Which Social Media Channels Should You Use for Marketing?
Determining the Right Social Channels for Your Client’s Business:
Does your client have the time or resources to run and maintain all of their social media channels?
- Social media is all about posting consistently. This not only includes the right type of content, but a steady stream of it, along with the right tools to create the content.
- Social media channels are not one-size-fits-all. Each social platform contains a different algorithm, with different ideal posting schedules, content that works best, graphics sizes, etc.
- Social media management (SMM) isn’t just a “write content, click post, and forget it” type of marketing. It requires hours of thought, planning, research, approvals, strategy building, revisions, moderating comments, reporting analytics, etc. Do you have a dedicated person on your team to handle this for multiple channels?
If the answers to the above questions are no, then Social Media Management might be a good fit for them. Let’s dig more into what channels might be best for their package.
What is your client’s key demographic?
- It’s important to do a little research of the platform beforehand. What is the primary age demographic of users on the platform? Is the audience your client seeks to reach even there?
- Look into whether their competitors are currently on the platform. If they are and their content is not getting successful engagement or if they have very few followers, it might indicate their audience is not active in that space.
Once you’ve identified which social media platforms best fit their demographic, it’s important to know how to successfully manage these channels. Each platform has different posting guidelines to reach success. While our typical SMM package contains two posts per week, will this be enough to get the client’s desired results?
How Being on the Wrong Social Media Channels Could Actually Hurt Your Client’s Business:
Getting on a new social media platform just to be on it is not ideal. Active social media accounts show customers that it’s a legitimate business they can trust. If your client’s brand exists on social platforms, but they rarely or never post, it gives the impression that no one is actively engaged in their brand, and potential customers may pass on giving your client their business.
Demographics Matter!
Many clients try to bite off more than they can chew by having a presence on every social platform but not maintaining them the way they need to be maintained. The biggest advice you can give to your client is:
Don’t commit yourself to the time and energy it takes to run multiple social media channels if they don’t align with your brand.
Let’s look at some demographic information for the major social media channels to help your client decide which are right for their business:
Facebook
- As of 2021, Facebook has over 2 billion monthly active users, which makes it the most popular social media network.¹
- Users spend an average of 19.5 hours a month on Facebook.²
- Male consumers between 25 and 34 years of age represent the largest demographic on Facebook.¹
- 56.4% of Facebook users identify as male while 43.6% identify as female.¹
How often to post: 2x per week minimum (5x per week maximum)
Instagram
- According to Instagram, more than 500 million users are active on the platform every day.
- Users spend an average of 10.3 hours a month on Instagram.²
- Males between the ages of 18 to 24 represent the largest demographic on Instagram, followed closely by males between 25 to 34 years old.¹
- Most women on Instagram are between 18 and 34 years old.¹
How often to post: 3x per week minimum (7x per week maximum)
Twitter
- Twitter’s user base reached over 320 million users in 2021.¹
- Roughly a quarter of Americans use Twitter.³
Twitter ranks number 12 among the world’s most visited websites.⁴ - Users spend an average of 5.6 hours a month on Twitter.²
- Most American Twitter users (65%) are between 18 and 29 years of age.³
- Twitter’s user base heavily skews male with only 29.6% of users identifying as female.¹
- 34% of U.S. adults who earn $75,000 or more use Twitter.³
How often to post: 1x per day minimum (5x per day maximum)
TikTok
- Users spend an average of 13.3 hours a month on TikTok.²
- Because TikTok’s audience is younger, most users earn between $30,000 to $50,000.³
- Tiktok has 1 billion monthly active users.⁵
- 25% of U.S. TikTok users are between 10 and 19 years of age.¹
- Only 18% of U.S. TikTok users are 50-plus years old.³
How often to post: 1x per day minimum (3x per day maximum)
LinkedIn
- LinkedIn’s user base in 2021 was roughly 774 million, with 21% of that being U.S. internet users.¹
- Although LinkedIn’s user growth has slowed down, it’s still the number one social media platform for B2B brands. LinkedIn makes up the largest share of B2B display advertising in the U.S. at 32.3%.⁶
- 56% of LinkedIn users identify as male while 43.1% identify as female.¹
- Roughly 60% of LinkedIn users are between 25 and 34 years of age.⁷
- 51% of U.S. adults who have a college education use LinkedIn. Only 12% of U.S. adults earning less than $30,000 use the platform.³
- Half of U.S. adults who earn more than $75,000 use LinkedIn³
How often to post: 3x per week minimum (1x per day maximum)
Sources: HubSpot & Sprout
Statistics Provided By: ¹Statista, ²Hootsuite, ³Pew Research Center, ⁴SEMrush, ⁵Influencer Marketing Hub, ⁶eMarketer, ⁷DataReportal
Contact SnapMe to learn more about social media management!