It’s no secret just how popular social media is in today’s modern world. In fact, the average user will visit at least seven social media platforms each month. While this is great news for businesses looking to reach new customers, it can make it difficult to decide which platform is right for your campaigns.
With so many options available, understanding which social media platform best serves your campaign objectives can feel overwhelming. However, finding the right one doesn’t have to be that complicated. You can use strategies to determine which medium will provide the desired results for any campaign (whether paid or organic).
In this comprehensive guide, we’ll explore some tips and tricks to help you identify the most effective platform for your content strategy.
Overview of Popular Social Media Platforms
Before you can choose a social media platform, it’s helpful to understand how each platform works. Knowing what kind of content people share on each platform and the general audience that’s most active on each platform can help you narrow your top choices.
Instagram is a popular social media platform, especially for businesses looking to reach younger and visually-oriented audiences. People share visual content, including photos, videos, and Stories, which disappear after 24 hours.
Businesses can promote their brands through posts that showcase their products, behind-the-scenes glimpses of their operations, or user-generated content featuring their brand. The top demographic businesses can reach includes Millennials and Gen Z, who comprise a significant portion of Instagram’s active user base.
In fact, if you plan on investing in Instagram ads, consider that 61% of Instagram’s advertising audience is aged 18 to 34.
Like Instagram, businesses can create content on Facebook through posts, photos, and videos to promote their brand to a wide audience. Facebook also offers the option to create targeted ads to specific demographics, interests, and behavior. This can help businesses reach users more efficiently.
These ads can appear in a user’s feed, Messenger inbox, or other websites and apps as part of Facebook’s Audience Network. With Facebook Analytics, businesses can track the success of their content and ads in reaching and engaging with their target audience.
All in all, the power of Facebook Ads lies in the powerful targeting options and the ability to track and optimize campaign results.
TikTok
Need to reach a much younger audience? Over 409 million of TikTok’s users are between the ages of 18 to 24. Another 340 million users are between the ages of 24 to 34, making the platform ideal for reaching younger consumers.
However, that doesn’t make the platform right for every digital strategy. As you likely know, TikTok is a social media platform featuring short, engaging videos, often featuring music and viral challenges.
With TikTok allowing businesses to run paid advertising campaigns, brands can reach TikTok’s growing user base effectively. Brands with creative, eye-catching visual content and upbeat messages perform very well on TikTok.
The platform’s fun and playful nature make it ideal for entertainment, beauty, and food companies. Through paid TikTok ad campaigns, businesses can:
- Showcase their products or services
- Highlight their unique brand identity
- Engage with prospective customers in an immersive and fun environment
Overall, TikTok ads are also becoming more cost-effective than Facebook ads. However, this largely depends on who you’re targeting.
Twitter is a social media platform where businesses can reach potential customers, partners, and leaders in their industry. Companies can create tweets with messages that are short but still informative. They can also share news, updates, or insights about their industry, brand, or any promotional campaigns for their products or services.
Twitter also allows businesses to run paid advertising campaigns to reach more targeted audiences. It’s an excellent platform for companies that want to engage with a more extensive, diverse audience.
YouTube
Finally, YouTube is another popular social media platform for online marketing strategies. It’s a great platform for businesses that share reviews, product tutorials, story-telling videos, and other visual content.
YouTube also allows businesses to use ads, increasing their chances of reaching a larger demographic. Most people who use YouTube are aged between 18 to 49, so companies can be sure they are reaching a wide range of potential consumers.
Moreover, YouTube ads are a part of the Google ads ecosystem. You can hire an agency to help you run a marketing campaign targeting both platforms.
What Are Your Goals With Social Media?
Now that you understand each platform, it’s time to ask some questions about your digital marketing goals. Choosing the right platform isn’t just about reaching the right audience. It’s also about ensuring you meet your business goals.
For example, your chosen platform might differ if your goal is to increase brand awareness rather than attract and convert new leads. Most businesses have a few goals regarding online marketing and social media.
Brand Awareness
Brand awareness is about making sure people recognize and remember your company. It means that customers can quickly identify your business and the products or services you offer.
Social media platforms like Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube are great for creating brand awareness. They allow businesses to showcase their brand identity in a fun and engaging way that many people will see.
In some cases, you won’t need to invest as much into digital ads if brand awareness is your goal. Instead, posting authentic, engaging content might be enough to attract and retain an engaged audience.
Lead Generation
Lead generation is when a business gets potential customers interested in their products or services. It’s all about creating a connection between the company and potential customers.
Social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok are great for lead generation. They allow businesses to:
- Use targeted marketing campaigns
- Have conversations with prospects
- Build relationships with users
Companies can post content such as offers, videos, reviews, blog posts, articles, and more to grab attention from the right audience and generate leads. Paid campaigns are also extremely effective for lead generation. However, you’ll want to ensure you work with the right company to find success.
Sales
For businesses that want to increase sales, platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube are great for engagingly showcasing your products and services. Companies can:
- Create ads with visuals and videos tailored to a specific audience
- Post product reviews, offers, tutorials, and more to grab their attention
- Create captions that encourage viewers to visit a website
- Link to landing pages with special deals or products
Additionally, companies can use social media influencers to promote their products or services and increase conversions.
Monetization
Finally, we sometimes encounter businesses interested in monetizing their content. Content monetization strategies involve creating high-quality content that attracts the right audience, then using it to generate revenue. This could include:
- Using affiliate links
- Linking to sponsored posts
- Posting ads to earn money from the traffic generated by content
If you can monetize social content, you can earn income that you can reinvest in other areas of your business. Imagine being able to earn money on social media. You could invest that money back into social media ads. Or you could invest it into other areas of your marketing budget or business.
How to Choose the Right Social Media Platform
Do you have a decent idea of how social media marketing works now? Now it’s time to narrow your choices to find the best platform for your needs. To do that, consider the following four factors.
Identify Your Target Market
Knowing your target market is essential for creating an effective social media marketing strategy for your business. To identify your target market, start by understanding your product or service. Consider the types of customers who would benefit from it.
Then, you can create buyer personas. They should represent typical customer characteristics such as:
- Age
- Gender
- Income level
- Education
- Location
- Interest
Once you have those defined, use analytics tools to observe where your audience is engaging and tailor content accordingly. For example, if your buyer persona is someone 25 to 35 with a certain income interested in travel, which social media platforms do they use the most? What kind of content do they consume the most?
Research Your Competitors
With your target audience in mind, you’ll want to research your competitors. This step can help you gain insights into what’s working for other businesses in the same industry and use that knowledge to inform your strategies.
To research your competitors effectively, analyze their content and engagement metrics. Use this to understand which posts resonate with their target audience. Then, look at their follower demographics. What kind of people engage with them? How do they engage with their content?
Lastly, observe how they interact with commenters. How do they address customer inquiries on various platforms? By understanding what your competitors are doing right, you can adjust your strategies and create the most effective plan possible.
Align Goals with Business
Aligning your social media strategy with your broader business goals is essential for success. To do this, start by setting clear objectives for what you want to achieve on social media. This could include boosting brand awareness or increasing website traffic.
Once you know what you’re trying to accomplish, determine which platforms will best help you reach those goals. Create content that is tailored to each platform’s audience.
Finally, assess the performance of your content regularly to ensure it has the desired effect. If not, you might consider changing your strategy or the platform altogether.
Why is this so important? By ensuring your social media goals match up with your overall business objectives, you can ensure that you’ll get the most out of every post. That’s critical when investing precious marketing money (we know).
Decide on Types of Content
Choosing the type of content to post on your business’s social media platforms is key for engaging with customers and boosting brand visibility. To do this, start by looking at what your competitors are doing and how it’s performing.
Then, look at your target audience—what content do they like consuming? Are they interested in product reviews, videos, reels, or something else? Once you understand what resonates with people, create content that fits your brand identity and appeals to your audience.
By picking the right type of content for each platform, you can ensure that the right people will see your posts. This will help you avoid wasting precious marketing dollars. It’s also important to ensure you maximize reach and potential conversions.
Building a Social Media Management Strategy
Crafting a successful social media management strategy requires more than just picking the right platforms. Here are some tips to help you create an effective strategy for your business.
Create a Content Calendar
To ensure consistency and quality, develop an editorial calendar monthly or quarterly. It should outline what content you’re going to post and when. Update it regularly according to performance metrics.
Track and Monitor Performance
Evaluate the effectiveness of the posts by tracking engagement metrics like likes, comments, shares, etc. Use those metrics as guidance for future content creation.
Engage with Followers
Having conversations with customers and responding to questions or feedback can help build trust and encourage loyalty from followers.
Don’t just post content; create a community on social media. This is how you build long-term, loyal fans.
Know Your Limits
Managing multiple social media accounts can be time-consuming. Don’t spread yourself too thin. Limit your efforts to the most important networks where you think they’ll have the most impact.
Get Help
If you don’t have the resources or skills necessary to manage all of your social media accounts effectively, consider outsourcing them to a professional agency that specializes in this kind of work. It’s worth it, as they can often help lower campaign costs and help you attract higher-quality leads.
Grow Your Business With Latitude Park
Need help to choose the right social media platform? Already know which is worth your time and simply need help crafting high-converting campaigns? We’re here to help you reach your business goals.
At Latitude Park, we specialize in delivering targeted traffic and measurable results through custom-built campaigns. Book a discovery call with us today and learn how we can help you get more leads and sales from your social media accounts.
