Choosing where to spend your advertising dollars on social media can be so confusing. Let us help you make an informed decision.
How do you choose the right Social platform?
It’s important to make a strategic social media marketing plan for what social media platforms your business should advertise on. This article will give you a brief overview of what audiences are on each social media platform to help you decide which platform is right for your business. If you still have questions you can reach out to us for direction on Social Media Marketing from Jacksonville, FL (remotely or in person) or look to download our Social Media Advertising Guide.
Which Social Media Marketing Platforms Should Your Business Use?
It is essential to select the right platforms for a few reasons. Here’s what you should focus on:
- Is my audience on the platform? (at least enough of it, and does it include an audience with money?)
- How well can I target my audience?
- How appropriate is my messaging for this platform/audience
- Flexibility of ads – How well can I reach my audience?
- Ad effectiveness/cost ratio
- Is it right for my business?
- Are you looking for an audience of 70+? Facebook might work, but otherwise, you should try the newspaper. <grin>
In this article, we will do a brief overview of each platform’s audience to give you an idea of which platforms have the right audience for you. In another article, we’ll dive into more of the details about how easy or hard it is for you to reach those people on those platforms.
Social Media Marketing & Advertising By Platform
First, let’s start with how many people are on each social media platform. There’s a pretty big discrepancy between the social media platforms, as you can see in this infographic from Hootsuite
Social Media Platforms Comparison, by Hoot Suite
Mature vs. Immature Social Media Advertising
How mature is the platform, not how mature are the users! When the Facebook social media platform started, ads were very basic, as was targeting. It is now one of the most refined advertising platforms in existence, up there with Google Ads. Keep that in mind when looking at social media platforms. Tik Tok is the other end of this spectrum. Very unrefined and not a lot of control. While with every platform it is important to be sensitive to what users are looking for and make your content similar to that, Tik Tok is perhaps the most extreme in this manner and often one of the hardest for businesses to gain traction on. It is important to make sure that your targeted users are there, that you can tailor your message to connect with them on that platform, and that you can use the advertising tools available to you effectively.
Audiences – Who’s on What Social Media Platform?
Here’s data from 2021 to help shed light on who’s on what platform from the PEW Research Center:
Social Media Demographic Comparisons From Pew Research Center
You can find updated information on Social Media Demographics for 2021 Pew here (but not as easily readable in one chart). As you can see, YouTube and Facebook are the leaders by a wide margin. While both are important, we’re going to start with Facebook because it is much easier to get started.
Which Social Media Platform is Best for What Advertising?
Each social media platform has strengths and weaknesses, and in order to get the most out of them, you need to try and utilize their strengths. Here’s an infographic from Temple University that sheds some light on what each platform is best for to see if their audience is worth targeting for you:
As you can see, each social media platform has an area that it is best suited for. This doesn’t mean that is the only way you can use those platforms, but before spending your hard-earned money on a platform, make sure that people engage with your type of content. Platforms such as Pinterest are specially tailored to certain subject matter, whereas Facebook is big enough and diverse enough you can find just about anything. Unless you have a good reason to start with a different platform, Facebook is usually a good place to start. It is important to have your business information correct on Facebook (Name, Address, and Phone Number) as both this and your Facebook reviews can have an impact on your SEO. For most businesses, I would recommend starting there and branching out. Want to learn more about Social Media Advertising? Check out our Social Media Advertising Guide to come soon. If you are interested in growing your business by having your social media account professional managed, contact Fisher Design and Advertising at info@fisherdesignandadvertising.com.
