The Best Platforms in Social Media Platform for my Small Business
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Social media has proven to be one of the best tools for digital marketing, bar none. From free accounts to paid advertising, social media has become the industry leader in digital marketing campaigns. It can increase brand awareness like no other platform can in the shortest time. It’s also the most “personal” way of increasing your supporters and generating new leads organically.
Softvire gives some amazing facts of modern technology and social media in our daily lives and notes: “The most remarkable change is in how we communicate with each other, and one of technology’s greatest boon, social media, has undoubtedly overtaken traditional methods of communication. It provides a plethora of platforms where people can connect with great convenience, making the world within reach at the tip of one’s finger. It revolutionised our world by opening wide avenues even for ordinary people to get information quickly, and also share there personal content on a global scale.”This 2020, the world’s population ballooned to 7.75 billion, but what’s remarkable, aside from hitting the seven-billion mark, is that social media was able to penetrate 49% of the world’s total population.
It’s bright as day that social media is critical for any digital marketing strategy to work. Social media can also level the playing field for all kinds of business, most notably for small to medium enterprises (SMEs). What this means is that even a mom of three with a startup business right out of her home office can compete with industry leaders, if she can optimise her social media presence to her advantage. The rise of the small-business entrepreneur is speeding up because of this social media miracle.
But is it a miracle or a product of ingenuity, creativity, and hard work? I believe it’s the latter. A small business cannot just open a social media account and think that success shall come overnight. Many things need to be considered, although it doesn’t take a rocket scientist or an MBA grad to figure it out.
This article aims to give an overview of the power of different social media platforms, their uniqueness, and how every SME owners and marketers can harness the strength of each platform to amplify awareness for their brand, generate leads, and ultimately increase ROI (return of investment) for their company. It’s not about having an account everywhere and losing your sanity on maintaining all accounts. For an independent proprietor, you have other aspects of the business you need to give focus on, like creative planning, management, and inventory, among other things. It’s about getting one or two of the best tools that fit you and your business just right, putting consistent and concerted effort on mastering that tool to use.
Facebook still dominates with 2.5 billion monthly active users (MAU). Marketers can now reach more than half of all the world’s adults aged 18 to 34.
As mentioned, not all platforms are worth your investment of time and resources, but the following platforms do fit the bill. Here are social media platforms that work well for small businesses:
- Facebook: Videos and curated content, stories
- Instagram: High-res photos, high-quality videos, quotes, and stories
- Twitter: News, blogs, and GIFs
- Snapchat: Behind the Scenes Footage (BTS), takeovers, lifestyle
- YouTube: Videos and live streaming
- LinkedIn: job posting, company news, business content
- Pinterest: Infographics, instructional photos, and videos
The oldest social media platform still widely-popular is Facebook, a far-reaching, global platform for curated content, photos, and videos. Businesses can choose from a variety of options, including professional pages, paid post promotion, and native advertising. Facebook’s reach is so extensive that some small businesses decide to have a Facebook page and not have a website. It is still essential to have a website, but having a Facebook business page amplifies the influence your brand can have on the market.
Best for the following in your target market:
- Seniors (55+): Facebook is growing with this demographic as it’s where they can see pictures of their family and grandchildren that they may not see as often as they desire.
- Foreign markets: Facebook is the most universally-used among other platforms. It’s especially common in Middle-Eastern countries, Europe, and Asia.
- Small niche market: Facebook is known for “Groups” where people of unique interests come together. It helps you target your niche market much easier and get involved with communities and groups already existing in the platform. Although a lot of these groups ban any selling within the group, you can still engage in increasing your brand presence so that eventually, people organically find you and your brand.
Second, only to Facebook, Instagram has a large following among millennials and women. High-resolution pictures, high-quality short videos, and Stories are what’s driving the younger demographic on Instagram. It may be difficult for business startups who do not have high-end equipment or dedicated human resources to do it, but there are so many web-based and mobile-based apps now for this very purpose. You can use the best mobile photo-editing apps to produce professional-looking content for your social media marketing campaigns to produce high-quality content that is “Insta-worthy,” even if you may be an amateur and have no design background. Such apps like Canva.com and This is difficult for many small businesses, but it’s worth it in the end. Instagram also offers paid advertising options.
Best for the following in your target market:
- Millennials: The largest population of Instagram users are people under the age of 25.
- Women: This platform is the perfect place to promote it if your product is unique to women.
Twitter is an excellent platform to reach younger audiences. Ordinary people and businesses can go “viral” on Twitter through re-tweets, which can help you get your content to millions of people. In Twitter, it’s easy to spread the word about your content because of this massive sharing aspect. Because of the word limit, you need to be strategic in informing your market about your products, services, and promos. You need to use URL shorteners like Bit.ly or TinyUrl, which help you include URLs in your post at a lesser character count.
Best for the following in your target market:
- Teenagers: Like Instagram and Snapchat, Twitter is popular among teens. Your content has a good chance to go viral among this group through re-tweets if it’s funny, thought-provoking, interactive.
- Millennials: People slightly older than teenagers, fresh college graduates, young professionals are on Twitter. They adopted the trend when Twitter first came out, and they were teens, and they still actively use it.
SNAPCHAT
Popular among Gen Y (i.e., millennials) and Gen Z consumers. What started as a social platform for share disappearing photo and video messages has now evolved into so much more. Created with millennials in mind, Snapchat is quickly becoming the “it” platform not only for consumers but for brands, celebrities, and social media influencers.
Though it is a newcomer to the universe of social media, Snapchat has taken the world by storm. Today, it has millions of users that are active several times a day. Because of this, Snapchat businesses must provide frequent content. The quality of the content is less important, but users must be able to offer a daily “story” of photos and videos. After one day, your content expires, and you have to start all over again. If this sounds difficult to you, you’re not alone. Very few businesses use Snapchat, especially small businesses, because of the constant updates and content that are necessary for success.
Best for the following in your target market:
- Millennials: This generation has quickly adopted to Snapchat to escape the more congested social media apps.
- Teenagers: As of right now, the platform mainly consists of people under the age of 21.
YouTube
The best way to tell you a little something about this mammoth of a social platform. Here’s a video about a brief history of YouTube:
Best for the following in your target market: Survey says that YouTube appeals the most to the broadest range of demographics. No matter, social media users go to YouTube for consuming content or creating their own.
Bonus: LinkedIn
LinkedIn is a business-oriented social media platform and a great way to connect and be recommended by other businesses and professionals. It’s an older platform and heavily relies on media content on text-based updates. However. It’s not the best platform for large-scale digital marketing campaigns.
Best for the following in your target market:
- Businesses: If your services are B2B. The approach here should be professional or corporate. So whatever ads you run in LinkedIn needs to carry this theme all throughout to appeal more to the business community.
- High-profile people: A LinkedIn profile is necessary. It shows that you are serious, professional, and established, i.e., ready to work with the best of the best.
Bonus: Pinterest
If you are producing infographics, instructional photos, and videos, Pinterest is a great platform for you. Actually, it’s the fourth-most-popular social media platform in America. It outranks Snapchat, LinkedIn, Twitter, and WhatsApp.
Best for the following in your target market:
- Women: According to Pew Research, only 41% of American women report using Pinterest.
- Men, especially Fathers: 38% of American dads are Pinterest users, browsing DIY projects, home decor, the outdoors, etc.
- It is foreseen that Pinterest will have a 30/70 gender split by 2022.
Conclusion
Boost Your Business Strategically Through Social MediaAll in all, social media is a very profitable strategy for digital marketing as long as you prioritise which platforms you use. You don’t have to be everything to everyone. Pick one or two based on the demographics and market you want to serve, and master techniques and strategies therein producing great content, building your social media credibility and presence, brand awareness, networks, and contacts, and drive up your generation leads and sales conversion steadily going up. Social media encompasses various sectors of society, and that includes the business world. Where 90% of marketers use different platforms for business. Make use of social media strategically to boost your business even more today.
