Understanding which social media platform to use for your business marketing will not only save you time but also helps in building a better relationship with your target audience.
Digital Marketing is the latest method to get your brand across to your target audience. It has come to stay, and the future of digital marketing is awesome. But we can’t be talking about digital marketing without mentioning social media as a digital marketing tool and the best advertising channel among them all. Social Media has become a marketplace of ideas and creativity. Products and services are sold online, thus providing opportunities for companies, industries and startups to get their products and services to their customers.
Most startups worldwide want their brands and products advertised on every social media platform. With tons of social media platforms, you will be frustrated if you want to have an account with all of them. Many social media strategies failed because business owners patronised the wrong platforms. Big companies can be on several social media platforms because of enough cash flow and manpower, though that doesn’t mean their target audiences are on every platform. But for a startup company, you have to critically examine where your target audiences are.
What Are The Advantages Of Advertising On Social Media Channels?
- Create Brand Recognition: Brand recognition is one of the most marketing aims of every business owners and presently Social media have given the business owners such opportunity to present their brands in front of billions of users. Advertising on Social media will increase your brand visibility and recognition since you will be engaging with millions of consumers in a single platform.
- Improved Brand Loyalty: Social media offers business owners and companies a lifetime opportunity to develop a loyal customer base. Study shows that 55% of your brand social media followers will be loyal to your brand and they also see your Social media channel as a platform where they can communicate directly with your business.
- Higher Conversion Rates: Social media marketing give your business more conversion because it assists in sending customers directly to your website from Social media. Every blog post, image, video, and other content on your Social media page may lead viewers to your company’s website and increase traffic. As a matter of fact, Advertising on Social media has countless benefits and advantages.
Before we dive into which social media platform is good for your business, you must understand that it’s not about being on every social media platform. It’s really about figuring out these:
- What’s your Business type
- Who are your target audiences?
- What’s your goal?
To help you with the best social media platform for marketing your business, I’ve prioritized five social media platforms that are good enough for marketing in 2022.
The Best Advertising Channels To Grow Your Business in 2022
Facebook
Facebook is the king of all social media platforms and is best used for Business to Consumer (B2C) marketing.
You will need a Facebook presence.
- If your industry is within: Real Estate, Fashion, E-commerce, Retail, Entertainment, Automobile, Marketing, Sports, Health and Wellness, News and Information
- If your target Audience Age is between 20-60+
- And the target Audience Gender: Both Men and Women
Facebook is a household name when it comes to social media, currently the biggest and most popular social media platform in the world. You may want to ask me if your target audiences are on Facebook, I would say yes! Because according to Statista Facebook has 1.85 billion daily active users and about 2.8 billion monthly active users in 2020
In Nigeria according to the report posted by Techcabal Facebook has about 27.5 million users in 2020 alone, do you know what that means? It simply means you can engage with your audience using Facebook because 74.74% of them are active every day, and spend about 3 hours on average on Facebook every day. Though, they may not engage with your posts always because many organizations and individuals post on Facebook per second. As an organization, you need to use Facebook ads to get your brand across to millions of people on daily basis.
Facebook ads are an effective way to get your brand across to your target audience. Though, it’s not free but very reliable and worth the price. To effectively advertise your products or brand on Facebook, I will suggest using Facebook ads instead of posting on your TimeLine, But don’t just advertise your brands on Facebook without setting up Facebook Pixel on your website. Facebook Pixel allows you to have more control over your Facebook ads.
Sometimes, you will notice that immediately you visited some website, you begin to see their ads on your timeline, that’s the power of Facebook pixel. With Facebook Pixel you can target people that have seen a specific blog post in the past month, instead of wasting money showing your ads to people who have never heard of you or don’t know anything about your brand.
You can as well use videos marketing on Facebook to reach as many people as you could. Stats show that 80% of Facebook users watch videos. So you can make videos about your brand and promote it as Facebook Ads.
Another way you can effectively promote your brands on Facebook is by creating or joining Facebook groups. Facebook group can be used for marketing research and engagement. I created a group on Facebook in 2017 and within a month the group members were 50,000 in Nigeria alone. So, do you want to engage with your target audience? Then join Facebook groups your target audiences are in and be as helpful as possible by connecting with them, giving tips, and helping when they post questions.
Instagram
Instagram is a social media platform good for Business-to-Consumer and good for industries such as Travel and Hospitality, Fashion, Health and Wellness, Arts and Crafts, Food and Beverage, E-commerce, Beauty, Photography, Auto, Event Planning. The age of Instagram users is between 18 – 35, majorly women.
Instagram is another giant name in social media platforms across the globe with over 850 million active users in 2020 but you need to ask yourself.
- If Instagram is the best social media platform for your business?
- Are your target audiences on Instagram?
If you ask me, if Instagram is the best social media platform for your business, I will yes. Only if you are into visual products and your target audience are between 18years to 35years.
Because stats show that most active users on Instagram are 34’s below, which means if your brand is targeted towards the older people or group between age 40s and above, you need to consider another platform for advertisement.
Instagram users by age
The average age of Instagram users is particularly attractive for marketers – as of July 2020, over two-thirds of total Instagram users worldwide were aged 34 years and younger. Users aged 25 to 34 years accounted for the largest share of global Instagram audiences.
www.statista.com
But I must say this; Instagram is a photo app if your business must capture the mind of your audience, you must create high-impact images that tell a story. You can use Instagram as a brand-building tool if you have good followers and post beautiful images and videos constantly.
Pinterest
Pinterest is another powerful social media platform that can shot your brand to the next level with about 442 million users in 2020 according to this report. But is it the right platform for your brand? Let’s look into it this way.
- It is a social media platform good for Business-to-Consumer (B2C)
- Good for Industries: Health and Wellness, Travel and Hospitality, Fashion, E-commerce, Arts and Crafts, Retail, Food, Brewery, Beauty, Home and Deco, Garden, Event Planning and Management. Photography,
- Pinterest is a female-centred platform with gender age 18-45
Pinterest is a better social media platform for your business if it’s targeted towards women, because according to sproutsocial 42% of women online are active Pinterest users, while 34% of them between ages 18-19 and 28% of them are between the ages 30-49 which is a good advantage for any female-focused brand. Pinterest is a better place to promote your business if you have a visual product or offer services that have to do with women and relies solely on visual.
And if you know how to use BoardBooster well on Pinterest is another advantage for you. Ho well! You asked what BoardBooster is. BoardBooster is a program that allows you to schedule pins on Pinterest, it helps manage your Pinterest account by automatically spreading new pins over ideal pinning hours, instead of doing it manually yourself. Another great advantage is the introduction of the Pinterest buy button that helps people to buy your products with just a click of a button.
Twitter
Twitter is another social media platform where users can post an online content maximum of 280 characters called “tweets”. Just like other social media platforms, the business owner uses Twitter as an effective marketing tool. You need to view twitter from this point of view to determine if it’s good for your business: Twitter is the most used social media platform, with some 340 million users
- Twitter is a social media platform good for Business-to-Business and Business-to-Consumer.
- Perfect for industries like: News and Information, Retail, E-commerce, Health and Wellness, Travel and Hospitality, Telecom, Finance, Fashion, Retail, Sports, Politics and Trends
- Audience Age between 18 – 50
- Gender on Twitter: both men and women.
Twitter is a cost-effective way for a start-up business to reach out to its target audiences if the said target audiences are on Twitter. Another good thing about Twitter is that it can use it for customer service. Your customer can easily tweet you whenever they have any issue with your products or services.
Twitter can easily make you locate people who have similar interests in your business which can help grow your business. All you need to do is follow the people or company who have the same interest as you. Through this, you can build your following and develop long term relationships with them that can lead to tremendous sales.
You may not really need money to promote your business on your Twitter account but you need to establish your expertise in your field by frequently tweeting tips in your chosen field. You can also link your company website to your tweets to provide more information to your followers.
LinkedIn
LinkedIn is a high-tech networking platform where Business-to-business, Business-to-consumer can connect, share ideas and opportunities to grow their brand. LinkedIn has over 760 million users, with more than 260 million mind-blowing monthly active users
It serves different industries such as IT, Financial, Employment, Science and Technology, Legal, Manufacturing, Marketing, Education, Health and Wellness, Designers and any Professional Services.
LinkedIn is for any business owner who’s interested in taking their business to the next level. It provides business owners opportunities to build their careers and connect with other professionals from different fields.
LinkedIn is a valuable resource centre for anybody and business professionals to network. So no matter the size of your business, LinkedIn is a place to be if you are a professional of any kind.
Final Thoughts
Of course, finding the best social media suitable for your brands in this ever-changing marketing world is very tedious, but you need to look deeply into your brands and the type of people that needs them, it is better to spend money and time on two or three social media platform that will yield best results than be on every platform without any tangible outcome.