how to choose best social media networks for your business
20Apr

How to Choose the Best Social Networks For Your Business!

Did you know that over 91% of brands use 2 or more social media channels for their business? More and more business are signing up for multiple social channels in order to reach more followers and share the right content in the best way possible. While it is unlikely your business is only present on one social media channel, striking the perfect balance can be quite tricky. Representing your business on too many channels can be a huge time waster and underrepresenting may mean missing opportunities to reach potential customers and harmful to your brand’s visibility. So how do you know which channels will work for you? Below we have summarized the follower demographics for 4 of the most popular social channels for business and what the overall business goals each channel can help you achieve. With this information, your business can make a more informed decision on which social channels your should have a presence on.

Facebook

Facebook is still the top social network with over 1.9 billion unique monthly users. Over 75% of users spend 20 minutes or more on Facebook, and its followers mostly fall between the ages of 18-49. With this huge audience potential, all B2C businesses should be on Facebook!

For B2B companies, Facebook can still be a great way to establish leadership in your industry and to generate leads even if you cannot effectively promote your products or services on the platform. Promoting pages is super easy on Facebook and the opportunities to engage with customers are endless. It should also be noted that Facebook advertising is highly effective and is often a lower cost per click (CPC) than an AdWords campaign. Facebook is a great channel to connect with your customers and hear their opinions through reviews and comments, too! Quick recap: if any of the following are one of your business’s goals for social media, you should probably be on Facebook:

  • To build a big community around your product
  • To create brand awareness
  • To provide customer service
  • To promote online selling
  • To engage your audience

Twitter

Twitter may now be the most oversaturated of all social networks. Twitter reported 317 million unique users monthly, but 53% of Twitter users never post any updates! On average, Twitter users only spend 2.7 minutes a day on the network and the demographics reflect the network is mostly made up of 18-29 year-olds.

Twitter does allow business to directly communicate to customers and to be a little more flexible and funny with the content they are sharing. Whether you are doing B2C or B2B marketing, Twitter provides plenty of opportunities to gain attention and to communicate with your followers. If any of the following are one of your business’s goals for social, Twitter may be the network for you:

  • Build a large following quickly
  • Engage with individual customers
  • Get the attention of suppliers and industry leaders
  • Have fun, Inject a little more personality into your business

LinkedIn

LinkedIn sees an average of 106 million unique users monthly, and these users are also less likely to be on other social networks as their primary objective on LinkedIn is to showcase their job experience. This makes LinkedIn a vital piece of your social strategy if your brand is interested in reaching all of your potential followers.

When using LinkedIn as a business, remember your overall goal is to be social. LinkedIn can quickly become ineffective if you are constantly pushing your products or services. With LinkedIn, your overall goal should be to establish connection and show expertise in your industry. For B2B companies, LinkedIn is known for being high-quality lead generation, which you can do by joining groups and participating in discussions. Overall, your business should pick LinkedIn if your ideal customer is a professional, another business, or looking for high-quality information. Other goals include:

  • Establishing your company as an industry resource/expert
  • Generating high quality leads for your B2B business
  • Engaging with other professionals
  • Sourcing high-quality content and industry news

Instagram

Instagram is the fastest growing social network currently with 600 million unique users monthly! The network is mostly comprised of women with 38% of online women as compared to only 26% of online men using the network. For brands, Instagram is a great place to engage with customers as 53% of Instagram users follow brands and interact with their content.

Instagram does require more of a commitment from businesses. If you are looking to succeed on the network, make sure you have a lot of visually appealing content to work with and are willing to invest in the time it will take to produce this type of content frequently. Design, aesthetics, style, and visually appealing products are more likely to connect with Instagram users, so if those qualities apply to your business it’s time to start an Instagram account. Other business goals that apply to Instagram are:

  • Interest in sharing the creative process behind your brand
  • Promote your products with visually appealing content through targeted advertising

At Commercial Web Services we focus on our social presence on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. These are the best channels for helping us to reach our business goals for social media. These goals include establishing ourselves as an industry resource, interacting with influencers in our industry, and growing our follower base steadily. Which social networks will your business be joining to accomplish your social media goals?

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