Depending on the audience you want to connect with, the nature of the content you’re posting, and of course, your product, some platforms will help your cause more than others.
So how do you maximize the return on your marketing dollar, or simply your time, if that’s the only resource you’re devoting to social media right now?
Know Your Audience
The first thing you’ll want to think about is where your audience is. Who are you trying to reach? Mature professionals? Travel bugs? Young students on a budget? You already (hopefully) know your target market; know you want to think about which platform they’re most likely to use.
User demographics and interests vary wildly from platform to platform. Here’s a quick rundown of the demographics for different platforms:
Facebook is basically the king of social media (still). With over 1.6 billion monthly users, the demographics basically balance out. Generally, users are young, but they are getting older. Facebook has a very international reach, with 86% of users residing outside the US.
The second biggest social network is populated by mostly urban users. It’s popular among people who closely watch the news, and very popular with people in their 20s. Interestingly, Twitter is also most popular among the black and Hispanic communities.
Twitter is a great place to reach people in general: while just 16% of social network users follow brands or companies, fully half of Twitter users do. This is a great place to communicate one-on-one with your customers, so don’t be afraid to tag them or reply to mentions!
Most (84%) users are female. Half of users also have children. They tend to have more disposable income, and are interested in design and DIY. Pinterest is more of a visual search engine than a social media platform, though: communication isn’t a huge part of it.
Instagram’s users are young, with 90% of users under 35. This is the fastest growing platform. It’s more popular with women and Black and Hispanic users. A full 75% of users are outside the US. It’s also the most engaged social network after Facebook.
Once you’ve chosen a platform to focus on, it’s time to concentrate on how you use it. You need to tailor content for each platform, since each one will be reaching different users. Modifying your overall message to better fit each platform will increase brand engagement and facilitate authentic customer interaction.
You want to harness trending topics on Twitter and make sure you post things that are unique and, ideally, a bit funny. If you’re on Instagram, you might want to skew more reflective, with a consistent aesthetic and appropriate captions. On Facebook, you want to focus on photos, which tend to do better– especially photos of actual people.
It’s definitely worth getting a management tool that can help you schedule posts, analyze how your posts do, and even suggest content. Then you want to adjust your strategy based on the data you get from the tool.