How to Choose the Right Social Media Platforms for Your Business

Now is the time to ask yourself which social media platforms are right for your business. Gone are the days when the question was whether you should adopt social media marketing in your industry.

In today’s business environment, using social media platforms for corporate marketing is inevitable if you want your business to survive and remain competitive.

But with so many social media platforms available and limited time in your hands, it may be tricky to determine where to focus your efforts.

So, you need to choose which social media platforms to focus on the most for your business. Then focus your time on getting the most out of the platforms. Let’s get into the factors to consider so you can choose the most effective platform for your business.

Why Social Media Marketing Channels Are Good for Your Business

First, remember why social media marketing channels are right for your business:

• Building brand awareness – With 59% of the world's population on social media, you can be sure your target market is online.

• Develop and maintain customer relationships- One of the primary objectives of social media platforms is to facilitate socialization. That includes the socialization of customers with your brand.

• Provide excellent customer service – customers are increasingly turning to social media channels for inquiries or airing their complaints. At least here, they are assured of timely responses, and it is hard to ignore them.

• Increase your business revenue – social media platforms are an avenue to market your product and services, boosting your sales. The platforms offer an opportunity to reach a large target audience with your marketing campaigns.

Why You Shouldn't be on Every Social Media Platform

Naturally, you would want to milk all the benefits social media presents to your business. But that doesn't mean you need to be on all the social media platforms to enjoy all these benefits for the following reasons.

• It will drain your business resources.

Having a social media page is unlike the gym membership you subscribe to, and you have not found time to attend any sessions. Creating a business social media page is a commitment to being active and consistent in what you do.

That means posting regularly and being available to respond promptly to your customers. That will require you to invest much of your resources, like time and funds, for your social media campaigns.

• Your target customers are not on every platform

It’s not unusual to think that the more platforms you are on, the higher likelihood of landing more potential customers. Unfortunately, it doesn't work like that. You need to do your market research, determine your target customers, and then settle on the platforms that best suit your customer's buyer persona.

• Each social media platform requires a unique strategy

Effectively, the more social media platforms you use, the more strategies you need. Developing these strategies is no easy feat. Therefore, you might be the Jack of all trades but a master of none.

How to Choose the Right Social Media Platforms

Now that you are aware of why you shouldn't be on every social media platform let's focus on how you narrow down your preferred choices.

1. Identify Your Target Audience

As we have noted, many people are currently on social media. 59% of the world's population translates to about 4.76 billion people.

As you imagine, trying to reach all these people would be impossible. And even trying to do it will do you more harm than good.

But you can benefit from social media by concentrating on a few selected customers. That is, customers who you have a higher likelihood of converting into paying customers.

But the decision on target customers is not one to make randomly. It is one you make after conducting market research. You can obtain the information you need about your target customers from customer feedback, social listening, google analytics statistics, and customer surveys.

At the end of your market research, you should have identified the following aspects about the ideal customers to target in your social media channels.

• Who is your typical customer?

• The demographic attributes of your target customers

• What are their interests?

• What are their preferred ways of accessing social media?

• What content do they prefer?

Once you have the answers to these guide questions, you can develop a suitable buyer persona.

2. Define Your Social Media Goals

Once you have your ideal business customers in mind, developing your social media goals shouldn't be much of a challenge. The best way to go about it is to have your strategic marketing goals and use them to set specific social media goals.

You also want to ensure that these goals are specific to each platform. For example, let's say that one of your top marketing goals this year is to increase your brand awareness and visibility by about 30%. You can best achieve such an objective when you have TikTok and Twitter as part of your preferred social media platforms.

When you have specific marketing objectives, it will be easier to determine which social media channel can help you achieve more than one of your marketing goals. That reduces the need for having several social media pages.

For example, Netflix has established a separate Twitter handle @Netflixhelps, to assist customers with any issues they may be experiencing with their services. In addition, the company uses other marketing objectives like driving sales through promoting their shows on Twitter.

3. Understand the Purpose of Each Social Platform

One of the simple definitions for quality is "fit for use." That means the product or service cannot be regarded as quality if it doesn't fulfill the desired purpose.

Before you say a particular social media channel has failed you, stop to think whether you have been using it for its designed purpose. For example, you identified your target audience as being above the 45 years age bracket and are busy posting the best videos on TikTok.

You may have the most likes, but this strategy won’t bring much ROI because millennials and Gen Z for entertainment mainly use TikTok. Your target market may be found on other platforms like Facebook.

Remember that these social media platforms are businesses too. So, their enterprises have defined the objectives they hope they can achieve to serve their customers better.

Now it's upon you to determine which platform's objectives align best with your marketing goals and strategies. Therefore, take your time to study each platform's mission, vision, and strategies and determine which one suits your target audience's marketing needs.

4. Where is Your Audience?

No matter how good a swimmer you are, you can't swim against the tides unless you are dicing with death. The same can be said about the social media tide.

You cannot wake up one day and decide that the social media platforms you love most will also work for your target audience. Huge surprises await you if you try this. And not the nice kind of surprises.

Part of the market research on your target audience should focus on their preferred social media platforms. And what activities do they spend most of their time on these social media platforms?

For example, Netflix must have realized that most of its target audience uses Twitter for inquiries and complaints. Hence, it was no brainer to use Twitter as their most prominent customer service platform through @Netflixhelps.

You have a higher chance of success with your social media marketing strategies if you use a platform where most of your customers are. It will improve the level of customer engagement with your posts and content. For example, LinkedIn should be among your chosen social media platforms if your target is professionals in various industries.

5. Determine the Resources and Content Available to You

We have already mentioned that transforming your social media marketing strategy into a success takes time and effort. It also requires capital investment to develop content and acquire social media automation tools. So, without a doubt, the number of resources available will influence the number and type of social media platforms you choose.

On the other hand, the type of content that fits your social media strategy will influence your choice of social media platforms.

For example, if you have chosen videos as one of your preferred content, you should have YouTube as one of your social media platforms. More so because it is one of the platforms that cuts across all demographics.

Also, you can't change your current working content strategy because you want to shift to a new social media platform. Any other social media platform you choose should reinforce your current content strategy unless your plan and the platform aren't working for you.

Need Help Managing Your Social Media Pages?

Choosing and managing your social media pages requires enormous time and effort. Otherwise, you risk getting zero ROI on your social media marketing. Hire us to be yoursocial media expert to help you create and manage your preferred social media platforms.