The social media has really gained a lot of momentum in the past couple of years in terms of digital marketing and reaching out to a great number of people. There are a lot of things that go together to running a successful social media campaign. A few important factors like quality and frequency of posts, along with proper engagement quickly come to the mind of a digital marketer. Obviously, these are significant. But, choosing the right social media network that caters to your target audience best is equally vital to think upon.
Choose Right Social Media Network for Your Business
Since there can be inequality in terms of user demographics on various social media websites. You should identify which Social Media Network best fits your business requirements prior to launching a full-blown campaign.
Here is a rundown of the demographics of some of the most popular social media networks. It will help you decide which social media network should you use for your own business.
Facebook and Twitter are the Top Social Media Networks
These two social media channels are at the top of the list of most marketers, and fairly so. Facebook has recently surpassed 2.2 billion total users all over the world. It can be effectively used by marketers to reach consumers in nearly any industry.
And similarly, Twitter is not all that far behind with more than 500 million users. These users are also are seeking content in a large number of niches. As a result, both Facebook and Twitter are good social media networks. You can start your social media marketing campaign on these and test the waters.
If your business has a wide-ranging demographic, you would be able to effectively reach your audience. Even though if you have a relatively small demographic, and you’re trying to zone in on a smaller segment of the population, you can easily do that with Facebook Ads.
Apart from your industry, you would be able to bring a spotlight to your business and set up a community around it.
While creating a presence on both of these networks, Facebook can be even more to your advantage.
Especially when you’re looking to reach the female audience between the ages of 18 and 35 it’s a great choice.
According to Facebook data, the vast majority of Facebook users are women and young adults. This makes it perfect if this is your business’s most important demographic.
However, Twitter, it’s also very well-liked with young people between the ages of 18 and 35. A large part of its user base is comprised of American, Asian, and people living in densely populated, urban areas.
So, if you are targeting customers in those areas, twitter would be helpful. Just, you need to do it right. Use captivating image/video with a compelling call-to-action.
YouTube is a Social Media Network for Everyone
I have thoroughly researched and found that YouTube in a way is an industry-agnostic social media platform.
From education, e-commerce, fashion, travel, or any industry you can use this channel to grow your business. Some glaring statistics about YouTube would leave you thinking about this channel.
Currently, YouTube has more than 1.5 billion logged-in visits every month. Viewers are spending an average of 1 hour per day watching YouTube videos.
On average, 300 hours of video are uploaded every minute on YouTube. There are over 5 billion video views each day.
Daily active users on YouTube are over 30 million. An average visit on YouTube lasts for 40 minutes.
Content would always remain the king in digital marketing and video content is the future of the trade.
Invest your marketing money and efforts into creating informational, engaging, and creative video content for your audience. And just keep doing it on a regular basis to keep your audience engaged.
LinkedIn is a Social Media Network for Professionals
LinkedIn is an effective way of networking if you’re looking to grow your business and gain B2B networking opportunities.
Unlike numerous other social networking sites that are more casual in nature, this one is specially designed for educated professionals.
The majority of users on LinkedIn have earned either a bachelor’s degree or have completed secondary school education. Here, male users outweigh females.
LinkedIn users also tend to earn a great deal of more money than those on other networks.
For example, individuals earning over $150,000 (INR 90,00,000) annually account for the largest number of users.
Not far behind are individuals earning between $80,000 (INR, 48,00,000)and $150,000 (INR 90,00,000).
Another important factor that distinguishes this network from other social networks is the average age of its users.
LinkedIn users are typically older and are in the 25 to 64 years of age group.
If your business is focused on connecting with an audience that is well-to-do and mostly comprises of business professionals, this can be the perfect social media network for you.
Pinterest & Instagram
These social media sites have truly gained a lot of drive in the past couple of years. While the user base on both of these networks is quite lesser than the user base of Facebook and Twitter.
But as they have shown pretty good growth since its conception and now social media trends are more into display Ad marketing they could be a major contender in the near future.
The concept of Pinterest is amazingly simple, which requires “pinning” images onto boards.
This simplicity together with its eye-appealing aesthetic possibly accounts for the success it has seen recently.
Similarly, Instagram enables its users to take pictures and videos, apply digital filters to them, and share them on different social networking services, such as Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and Flickr.
A distinguishing feature is that it confines photos to a square shape. On Instagram users are also able to record and share short videos lasting for up to 15 seconds.
Gender Disparity in Terms of Usage of these Social Media Networks
Pinterest & Instagram also have a significant disparity in terms of gender. The difference is that it goes the other way and has a massive female user base of around 72%.
Most of the users are fairly educated and have either attended college or have at least a bachelor’s degree and are in the age group of 18 and 50 years.
Due to the large volume of females who use this network, some of the most widely shared content is based on the following niches.
- Arts & crafts
- Clothing & fashion
- Cooking & recipes
- Gifts
- Home décor & Home design
If your business focuses on any of these areas, Pinterest and Instagram can be a potential resource for you.
Since these sites are image-centric, they provide you a great platform for displaying pictures of your products or services in action.
It can also help you to achieve a level of virality on this network due to the ease with which users can share pictures.
Tumblr
A lot of business owners have heard of this content sharing and social media site. But they aren’t essentially sure how it can fit within their marketing campaign.
Tumblr is a microblogging site where users can share a variety of content including text, images, audio, and links.
They can upload their own original content or even re-blog content from other users.
It has an extremely easy to use interface. A lot of people find it interesting and have probably contributed to Tumblr’s success.
This is the right time to make your presence on this network.
As it is in an early stage, and more and more legitimate brands like IBM and Apple are putting in a lot of effort to build their presence on it.
The most interesting thing about this site is its young audience. If your target audience is in the age bracket of 35, then Tumblr isn’t the right choice for you.
However, if you’re want to connect with the audience between 13 and 25 years of age group, you should consider this.
One of the most remarkable statistics is that more young people in this age group now use Tumblr than Facebook.
Nearly 61% of teens and 57% of young adults use Tumblr on a regular basis. While only 55% of teens and 52% of young adults use Facebook regularly.
And now this is growing up its user base in India and Asian markets as well. If your business offers a product or service for youth, Tumblr can be an excellent choice.
The best part about Tumblr is that competition is likely to be very less. And this trend should last for at least a few coming years.
Quora
Quora is unquestionably a great platform for marketing and brand building, especially for personal branding.
With 190 million monthly users spending 18 minutes on average every day on the platform it is imperative to be considered for advertising your products and services.
The best way is to start building a rapport in your industry niche.
