Which Social Media Platforms Should You Use for Your Business

I’m sure it doesn’t come as a shock that for your business to grow and survive in this day and age, social media is a necessity. 

Getting started can be a bit tricky, even something as simple as choosing which platform to start using can be complicated. There are many social networks out there; choosing the right one is key to your business's success. 

The good news is that with this blog, you’ll be able to see what factors affect your choice of future posting platform. 

Why is Social Media Important?

In today’s world, there’s a social media platform for everything, all for different uses too. 

Unless you’re a major business, there’s no need to be on every single platform, it’s too much work for the same result (and the social media intern). 

The best way to go about social media as a small business would be to find where your target audience would be. Instagram? Tiktok? Facebook? We’ll cover later in the blog how to build personas for your audience.

If done correctly, social media has the potential to increase your traffic to all your channels by more than 73%, as well as increase lead generation to 64%. 

Like it or not social media is here to stay. Since being introduced to the world social media has done nothing but grow. As of July 2024 there were over 5.17 billion users across all platforms, with the average person spending 2 hours and 20 minutes scrolling or engaging with posts. 

This is what gives social media its key advantage over other marketing forms. It’s ability to access people, so get to it!

As you probably already know, there are social media platforms out there for everything. Including ones to connect people with shared interests, similar hobbies, comparable demographics, and much more. 

The point is that there are way too many for you to be active on them all, particularly if you’re a small to medium-sized business with a limited budget. 

86% of marketers say that social media has helped increase exposure followed by increasing traffic at 73% and lead generation at 64%, according to Satista. Upon hearing these numbers, any business would be silly to not utilise social media. 

Social media, since being introduced into the world, has only grown and kept on growing. Over 5 billion people spend an average of 2 hours and 20 minutes per day scrolling or engaging on social media. As of July 2024, there were 5.17 billion social media users. This is what gives social media marketing its advantage is that you can reach a huge number of people very quickly. 

Let’s look at 4 effective ways you can decide what platform you want your business on. 

Define Your Social Media Goals 

There are many benefits to using social media, but it’s important to have goals before you start, that way when you start you have a clear vision and goal.

Social media can help any brand with several business-related goals. The type of goal you choose will affect the content you create and the audience you target. 

Some of the goals include: 

• Expand your reach 
• Generate more leads 
• Boost brand awareness 
• Drive website traffic 
• Engage customers 
• Provide customer support 
• Get insights about your industry or market
• Build a community 
• Improve search engine ranking 
• Boost your brand’s reputation

All these goals are made possible with social media. It’s about prioritising your goals and where you want your business to go. 

If you’re struggling to come up with a foolproof social media strategy, consider getting in contact with us, book a call and let’s get your business where it needs to be!

Determine What Channels Your Audience Uses

The entire point of successful social media marketing is connecting you with your most receptive and engaging audience. 

The best way to go about this first would be to create buyer personas, this is basically where you make a character of the people most likely to engage with your brand. 

Having buyer personas is really effective because it makes your marketing more specific to those who actually want to buy your products or services. “If you’re marketing to everyone, you’re marketing to no one” is a great marketing mantra when it comes to social media. 

Having a buyer persona allows you to figure out your audience’s demographics, gender, interests and values. There are a few different ways you can go about it. 

One of the most simple ways you can do it is by using customer surveys on email, or an alternative could be on WhatsApp if that’s an option.

Another great option would be to use paid advertising, you can tell platforms like Facebook about your ideal customers and they will find the right audience based on demographics like location, age or gender. You can even narrow it down to income, interests and style. 

And for those of you with an active website, you can use Google Analytics 4 to find out what channels people are coming from to your site. Even if you don’t post regularly (which I strongly do not recommend) you’ll be surprised by where people are coming from.

Review your Content

Different types of content work better with certain social media platforms, so it’s key that you consider carefully the types of content you like to create that will also work for your business. 

The type of content you create will depend on several things, including your industry, your business and your target audience. 

Uses of different social media platforms and successful content. 

Blog posts: Blogs are a great way to inform and drive traffic to your website. They also help with SEO as you can write blogs based on keywords or key phrases that people search for and want answers to. 

Testimonials: Your customers are your most important asset, so make sure to use their opinions and experiences to promote your brand. Positive User Generated Content is a powerful tool you can use to show other potential customers what it’s like working with your brand. 

Webinars and live streams: Live video is great for audience engagement and learning more about your buyers, particularly through Q&A sessions at the end. 

Ebooks: This type of long-form content can provide a huge value to potential customers and is great for data capture and lead generation. 

Videos: The ultimate form of content, videos can expand your reach widely if something you create goes viral. 

Photographs: Using photos to showcase the inner workings of your business, your team or even something humorous can help drive engagement and traffic. 

Match Your Goals, Audience & Content with the Right Platform 

Once you’ve decided on your social media goals, determined where your audience is, and decided what type of content works best, you can compare the different social media platforms to see which one/s will meet your needs. 

To help you decide, here's a rundown of the top platforms by audience size, what they're good for, and what a typical user looks like:

Facebook for Business

Currently, the largest social media platform, with over 3 billion monthly active users, Facebook is great for lead generation, and its advertising platform can be highly customised to target specific audiences. 

Facebook is also a good platform for building relationships, showing the human side of your business, and turning leads into loyal followers and customers. Facebook groups are popular and can provide insights into what customers want and enable you to connect with prospects and customers.   

Many different content types do well on Facebook, but video content (and live video if you have the capacity) to show off products, how-to tutorials, provide industry or company news or host live Q&As), behind-the-scenes content, and user-generated content tend to do well.

LinkedIn for Business

Another more business-focused social media is of course LinkedIn. With over 830 million users worldwide, LinkedIn is particularly effective for B2B interactions, making it an ideal space to enhance your brand's visibility more professionally.

A great feature of LinkedIn is that there are networking opportunities everywhere. Allowing you to connect with industry peers, and potential clients or even recruit young talent!

LinkedIn is a great space to share professional work achievements, industry news or case studies. 

Just like all other social media, LinkedIn too has its own advertising options which enable you to make targeted campaigns that reach specific demographics relevant to your business.

Instagram for Business 

There are 2 billion users on Instagram and 85% of them are younger than 45. So if that’s your demographic, Instagram could be a platform to look at.  

Originally a photo-sharing app, Instagram has evolved to expand into video and has a number of formats. Like Facebook, live video has become very popular on Instagram along with its Stories (posts that only last 24 hours) and Reels (short-video content) features.  

Instagram Shopping makes it easier for brands to promote products and make money on the platform. People can purchase in the app rather than being directed to a landing page or website. 

On your Instagram Shop, you can include:

• Collections based on a theme (e.g. new arrivals, colours etc.)
• Product Detail Pages (includes pricing and descriptions and content where the product is tagged
• Product Tags and Product Ad Tags (highlight items from your catalogue in images and videos and product mentions in your profile bio or feed copy)
• Checkout for payment

TikTok for Business

With over 1.5 billion users, TikTok is a platform that has seen unbelievable growth over the past few years. The reason? Short-form videos are favoured by a young demographic (and a lot of influencers) that have the potential to go viral.  

The platform’s popularity makes it a great channel for businesses that use it effectively. TikTokers love the platform as they see it as authentic so you don’t need polished or professional videos. 

If you’re not familiar with TikTok, browse through the videos on the ‘For You’ and ‘Explore’ pages and look at the editing features, effects and filters. TikTok challenges are very popular so it’s worth seeing any you can take part in to raise brand awareness by using the ‘Search’ bar.

When you set up a TikTok Business Account there are a few features you can use:

• Welcome message - automatically sent once someone starts a conversation with your business. 
• Suggested questions - customise an FAQ menu that’s displayed when a user enters a chat with your business for the first time.
• Keyword auto-reply - send automated responses to users based on custom keywords.
  

You should also make use of the ‘Profile’ features such as including your website and contact information, adding an app download link, and embedding a lead generation form. These will help drive engagement and traffic. 

Influencers are big news on TikTok and they come in all sizes! Look for influencers that may resonate with your audience or have knowledge that can help boost your business. TikTok has a Creator Marketplace that could help you connect with creators.

TikTok advertising is also worth exploring. Seen to be cheaper than other social platforms (at least for now), 55% of users say TikTok helps them discover new products and brands. There are several ad formats such as in-feed ads, Top view, TikTok Promote and branded. Check them out to see what may work for your business.

Well, this concludes our blog on choosing the right Social Media for your small business, hopefully, this has given you a little more understanding of the topic and you’re more confident in your choices. 

If you’re looking for an agency to take care of all your marketing needs, get in contact with us, and book a call with our founder Matt. No sales jargon, just a friendly chat to see where we can help you!