Which Social Media Platform is Best for Your Business?

Facebook. Twitter. Instagram. LinkedIn. Google+. Snapchat. Pinterest. YouTube. With so many social media platforms available, do you know which one is best to promote your business?

Today, there are so many different social media options available to promote your business. This is great because, if done right, social media can be an inexpensive way to advertise for your company, and links or shares can certainly benefit your search engine optimization efforts. But which one is right for your business? It depends.

Who Is Your Target Audience?

Each plaform has a slightly different demographic profile, so knowing your target audience is very important. For example:

• - Facebook is the most widely used plaform worldwide. It is pretty evenly split between male and female users, education levels and age groups.
• - Twitter is also fairly evenly split between male and female users, but it skews more heavily towards users under 50 years of age, and to those with some college or a college degree.
• - Instagram is predominantly used by females, under the age of 30.
• - LinkedIn is predominantly used by males between the ages of 30 and 49, heavily leaning towards those with college degrees.
• - YouTube is most often used by males between the ages of 18 and 29.
• - Snapchat users tend to be young, with 23% of their users not yet old enough to have graduated from high school, and a full 60% of their users falling under the age of 25.

These statistics are constantly changing, but a quick Google of social media demographics can get you up to date on the latest numbers. Why is that important? Because if you are going to invest your time and energy into promoting your business through social media, you want to be sure you are using the right medium. For example, if you run a cleaning company and your target audience is homeowners in their 30s and 40s, then spending your time promoting your business via Snapchat would likely not be as fruitful as promoting it on LinkedIn. So figure out your target audience and use the platform that is popular with that market.

What Type of Business Are You In?

The type of business you are in can also dictate which method might work best for you. For example, if you are a florist, which medium might be best for your company: LinkedIn or Instagram? Probably Instagram because it offers an excellent way to showcase the very visual nature of flowers and floral arrangements. Conversely, if you are a professional accountant it would make more sense to choose LinkedIn over Instagram, because LinkedIn would allow you to connect more easily with other business professionals ... and because accountants likely don't take many photos of their day to day activities!

Facebook and Twitter are great for advertising, and offer excellent discussion channels. Instagram, Pinterest and Snapchat are more visual mediums, offering a great way to showcase artistic work - food, photography, florists, etc. YouTube and Vimeo, and even Facebook Live, offer excellent opportunities for businesses that are audio or video focused. These are just a few examples, but the key thing to remember is to take advantage of the social media platform that best showcases the strengths of your particular business.

Are There Options to Include More People?

Be sure to fully investigate the functionality of the platform you choose, because while it might be your favorite option, your potential customers might not agree.

For example, I know a lot of people love video content - how to videos, news videos, discussion videos, etc. Personally, 99% of the time I would prefer to read an article than watch a video ... mostly so I can scan for the information I was interested for in the first place. If I click on an article link with a headline that makes me want to know more and discover that it is only available as a video, I most often will click away without watching. However, if there is a transcript accompanying the video, I will stay and opt to to read the transcript instead.

Always remember that people are different. Some might be happy just looking at your photos, while others might like to know more about the subject or location of the photos. Some might like videos, while others might prefer to read. You can't make everybody happy all the time, but if there is functionality built into the platform that you choose that can help expand the number of people you can reach, then taking advantage of that might be helpful to your business goals.

Which One Will You Use?

Another important factor to consider is the usability of each platform - which one will you actually use on a fairly regular basis? Remember, social media can be a form of free advertising, but only if you use it regularly and build a community with your followers.

Personally, I peruse Facebook and Twitter every day, occasionally visit YouTube, have not really developed a need for Pinterest or Instagram, and have never tried Snapchat.

For my business, I have Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and LinkedIn accounts. But truthfully, the only one I post to on a semi-regular basis is my Facebook account because it is the one that makes it easiest for me to follow both my personal and professional newsfeeds at the same time, and switch easily between the two accounts when I want to post something. Is Facebook the absolute best choice for promoting my business? Probably not. It has a huge user base, which is great because it provides an excellent opportunity to reach a lot of people ... but is also bad, because there are a lot of other businesses competing for the same audience. For me, though, it is the one that I know I will use, so it is the best choice for me at this time. Keep this in mind when you are choosing your social media platform, because it doesn't matter if you choose the perfect platform if you never want to use it.

If They Comment - Respond!

The final key point to remember is to monitor your social media posts, and respond where appropriate. Remember, you are using social media to connect with an audience. They are viewing your posts for a reason and may be potential customers ... or maybe they will share something that brings you a new customer. Either way, you want to interact with them in a way you would in person. If they ask a question, be sure to answer it. If they have a comment - positive or not - try to acknowledge it. You won't change the mind of someone who is repeatedly negative, but a reasonable response or resolution to a complaint could possibly win you future customers, while leaving a question or complaint completely unanswered is almost surely going to cost you future customers.

There is no one single answer to the question of which social networking platform is best for business, and you certainly don't have to use them all. Which one you should choose simply depends on what you do, who you are trying to reach, and which platform you can most easily incorporate into your routine.