Social Media Platforms And When To Use Them
Social media is a great tool to lead your audience through the customer journey by first making them aware of your brand. Then they become intrigued and curious about how your brand can solve their problems. Then, once you woo them with an awesome customer experience, you’ll build a strong, loyal base of followers who become advocates for your brand. And the cycle continues.
But which social media platforms are best for your business? While there are so many platforms to use, I’ve broken down the most popular platforms and explained how to think of the platform, the best kind of content to post, demographics, and what to measure as far as analytics.
Facebook:
Facebook continues to be the most used platform today. Nearly 37 percent of the world’s population are Facebook users. As far as small businesses go, more than 200 million use the platform’s tools with more than seven million advertisers. This is great news for you if you want to have a strong presence on social media.
Treat Facebook like your main street window looking into your business. This is where “shoppers” can peer inside and get a glimpse of who you are, what you do, and how you can help them. If they’re interested enough, they’ll engage, contact you, or visit your website to learn more.
What’s the best content to post on Facebook?
Branded graphics - these are perfect because they can easily be recycled later on, saving you time and effort.
Behind-the-scenes (BTS) - people love seeing how products are made, you and your employees having fun, funny bloopers, and simply humans being human.
Storytelling - writing a capturing story helps slow the scroll and forces them to pay attention. It shows realness, credibility, and personality.
Show your personality - in a world full of ads, sales, and mundane posts, being yourself has proven to be the best way to truly relate to and grow your audience.
Videos - short form video content is super popular right now. But the best thing about it is, you don’t have to get fancy with it. A simple 10 second video would suffice.
Monthly Users: 3 Billion
Demographic: 30-59 years
How often should I post: Regular feed posts: 2-5 times a week. Stories: daily
What to measure:
Reach/Impressions
Likes
Views
Link Clicks
Comments/shares
YouTube
YouTube is considered the second largest social media platform being used. It is also often considered the second largest search engine next to Google. So, if you’re ready to make video content, it’s a good idea to get established on YouTube.
What’s the best content to post on YouTube?
How-To Guides and Tutorials - people learn visually, auditorily, and kinesthetically. Using a mixture of these styles in your videos will help make it more appealing to viewers.
Vlogs - similar to a written blog, vlogs often focus on a specific topic and are best when it is unscripted and genuine.
Educational - this is a bit different than How-To videos. Educational videos focus on providing thought-provoking, intriguing videos for a specific audience.
Meet the Team - these are great introductory videos that help humanize your brand and build trust with potential customers.
Promotional - of course, you should always have a promotional video whether it’s showcasing a new product or providing more details about your brand.
Monthly Users: 2.5 Billion
Demographic: 15-35
How Often should I post:
Twice a week for shorter videos
Twice a month for longer videos
What to measure:
Total Watch time
Views
Engagements
Instagram is a visual platform where users can show off photos and videos that inspire and encourage their audience. This platform prioritizes engagement for its algorithm, so sharing relatable content about your brand will help you get the most benefit. This is not the platform for lengthy captions or informational content. People normally go to Instagram to be inspired or motivated.
What’s the best content to post on Instagram?
Mind-breaks - help your audience break the scroll cycle with a quick quiz, puzzle, or trivia. This helps engage your audience by swiping or clicking your content to find out the answer or solve the problem.
Photo Essays - this is a great idea for publishers or those with a blog. Creating a visual story viewers can swipe through that leads them to follow the link to read more.
Teasers - if you have a new product coming soon, or maybe you have a big announcement, creative teasers that intrigue and peak curiosity in your audience will make them want to follow and pay more attention to your brand.
Flash Sales - much like an ad, announcing a sale or discount in your stories can spark a sense of urgency and make people flock to your website.
How-to tutorial videos - videos are always a good idea. Creating engaging videos that show the viewer a new or unique way of doing something can spark a lot of interest.
Monthly Users: 2 Billion
Demographic: 18-39 years
How Often should I post: Regular feed posts: 2-5 times a week. Stories: daily
What to measure:
Reach/Impression
Video Plays
Post interactions
TikTok
TikTok is a short-form video sharing platform that is growing fast. Although there is some controversy with the app, it’s still a highly used platform. It prioritizes engagement and watch time, so the more conversational and entertaining your video is, the more successful you’ll become.
Another thing to consider is that most users on TikTok are of the younger generation with shorter attention spans. Quick, flashy, and engaging content tends to attract the Gen Z-ers while the longer, more conversational videos attract the older generations.
What’s the best content to post on TikTok?
Challenges - if your goal is to gain more followers, you may want to pay attention to trending challenges and use them if it makes sense for your brand.
Dialogue Reenactments - tune into your acting abilities and lip-sync to a dialog that you can relate to your brand.
Reveals - teasing your audience with a product or piece of art by giving a quick glimpse then taking them through the process of creating it keeps them in suspense to see the full piece.
Peaceful - videos that give a sense of calmness or satisfaction helps boost engagement and encourages more followers.
Voice Overs - these are great for how-to videos or funny video clips. Your audience can watch an entertaining video while listening to your voice explaining a topic or process.
Monthly Users: 1.6 Billion
Demographic: 18-29 years
How Often should I post: Regular feed posts: 2-5 times a week. Stories: daily
What to measure:
Total Play Time
Engagements
Views
Hashtag Performance
LinkedIn was originally a job search engine that has since evolved into a professional networking site. It has also become a great platform for businesses to establish thought leadership. This platform is a great opportunity for your brand to showcase your expertise and build authority in your industry.
What’s the best content to post on LinkedIn?
Polls - this is a great way to encourage interaction, spark conversation and gather valuable feedback.
Questions - asking short fill-in-the-blank questions will inspire more engagement in the comments.
Hot Takes - sharing your opinion on a topic, trend, or advice will help your audience relate to you which will strengthen your brand.
Celebrations - sharing achievements and successes within your company will boost your brand reputation which will attract more leads.
Articles - utilizing LinkedIns publishing feature will help you share long-form professional content that will help build credibility for your brand.
Monthly Users: 310+ Million
Demographic: 30-39 years
How Often should I post: 1-3 times a week.
What should I measure:
Impressions/Unique
Downloads
Engagements
Engagement rate
Understanding each platform and how to use it will help businesses better reach and relate to their audience. It is not necessary to be on every single platform. Instead, pick one or two that caters more to your target audience and adjust your content to be more strategic to achieve a goal.
When is the best time to post on social media?
That entirely depends on your audience. Carefully monitoring and analyzing your audience’s behavior will give you the best estimate on when to post. Some scheduling software programs, like Metricool, will give you insight on this for you.
If you’re not quite ready to start using a scheduling tool, here are some ways to find the best times to post on social media.
Know your target audience. When you understand the behaviors of your target audience, you can better predict when they’ll be most active on social media. For example, TikTok is more active in the evening because they have a much younger audience who have been most likely in school. While Facebook’s audience tends to be much older and is most active in the morning.
Look at your best performing posts. Learning from your successes and mistakes is another way to optimize posting. When did you post them? What do you think caused such high performance? Sometimes it could be because of great content. Other times it could be the time of day it was posted.
Be aware of time zones and cultural trends. Here in Wyoming, we’re in Mountain Time. But other than that, I’ve noticed people tend to be most active later in the morning to mid afternoon then die down again after 3pm. Other audiences may be more active at night. Again - know your audience.
Keep track of trends and data. Social Media is constantly changing. Keeping track of the algorithms, trends, new tactics, etc. can be a full time job. But staying aware of these things will ensure that your business doesn’t get left behind.
How long does posting on social media take?
While the mere act of hitting ‘post’ takes a matter of seconds, the whole content planning process can take a lot longer. It can take anywhere from a day to a few months to plan out your content, depending on how elaborate your campaign is.
On a perfect day, if you already have your information ready, creating a quick graphic, writing a caption and posting it should only take about 20 minutes. But compiling research, collecting or editing photos, or creating a campaign that funnels people to your website or lead generator can take weeks to months to plan and execute.
Because, we all know that posting anything and everything for the sake of posting isn’t a real social media strategy… Right?
To really get your full benefit from using social media, it is important to have a content strategy in place. This is a calendar that has certain strategic posts planned out in advance that bring value, encourage engagement, and builds credibility for your brand.
HINT: Hiring a social media manager, or utilizing a social media tool, would take the burden of figuring out the best tactics off of your shoulders.
Are you ready to elevate your business?
If you're ready to take your brand strategy to the next level and create content that truly resonates with your target audience, I invite you to book a free discovery call with me. During this call, we’ll explore ways of working together to enhance and refine your brand messaging strategy. This is an opportunity to discuss your unique challenges and goals and discover how our expertise can help differentiate your brand in the marketplace.
Book your free discovery call today and let's embark on this journey towards compelling and consistent brand messaging together.
