Whether you’re exploring a new marketing strategy or updating your current one, it can feel like a daunting task. Algorithm updates, new software and changing user behaviour only add to the confusion. It can become difficult to choose a platform that suits your brand, your offering and the content you’d like to share with your audience.
Most popular social media platforms as of March 2022
Which social media platforms are currently the most used?
Meta leads the pack with Facebook’s 2.89 billion active users per month, closely followed by Youtube which has 2.29 Billion users. Instagram and Whatsapp close off the top 4 with 2 billion users respectively. TikTok is an up-and-coming platform with more than 1 billion active monthly users. At the moment, TikTok is the most downloaded app, beating its closest rival WhatsApp by 250 million downloads.
But what does all this information mean for your business? Sheer volume is not the only factor to consider when deciding which platform to use.
Other things to consider are:
- Your audience
- Your company and its message
- Your competitors
- The platforms, their uses and mediums
- Your available resources
Audience
We are bombarded with digital messaging at every moment of every day. To reach your audience in this chaos, your content needs to cut through the noise. This means reaching your audience where they are most engaged and when they are most receptive to your message. If you’re selling a service or product aimed at women over the age of 45, the odds of finding them on a platform like TikTok are slim. You’d have far better results connecting with them on Facebook.
Before you embark on a marketing campaign, spend time researching your audience, their habits and their preferences. Identify the type of content they find valuable or you’ll run the risk of wasting your time and resources on an ineffective strategy. Implementing a strategy that does not resonate with your audience can have long-term repercussions on your brand’s positioning and reputation.
Your Company
Who are you, and what are you trying to achieve? Do you want your audience to think of you and your brand as quirky, trendy and current? Or do you want to be taken seriously and seen as a thought leader in your industry?
Answering these questions will help you determine which platforms align with your business and what you represent. Although platforms are becoming more integrated (think Facebook and Instagram), some platforms are still better suited to specific industries, messages and personas.
A perfect example would be professionals who make use of Instagram as their preferred platform. LinkedIn is where one would expect to find executives and business owners, but these individuals most likely use both platforms for different reasons. Instagram offers a relaxed space to showcase a more human side of themselves, while LinkedIn is the space for a more professional, serious persona. These differences will be reflected in the messages they choose to express on each platform, the format of their content, who they interact with, and the kind of content they engage with.
Think about it. Will your message – and by default your content – be the exact same across all platforms? If not, will you have the time and tools you need to create and schedule different posts for different platforms? If you want to convey a different feeling on each platform, how will you adjust your approach to achieve that?
Consider all of this when weighing up platforms and your place on them.
Your Competitors
Observing your competitors – what they do online and how they do it – can be extremely helpful. You can learn from their mistakes and successes. Even without directly copying them, you can use the knowledge to craft a more refined version of content that has already been tried and tested with your audience.
Keeping an eye on your competitors also shows you where your current audience most likely is (or isn’t) active. If competitors are getting thousands of TikTok views, it must mean that the very people you are hoping to reach are already there. Thanks to the magic of the algorithm, if you enter this space, you know your content will be put in front of this audience too. The algorithm is designed to show users content that they are most likely to engage with to keep them online for as long as possible. Use it to your advantage.
The platforms, their uses and mediums
Do you prefer text-only posts over images? That rules out Instagram and Pinterest as platforms for your business. Posting the wrong type of content for your chosen social media platform will most likely waste a fair amount of time and effort for little to no results.
Be decisive and honest about your goals and capabilities, then carefully consider which platforms have features that could benefit your business.
Resources
Without a decent video camera, video content is most likely not for you. If you’re unable to record clear audio, then a podcast probably won’t be the best idea for your business either. Posting poor quality images on Instagram for the sake of posting tends to do more harm than good.
However, resources don’t only refer to the tools and software used to create content. If you or your team do not have the skills to create content or the time to learn them, that also represents a lack of resources. Investing some time into learning how to take good pictures or record high-quality videos is vital to standing out in the online space. Resource availability and constraints must be acknowledged and addressed before selecting which social media platforms to use.
What does this mean for your business?
- Your audience is online. Somewhere. It is your responsibility to find them and engage with them where they are.
- Spend some time doing research before investing time, money and effort into developing a marketing strategy.
- Remain open-minded but realistic. If you do not have the ability or capacity to create high-quality content for your audience, focus your time and effort on a platform that you can create for. It is better to have an engaged audience on one platform than to have a less engaged audience spread across five different platforms.
Social Happiness can help your business determine which platforms, mediums and strategy would work best for you. In setting up a business content strategy, we do thorough research on the market, competitors, platforms and your business itself to make informed decisions on how to move forward with your marketing efforts.
Send us a quick email or click on the contact us link to schedule a free consultation with us.
If you’ve already got a strategy in place, why not check out this post? You can download our free template to get started on creating content for your business.