors, they open up conversations in their tweets that consumers want to engage with and the consumers are even consistently tagging the account in tweets they think Wendy's will interact with. They not only created a place where consumers are part of the conversation and feel like they are in on the joke, but have also created this phenomenon where consumers are doing the work to grab the company's attention rather than it being the other way around, where the company is desperately grasping for its audience. 

Take this tweet, for example: 

(Wendy's, 2020). 

Hundreds of consumers responded with images of their Halloween costumes, and Wendy's followed it up by stating, "That was fun. Now check out our app for a free croissant breakfast sandwich tomorrow. Nothing’s scarier than a bad breakfast (Wendy's, 2020)." This was free advertising, and because Wendy's has crafted a community to consistently receive engagement, they can do things like this and see success. 

Again, this goes back to doing the market research and fully understanding how your target and secondary audiences live online. By studying and becoming an expert of how your audiences engage online (what their interests are, how they communicate, lingo used, etc.), your company will be able to seamlessly engage in this world, crafting that community of fans rather than putting content out there hoping it will stick. 

Have you seen other companies do a good job of crafting community online? Let me know in the comments!

References

Aguilhar, L. (2018, August 07). How to choose the best social media platform for your ad campaign. 

    Retrieved November 02, 2020, from https://strikesocial.com/blog/best-social-advertising-platform/

Newberry, C., & McLachlan, S. (2020, September 9). Social Media Advertising 101: How to Get the 

    Most Out of Your Ad Budget. Retrieved November 02, 2020, from https://blog.hootsuite.com/social-        media-advertising/

Novak, C. (2010, July 27). Why Conversation, not Content, is King. Retrieved November 02, 2020, from 

    https://www.socialmediatoday.com/content/why-conversation-not-content-king

Pew Research Center. (2019, June 12). Demographics of Social Media Users and Adoption in the United 

    States. Retrieved November 02, 2020, from https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/fact-sheet/social-           media/

Reed College of Media. (2020). Week 4 Lesson: Social Media Analytics & Advertising Channels.    

    Retrieved November 02, 2020, from                         

    https://ecampus.wvu.edu/webapps/blackboard/execute/displayLearningUnit?                

    course_id=_150868_1&content_id=_7384405_1&framesetWrapped=true

Swan, G. (2020, January 24). 4 Reasons Why You Need to Diversify Your Paid Social Mix. Retrieved 

    November 02, 2020, from https://tinuiti.com/blog/paid-social/paid-social-diversification/

Wendy's [Wendy's]. (2020, October 29). Halloween Costumes [Tweet]. Retrieved November 02, 2020, 

    from https://twitter.com/Wendys/status/1321830152662327297

Wendy's [Wendy's]. (2020, October 29). App promotion [Tweet]. Retrieved November 02, 2020, from 

    https://twitter.com/Wendys/status/1321887986288656388