How-Tu Tuesday: Deciding Which Platforms You Should Be On

With so many social media platforms out there, it can very be confusing and overwhelming for both small and big businesses alike when trying to decide which social channels they should be present on and which are most relevant to their brand.

Initially it’s an easy question to answer; brands should be present where their customers are present. Companies must know where the people who use their service or product “hang out” for two main reasons: communicating with their existing customers and promoting themselves to the rest of their target market.

However, brands should not fall into the trap of thinking they should be on every existing social media platform. Quite frankly, that would be impossible to manage and only reduce productivity within the team. Instead, businesses should aim to become knowledgeable about the various social channels available, what each of them do and who they target, then narrow it down and focus on the platforms most relevant to the brand and their target market.

Check out our demographic breakdown of the main social media platforms and from that you should know where your customers fit in and which channels will be most essential to the company.

Facebook

• Biggest social media platform
• 1 billion users log onto the site every month
• 665 million daily active users
• Generates 645 million local business page views per week
• 71% of adults online have a Facebook profile, with more women using the network than men
• The most popular age range is 18-29
• Dubbed the social home for business’s on the internet
• The platform where many customers go to leave a message or review and browse through company images/videos
• Ideal for local businesses who want to gain a personal connection with their customers

Twitter

• The platform has an estimated 215 million active users
• 23% of people online have a Twitter account
• The channel has seen a particular rise in the number of male users and is still most popular with those aged 18-29
• The social platform for breaking news and instant updates
• Customers use Twitter mainly to get in touch with a company that requires an urgent response, meaning it is very important that the account is monitored and managed on a near 24/7 basis
• The perfect tool for promoting a campaign and encouraging others to get involved by including a unique hashtag users can include in their tweets

Instagram

• The fastest growing social media platform with 150 million users
• 70% of users are female, aged between 18-35 and live in urban areas
• Ideal for businesses with high quality imagery and video content to share
• Should only be part of a marketing strategy by businesses who are comfortable using a smartphone to post content, as opposed to a computer as there is no desktop version which supports direct publishing
• Similar to Twitter, it is an effective tool in creating user-generated content by asking your community to post their own images and use a specific campaign hashtag to track the results

Pinterest

• With 70 million users, 28% of the online community have a Pinterest account
• The majority of users are female (80%) and aged between 25-45
• Requires a relatively high volume of professional imagery that can be categorised (if you only have a small number of images to share, your profile would look empty and unappealing)
• Pinterest is an effect tool in driving traffic back to the company website as all images posted can have a backlink attached to them
• Compared with most other social feeds, the platform does not need to be updated as often, and no publishing dates are shown when images are pinned or boards created

LinkedIn

• Over 230 million users and 2.7 million business pages
• 28% of online users are on LinkedIn
• It is the only social network where those aged 30-64 are likely to be users more than those aged 18-29
• The largest social media network for business people and professionals
• Most suited to B2B companies and brands looking to use social media as part of their recruitment process

YouTube

• 1 billion unique visitors every month
• The most popular video-orientated social media channel and the second largest search engine after Google
• Provides brands with a huge boost to their search engine optimisation levels
• Highly competitive platform due to the 100 hours of content that is uploaded every minute
• To maximise views and Google rankings, content must be shot and published in HD and edited to a high standard
• The channel is ideal for brands who want to demonstrate a product/service tutorial, record interviews, share behind-the-scenes footage or create imaginative short clips representing the brand persona