Ok yes, the headline says best social media platforms for business, but, it’s not necessarily a 1 size fits all kind of thing. The best social media platform for YOUR business depends on which platform your customers hang out on. In this article we’ll break down the top 5 (according to monthly and active users) so you can understand why they’re important.
Facebook
By size and monthly web traffic, Facebook is one of the platforms where most people visit, and visit regularly. According to Statista, “With roughly 2.85 billion monthly active users as of the first quarter of 2021, Facebook is the biggest social network worldwide. In the third quarter of 2012, the number of active Facebook users surpassed one billion, making it the first social network ever to do so. Active users are those who have logged into Facebook during the past 30 days. During the first quarter of 2021, the company stated that 3.45 billion people were using at least one of the company’s core products (Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, or Messenger) each month.
Wow, that’s a good amount of traffic. However, are they YOUR customers? From a similar article ‘ As of January 2021, it was found that 9.6 percent of global active Facebook users were women between the ages of 18 and 24 years, and male users between the ages of 25 and 34 years constituted the biggest demographic group of Facebook users.’
If those are your people, facebook is your platform!
YouTube
YouTube continues to be a threat to cable and traditional TV viewing, as well the place where people can find on demand content on basically whatever they want. It’s the #2 search engine (just behind Google) and where close to 3 quarters of every age demographic hangs out!
From Statista, ” In the third quarter of 2020, it was found that 77 percent of U.S. internet users aged 15 to 25 years accessed YouTube.
YouTube in the United States
With over 126 million unique monthly viewers, YouTube is by far the most popular online video property in the United States. The platform’s mobile presence is also significant, as YouTube consistently ranks as the most popular mobile app in the United States based on audience reach. The most popular YouTube partner channels consistently attract dozens of millions of viewers and the top YouTube partner channel in the United States as of March 2019 was music label Universal Music Group (UMG), with over 50 million unique viewers.”
The tricky thing about YouTube is a lot of people don’t go daily for a bunch of updates from their friends and family, but when they go they spend time there. Creating a YouTube show, How To videos and other content related to your business are still a good idea.
This is another Facebook owned property, but considering it’s different demographics and how the content on here is strictly visual, it’s important to reference it separately.
From Statista, “As of January 2021, it was found that 14.5 percent of global active Instagram users were women between the ages of 18 and 24 years. More than half of the global Instagram population worldwide is aged 34 years or younger.
Teens and social media
As one of the biggest social networks worldwide, Instagram is especially popular with teenagers. As of fall 2020, the photo-sharing app ranked third in terms of preferred social network among teenagers in the United States, second to Snapchat and TikTok.”
With looking at these numbers, over 60% are regularly daily users and over 80% are regularly monthly users! This means not only do they have an account, but people come back again and again to the platform.
Considered the more professional of the social networks, this is half a social media site & half job recruiting and posting tool. It continues to be a growing site and content on the site, for now, is easier to break through simply because not as many people are doing it. Why? Well, their entire professional lives are attached to here and thus going on a bunch of crazy rants about how your political party is so awesome, or stating what you did for the weekend, etc are fewer and farther between the more optimistic and inspiration type posts.
It’s still people close to you, but typically it’s past (and future) work colleagues and thusly keeping a more professional image is key. Creating a company page on here and keeping up with it helps with your overall SEO, as well trying to break through the other noisy platforms. more info on Statista.
TikTok
The newest game in town! It gained a lot of attention in 2020 when it was considered to be banned, but it continues to be a new riser in the social media landscape.
From Statista, ‘TikTok is a video-sharing social media app owned by Beijing-based tech company ByteDance. The mobile platform allows users to create, edit, and share short-form video clips that are jazzed up with filters and accompanied by the latest music trends. While this premise may not sound particularly appealing to internet users over the age of 30, it has proven to be highly successful with younger audiences: Within only a few months of launching internationally in 2017, TikTok has become one of the fastest-growing apps worldwide and a global viral phenomenon.’
The platform is growing 85% with over 65 million users in the United states. 25% of users are 10-19 years of age which makes is a younger focused platform. Early adopters get the typical early adopter advantage, where it’s easier to stake a claim in a less noisy world.
So how do you know which platform is for you? Generally by seeing where your users hang out and giving them content on each one.
Added Bonus – Google – SEO!
but google isn’t a social media platform? correct, but if the majority of people visit the page to learn about something, it still makes sense to reference it.
Google keywords and google ads remain a huge drive of revenue for the company, with close to 5!! top search results showing ads before getting to the actual question/content you searched for. It also makes sense for you to get as high up as possible on google so you’re just below those ads, without paying for them.
Getting there can be tricky, figuring out keywords and other SEO related things, but it’s still a worthwhile exploration.
Statisa ‘Google is a California-based, multinational internet company which provides digital products and services such as online search and advertising, cloud computing and software. In October 2020, Google was ranked first amongst the most visited multi-platform web properties in the United States with just over 267 million U.S. unique visitors and a market share of 61.8 percent among the leading U.S. search engine providers. Parent company Alphabet’s market capitalization in June 2020 was valued at 977.75 billion U.S. dollars. In 2015, American multinational conglomerate Alphabet Inc. was created as the parent company of Google and several other companies previously owned by or tied to Google. The reorganization of Google into Alphabet was completed on October 2, 2015.’
So good luck! If you need help creating content, doing keyword research, or just need some monthly consultation for your business on social media, reach out!