Some people find that marketing on a social media platform for business is harder than creating and managing the products or services. Once you have finalised all the necessary steps to begin your business it’s time to attract potential customers to your service or product. Marketing has always been a necessary step to increase the company’s brand reputation, awareness, and relationship to its target audience.
The issue here is which is the best social media platform for business in general. Let us stop you from racking your brain for a moment and answer this right away: none. There’s no such thing as the best social media platform for all businesses.
However, that doesn’t mean there’s none for your brand. Just like with building a house you can’t use just one tool. There are a variety of tools you need to create your presence online. The platform you choose is simply the foundation.
Depending on which platform you have chosen you can create an opportunity for business growth or get stuck making an entirely different platform that doesn’t cater to your audiences.
So how do you decide which one’s the best for you? We’ll teach you how.
Why is Social Media Important for Business?
The best way to gain a significant number of customers is to utilise social media marketing. For small business owners this could save their brand by attracting the right audience to them, helping them grow into a medium-sized company.
While it’s great that you’re learning how to grow social media followers for your business, it’s important to understand the necessity of why you’re doing this as well.
Think of the Internet as a physical place. If you did you might have imagined it like a giant mall where you could find everything and anything you could think of. Each store has a niche that it sells and depending on where you go you can come across what you want immediately.
For most of us, there are specific “areas” where we can simply lounge and post: social media. There are many social media platforms where people simply scroll, post, and interact with their interests. Advertising within these platforms and trusting their interests coincide with your service is the key to boosting your brand’s reputation and ROI.
Types of Social Media
Since the invention of the Internet there have been multiple social media platforms where businesses can seek the opportunity to advertise their service or product. However, there are those that show an impressive number of users which can’t be ignored. Below are four examples of top-tier social media platforms you could choose from:
Arguably the most famous social media platform in the world is Facebook. Handled by Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook first started out as a simple platform ranking people within his former school. Eventually it became Facebook as it’s unknown today.
Should your digital marketing solutions require multiple platforms they would likely strategise having a Facebook page. This is because there are billions of Facebook users around the globe. In fact, it’s an estimated 3 billion people using Facebook monthly around the globe.
Facebook is also a perfect platform thanks to its business and analytics tools that help you track your Facebook page’s engagement and offers packages to increase your campaign promotions. Alongside a website, a Facebook page for your company also makes it easier for your customers to keep in touch with any promotional events you may have. They can also inquire quicker in comparison to emails.
Instagram is like the holy grail when practicing social media marketing for small business owners. This is because Instagram is business-friendly, with similar analytics and engagement tools to Facebook.
This comes to no surprise, since Instagram is also under Meta, the same parent company that handles Facebook. However, what makes Instagram different from Facebook is the ability to utilise its image, reels, and stories posting. It specialises in image and video as opposed to Facebook’s variety.
Instagram is also a hub for social media influencers which can contribute to increasing your brand’s awareness. By promoting your brand and its services or products, the influencer can persuade their followers or introduce them to the products you provide.
TikTok
TikTok is a controversial social media platform for business. This is because of the ongoing attempts at banning the platform in the United States. However, this does not remove what the platform can offer.
As a growing social media platform with a rapid number of users increasing, TikTok has become a powerhouse for anyone wanting to learn more about the news, their interests, and post videos for comedy and other topics.
What’s interesting about TikTok is that it started out as a 30-second video scrolling platform where users can scroll up or down to watch different videos that match their interests. Now it has evolved to over 10 minutes with different forms of entertainment.
Businesses have taken notice of it and with large brands like Duolingo, Samsung, and HBO taking advantage of the comedic style of posting and replying to comments within TikTok to increase engagement and following.
You could also do the same. Small businesses go live on TikTok to sell their products while answering any of their customers' questions. There’s even a shopping platform within TikTok similar to Amazon where customers can buy the products shown on live selling or through their posts on their account.
YouTube
One of the longest social media platforms for business, entertainment, and educational purposes is YouTube. Found in 2005, the video streaming platform gave birth to accessible videos that can be posted by anyone anywhere around the globe.
Since its creation it has become a powerhouse for producing Youtube Content Creators like PewDiePie, who have amassed a global following for simply playing video games. Just like with Instagram, YouTube hosts multiple influencers with a wide variety of followers. Each of them can give your brand the recognition it needs.
Furthermore, ads similar to TV commercials are possible with YouTube. Longer videos are given “commercials” with each viewing, giving your brand a chance to be exposed to multiple users.
How to Choose Your Social Media Platform
Aside from the types of social media platforms we have given there are more like Reddit, WhatsApp, and LinkedIn that you can use. Since there’s a lot of options you can choose, how do you know you’re choosing the correct one for your audience? Here’s a few tips how:
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Identify Your Audience
A great clue on which platform you should exert effort on is to check your target audience. Where does the majority of your target market scroll around? What are their age groups? What’s the style of their humor? These are just some of the things you need to know to choose.
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Define Your Own Goals
Before you go about choosing, think about your objective. What is it that you wish to achieve by using social media platforms? Is it to interact with your customers and build a relationship? Is it to gain brand awareness? Or is it to become more accessible to your viewers? Depending on your answer, you might be able to select a few good choices for your platform.
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Create A/B Variant Testing
For a more analytical strategy, consider using the A/B variant testing method. Create two similar content pieces and post them in two different social media platforms. This way you can tell which platform responds better and has more of your target audience.
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Content Creation
There are multiple factors to consider when creating compelling content for audiences. Aside from that, it has to entice users to glance through the information you have within the post. Does your marketing team excel in articles? What about short videos? A deciding factor in choosing your platform is which media style you use for your content.
Conclusion
We hope you enjoyed learning how to use any social media platform for business. The time for advertising in the digital world is at its peak. Being left behind will cause irreparable damage to your brand’s reputation. To learn more on how to grow social media followers for your business, feel free to contact us at Flexi Digital Marketing! The one place you can find to create the most valuable source of knowledge for digital marketing ideas!
