When you run a business one of the most important tasks is getting your business noticed and attracting customers. One way of doing this is to use social media, but how do you know which one is best for your business?
Think about who your customers are what age are they, what gender, and where do they live - are they local to you or are you hoping to sell to a wider audience in your country or worldwide?
The very nice people at Sprout Social (social media statistics) have done a load of research on this subject for us, and here are some of their findings. (Please note these statistics are accurate at the time of the survey, February 2024).
- 5.17 billion social media users worldwide,
- The average person uses 6.7 different social media channels per month.
- Users spend on average 2 hours 23 minutes on social media per month.
Here is a llitle bit about each platform and what businesses they suit best
Facebook is the most popular platform, with just over 3 billion monthly users.
Facebook allows various content, including text, video, images, stories, and live feeds.
Facebook is suitable for a wide range of businesses. If your target audience includes a broad demographic and you aim to engage with customers through posts, events, and advertisements, Facebook can be a great choice in building brand awareness and fostering community growth.
Facebook groups are brilliant for small businesses, especially the local grapevines where you can showcase your business to the local community.
Instagram - has roughly 2 billion monthly users.
Instagram is great if your business can provide more visual content than text. If your products or services have great visual appeal and you want to target a younger audience than Facebook, Instagram may be right for you.
Instagram is trendy among lifestyle brands, fashion, beauty, and food businesses.
LinkedIn with 1 billion monthly users LinkedIn is a professional networking platform suitable for B2B businesses, freelancers, and professionals looking to connect with other businesses and industry leaders.
It is a good platform for sharing industry insights, thought leadership content, and job postings. If your focus is on providing professional services and networking, LinkedIn can help establish credibility, expand your network, and help you recruit top talent.
X (Twitter) Only 368 million users making it the smallest platform.
X is great for businesses that want to share real-time updates, and news, and engage in conversations with their audience (micro-blogging). It is commonly used by news outlets, tech companies, and businesses that want to provide quick customer information. X is also known to be a favourite of older men, think Winston Peters. If your customers like to engage in snappy information that can develop into lively conversation, X is the place you need to be.
TikTok is the fastest growing platform around with 1.7 billion monthly users and rising.
If your products or services are aimed at teenagers or early twenty-somethings this is the place to find them.
TikTok is a video-sharing app, but your video has to be catchy and the funnier the better, anything from 3 seconds to 3 minutes – your audience gets bored quickly!
The main focus is entertainment and comedy but businesses are using it for infotainment and employing influencers who gain a steady audience offering advice and tips whilst showcasing products and services.
YouTube is the largest video sharing platform in the world, with 2.491 billion monthly users.
If your business can create engaging video content, YouTube can be a powerful platform to showcase your products or services, share tutorials, and reach a global audience or “go viral”.
It is suitable for businesses in various industries, especially those that can leverage video storytelling.
There are more social media platforms out there, we have just listed the most popular ones here.
We suggest you do your research, talk to people you would like to sell to and current customers, see what your competition is doing and remember there is no harm in trying more than one platform and seeing which works best.
And if you are still none the wiser, talk to Dark Arts, we can social your business, so you don't have to.
Credit to www.unsplash.com and www.sproutsocial.com