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Social media is a powerful marketing tool, but to leverage it for your small business, you have to understand which platform best suits the needs of your company. With so many platforms and so little time, it is impossible to be active on every outlet.
You can narrow down your choice and focus your efforts for the best ROI. In this article, we’ll walk you through the main considerations for choosing the best social media platform for your small business.
Why do You Need Social Media?
Social media can help your business with a variety of marketing and conversion goals:
Build brand awareness
When you post something on social media, it immediately allows your brand to appear in users’ feeds and stay current. It enables you to increase your brand’s findability, making your products more accessible to users.
Connect with customers
One of the main advantages of social media is that it gives you the opportunity to connect with your customers at any time. It provides you with honest feedback directly from each customer.
Share updates
Through social media, you can keep your audience up to date with your latest news and company updates. It gives you the opportunity to stay in connection with your clients each time you have news by posting about it.
Increase revenue
Social media gives a lot of opportunities to promote your income. There are some channels that link directly to your product in the posts, others give an opportunity to shop via built-in tools. You can analyze your social media performance with built-in tools to get a better understanding of your buyers’ journey.
Each of the advantages above leads to one main point – generating more profit for your business.
How to choose social media platforms for your business?
There are more than 200 social media platforms to choose from and there will be a lot of social media platforms questions. We have highlighted some main points you should consider before choosing a social media platform for your small business.
Analyze your target audience
The audience is perhaps the most important factor when you need to choose a social media platform. The activity of your audience is the main thing that really matters in this case. There are some core points that you should take into account when defining your target audience:
- Who is your customer?
- Your audiences’ location
- Their gender
- Their age
- What type of content do they enjoy most?
- Where are they already hanging out online? There’s no point in trying to drag them to a new network when you can market to them where they’re already comfortable.
Answers to these questions will help you to make your audiences’ profile.
Define your marketing goals
After knowing your audience, it is time to consider your goals for that audience. The main question you have to answer is “what am I trying to achieve”? Surely, you will try to choose the platforms that correspond best to the needs of your company.
Analyze your competitors’ preferred platforms
As mentioned above, social media is your most profitable and successful guide in promoting a business. It will help you to do competitive research, enabling you to understand which platforms are popular in your industry. Competitive research includes some core points:
- What platforms do your competitors use?
- What is working and what is not?
- How engaged is your audience on each channel?
Major Social Media Platforms
Now, let’s plunge into our main list and finally understand which is the best social media platform for your small business.
Facebook is the most popular social media platform in the world having nearly three billion active users monthly. This social media platform reports over 2.7 billion users. Can you imagine that that’s larger than even the population of China? Nowadays, Facebook is very popular amongst older users rather than younger users. That is why it is not surprising that these days, it is one of the best ways to attract new customers, promote your small eCommerce business, target a wider audience and build an email list. Facebook generates so much income via Facebook ads. You only need to keep your account active in order to connect with users.
Instagram is another very popular social media platform for your small business (and why not a large one) with over a billion active monthly users. Over 90 % of the users of this app follow at least one brand account. Compared to Facebook, Instagram is very popular amongst younger users from the 25 to 35 age bracket. One of the important points to be noted here is the fact that Instagram belongs to Facebook. So, in order to run Instagram ads, you need to have a Facebook business account also. Nowadays, Instagram enables you to not only share photos, but also via Instagram stories, reels, and IGTV videos where you can keep in touch with your clients and strengthen your company’s success. Thus, if you know how to use hashtags and how to share visually compelling content, this app is just for you!
Celebrities, journalists, and even presidents use this app to share news, articles, and stories every day. Its content is very short, but very meaningful at the same time. Twitter has over 192 million active users daily. But when it comes to using Twitter for your small business’s development, you should carefully think about whether it will help you or not. In the case of Twitter, you should check your account frequently as the lifespan of each tweet is only 20 minutes. So, Twitter needs its own marketing strategy. In order to appear on your follower’s pages regularly, you need to publish multiple tweets per day.
LinkedIn is considered to be one of the top platforms for B2B marketers. It is more than just a networking site. It helps you to strengthen your branding and provide thought leadership. Over 744 million users have a LinkedIn account. If you ask Google for “the top B2B social media platform” , LinkedIn will appear first. It enables you to target and message your customers, promoting your brand’s discoverability.
YouTube
YouTube is a remarkable video-based platform. At this time, it has become the main platform for how-to videos as well as reviews about any type of product. It now has more than 2 billion monthly and almost 50% of B2B makers use this platform for analyzing potential products and services. When using YouTube for your small business needs, first off, you should use video editing software to create excellent content. With correctly optimized videos for SEO, you will be able to keep in touch with the people who are looking for a business like yours. With your YouTube account, you can provide the answers to the problems that your business solves. Therefore, people who are interested in the solution to those problems will quickly find your channel and your videos.
FAQ’s for the Infinitely Curious Social Media Marketer
How frequently should a small business post on each recommended social media platform to stay relevant without overwhelming their audience?
The frequency of posting on social media should be tailored to each platform’s unique environment and the engagement habits of your audience.
Facebook: Posting 3-5 times a week is recommended. Due to Facebook’s changing algorithms, quality content is more important than quantity, and active engagement with your audience is critical.
Instagram: A daily post/Reel is beneficial, with 1-2 posts per day being the sweet spot for most small businesses. The highly visual and interactive nature of Instagram supports more frequent engagement, especially in the Stories area.
Twitter: This platform thrives on immediacy and volume, so posting 3-5 times a day can be effective.
LinkedIn: Posting 2-4 times a week is appropriate for LinkedIn’s professional audience. Content should be valuable and relevant to your industry, focusing on quality over quantity.
YouTube: Consistent weekly posts, one to two times a week, can be effective. Producing high-quality video content requires more effort and resources, so consistency and planning are key to success on YouTube.
How should a small business allocate its budget for social media marketing across different platforms, and what factors should influence this decision?
Allocating a budget for social media marketing is based on several key factors:
Understanding Your Audience: Allocate more budget to the platforms where your target audience is most active and engaged. Unless you are working on growing a following on a new or new-to-you platform.
Your marketing goals—whether brand awareness, lead generation, or direct sales—should dictate where you allocate your budget. Some platforms may be more effective for certain objectives than others.
Your budget should also take into account the type of content you produce. For example, if your strategy relies heavily on video, platforms like YouTube or Instagram might be a priority.
Consider the cost-effectiveness of advertising on each platform. Platforms with higher organic reach or lower ad costs might give you more bang for your buck.
Analyze where your competitors are investing their social media budgets and the kind of engagement they are getting. This can offer insights into potentially lucrative platforms you may be overlooking, or gaps where your competitors are missing the conversation.
How can a small business effectively measure the ROI of their social media efforts on different platforms?
Measuring the ROI of social media marketing involves quantifying the return on investment from activities conducted across various platforms. Here’s a structured approach:
Set Clear Goals and KPIs: Define what success looks like for your campaigns on each platform. Goals could range from increased web traffic, higher sales, more leads, or improved engagement metrics.
Track Campaign Performance: Use analytics tools provided by social platforms to track engagement, conversions, and other key metrics that align with your goals. Tools like Google Analytics can also help in tracking website traffic and conversions from social media referrals.
Analyze Cost: Factor in all costs related to your social media marketing, including ad spend, content creation costs, software subscriptions, and any external agency or consultant fees.
Calculate ROI: Use the formula for ROI, (Net Profit / Total Investment) * 100, to calculate the percentage return from your social media campaigns. Net profit can be derived from the revenue attributed to social media marketing minus the total investment made. The tricky key here is knowing how much revenue to attribute to your social media marketing efforts.
By continually monitoring, analyzing, and refining your approach, you can effectively measure and improve the ROI of your social media marketing efforts, ensuring they contribute positively to your business objectives.
