Digital Marketing 101: Choosing the Right Social Media Platform for Your Business
In the digital age, it is simply inexcusable for businesses to not be on social media. In addition to being a proven, cost-effective way to garner exposure, establish brand awareness and brand identity, build relationships, generate leads, and drive purchases, it’s also targetable; allowing businesses to track consumer insights and derive measurable performance indicators to improve their business practices.
To get social media right, it’s crucial to pick appropriate platforms. The first step is identifying your target audience and defining your objectives. Are you a large business looking to enhance your brand identity, generate leads, and tap into new audiences, or a smaller enterprise trying to build brand awareness and customer loyalty?
Whatever your goals, understanding the nature of different social media platforms will make a world of difference for your business’s social media strategy. In true digital marketing fashion, we’ve decided to break it down for you family-style.
The super mum of social media, Facebook is reliable and easily accessible. Despite the emergence of newer platforms, it has maintained its status as a household name with 2.8 billion active users monthly and the widest age spread of any social media platform (18-54).
Facebook boasts an impressive bag of tricks, with features designed to meet any number of business objectives. As a consumer go-to for communicating with companies and finding out their basic information and product offerings, this all-encompassing platform is a must for large businesses.
Like any good parent, Facebook loves all its children equally- big or small. With easily configurable advertising plans, free e-commerce storefronts (FB Shops), and user-friendly interface, It’s no surprise that there are 80 million small businesses on Facebook. It has great localisation capabilities, and its features extend to Instagram and Facebook Messenger. It even helps drive SEO value with Facebook reviews and business information.
In a nutshell, Facebook is an integral part of the social media family. Its only downside is that though it provides all the fundamentals, it’s not enough to make a company’s social media presence stand out.
This brings us to the chic, exciting aunt of the social media family- Instagram. With 1 billion active monthly users, a primary age bracket of 18-30, and shared shopability with Facebook, Instagram’s benefits for businesses are substantial. What distinguishes it is its inherently visual nature: if you want to make it on Instagram, you have to look good. This makes Instagram the perfect avenue for brands big and small to establish their visual identity.
However, what makes a fun aunt truly lovable is when you can also go to them for advice. In social media terms, it’s best to supplement your visual style on Instagram with informational substance. After catching your audience’s attention visually, deliver all the key details with strategic copywriting efforts and they’ll be swiping up to shop in no time.
On a more serious note, we have LinkedIn- the respectable grandparent of the social media clan. A trusted platform for B2B endeavours around the globe, it possesses 303 million monthly active users and 3 million company pages to date.
LinkedIn is invaluable for adding professional credibility to brands across all industries. It provides unique targeting options such as education, experience, and job title, making it the perfect recruitment tool. It also features a built-in publishing platform called Pulse that helps drive SEO for company websites.
Essentially, if you want to present a polished front for your business, LinkedIn is a great way to go. Although it has zero shopability, it’s a must for larger businesses to demonstrate their significance and a great way for smaller ones to throw their hat into the corporate ring.
Twitter inhabits the familial role of the wildcard cousin. With 206 million active daily users, it’s something of a mixed bag of content in the sense that it’s primarily used for news but also encompasses a great deal of spam and pop culture trash talk.
An example of a brand harnessing Twitter the right way is Lenovo Legion. In line with their audience of gaming enthusiasts and streamers, they use the platform for direct engagement with their customer base by live-tweeting tournaments, collaborating with influencers, and sharing strategically created content.
The downsides of this platform are that like LinkedIn, it has no shopability, and it doesn’t share the visual appeal of Instagram. However, Twitter can be a useful tool for short brand updates and customer service. Furthermore, although Twitter ads are costlier than Facebook and Instagram, they have a higher engagement rate- potentially due to Twitter’s newsworthy reputation. Best practices for Twitter are to keep it short and sweet, and remember that less is more.
Tiktok
Finally, we come to the social media family’s bright young ingenue- Tiktok. This fast-growing platform boasts 1 billion active monthly users, most of them ages 16-24, making it a terrific platform for brands to reach younger audiences.
TikTok is all about viral video content- from dances and DIY hacks to comedic clips. From a business perspective, the platform’s videocentric format makes it great for product demonstrations or educational content. Getting a product to go viral on TikTok is a golden ticket for sales, despite having no e-commerce capabilities.
However, TikTok’s potential for success comes with a high risk factor. Brands can waste valuable resources on production if the content fails to meet the platform’s high entertainment standards. Think of TikTok as a trendy, but angsty teenager. You want them to think you’re cool, but if you can’t, it’s best to steer clear.
Final thoughts
We hope this post helps give you a better idea of the transformational power social media has for businesses. Looking to expand your digital footprint but don’t know where to start? Let one of the best digital agencies in Malaysia help you out on your journey.
Drop us an email today at ask@socialgrooves.com and get started!