Which Social Media Platforms Should You Use for Your Business?

There's no longer any question that social media is a necessary marketing channel for any business that wants to be visible and relevant online. 

But getting started can be difficult, and even something as simple as choosing a social platform can be more complicated than you think. There are many social networks out there and choosing the right ones and creating a strategy can be daunting. 

The good news is that there are ways to figure out which platforms work best for a brand. You can now also make the most of AI in social media by leveraging it to optimize social media content and campaigns.

Why is social media important?

As you probably know, there are social media platforms out there for everything and everyone, including ones to connect people with shared interests, similar hobbies, comparable demographics, and much more. 

The point is that there are way too many for you to be active on them all, particularly if you are a small or medium-sized business with limited resources and money. Plus, your time would be better spent focusing on the sites that help reach your goals. 

86% of marketers say that social media has helped increase exposure followed by increasing traffic at 73% and lead generation at 64%, according to Statista. This means that if you’re not using social media effectively, you could be missing out on a huge opportunity.

The use of social media has continued to grow over time. It’s now so popular as a channel that over 5 billion people spend an average of 2 hours and 20 minutes per day scrolling or engaging. People also go between platforms - an average of 6.7 each month, according to DIGITAL 2024: Global Overview Report.   

Of all the social media networks, the top ones in terms of monthly active users ranked by an ‘active user index’ are YouTube, WhatsApp, Facebook  and Instagram.

Let’s look at 4 effective ways to pick the right channels for your business. 

1. Define Your Social Media Goals

There are many benefits to using social media, but it’s important to have specific goals before you move forward. That way you can create a successful social media strategy for your business.  

For one, your objectives will help determine not only the social platform you choose, but  the content you create and the audience you target. 

When it comes to figuring out the best social media platform, the first step is to prioritize what’s important to you. Do you want to:

• Expand your reach 
• Generate more leads 
• Boost brand awareness  
• Drive website traffic
• Engage customers
• Provide customer support
• Get insights about your industry or market
• Build a community
• Improve search engine rankings
• Boost your brand’s reputation

All these goals are possible using social media networks, it’s about prioritizing your goals and choosing the right platform or platforms to achieve them. 

For example, is your business visual so it lends itself to platforms like Instagram or TikTok? Is it focused on real-time events and would work well on X? Or is your audience diverse and so needs a combination of platforms such as YouTube and LinkedIn? 

If you're looking for agency support in the areas of SEO, content marketing and paid media, get in touch with Neil Patel Digital 

2. Determine What Channels Your Audience Uses

The entire point of successful social media marketing is to connect you with your most receptive audience. So, it’s not advisable to choose a platform where your audience isn’t active. 

Unfortunately, there's no ‘Field of Dreams’ opportunity here where your prospects will start using the social platform of your choice. Instead, analyze which platforms your audience prefers and be active on  those network/s.

A key thing to do when starting this process is to conduct some audience research to define a buyer persona. That way you know your target audience/s and can narrow down the platforms that they use by gender, demographics, interests, values, etc. 

There are a few different ways you can go about finding where your audience hangs out online. 

One of the most straightforward is a simple customer survey. Email marketing may be the best channel if you don’t have a captive audience on social media or connect with brand advocates or loyal customers through WhatsApp if that’s an option. 

Ask questions like what social sites they use, where they get their information online, and which influencers they listen to. 

Top tip: Learn how to use data capture content to prompt visitors to provide personal data.

Another way to get information about your audience is through paid ads on social media. 

By using paid advertising, you can tell platforms like Facebook about your ideal customers, and they will find the right audience based on demographics like location, age or gender. You can then narrow it down further through detailed targeting such as relationship status, education or income or even interests and lifestyle.  

Another channel is your website. Use analytics like Google Analytics 4 to find out what social channels people are coming from to your site. Even if you don’t post regularly, you may be surprised how people found you. 

3. Review Your Content

Different types of content work better with certain social media platforms, so it’s key that you consider carefully the types of content you like to create that will work best for your business. 

The type of content you create will depend on several things, including your industry, your business, and your target audience.  

Uses of different social media platforms and successful content:

• Blog posts - Blogs are a great way to inform and drive traffic to a website or landing page. They also help with SEO as you can write blogs based on keywords or key phrases that people search for and want answers to. Check out this guide to SEO writing to see how to do it effectively. 
• Podcasts - Collaborate with industry leaders to tap into their audience on social networks and use hashtags when sharing to increase reach. Here are some podcast tools and templates to help. 
• Testimonials - Your customers are your most important asset, so make sure to use their opinions and experiences to promote your brand. 
• User-generated content - This is the holy grail of content as it’s not you creating it but your brand advocates. Get inspiration from some great UGC campaigns. 
• Webinars and live streams - Live video is great for audience engagement and learning more about your buyers, particularly through a Q&A session at the end.
• Ebooks - This type of long-form content can provide huge value to potential customers and is great for data capture and lead generation. 
• Whitepapers - The perfect content to demonstrate industry knowledge, show thought leadership and generate leads through downloads. 
• Videos - The ultimate in content, videos can expand your reach widely if something you create goes viral. Check out these 9 ideas for social media videos to get you started. 
• Photographs - Using photos to showcase the inner workings of your business, your team or even something humorous can help drive engagement and traffic.

It’s also important to think about what type of content you already make. Don’t try to start from scratch. Look at what you already have to see if it would work on social media or if it can be repurposed.    

4. Match Your Goals, Audience & Content with the Right Platform

Once you’ve decided on your social media goals, determined where your audience is, and decided what type of content works best, you can compare the different social media platforms to see which one/s will meet your needs. 

To help you decide, here's a rundown of the top platforms by audience size, what they're good for, and what a typical user looks like:

Facebook for Business

Currently the largest social media platform, with over 3 billion monthly active users, Facebook is great for lead generation, and its advertising platform can be highly customized to target specific audiences. 

Facebook is also a good platform for building relationships, showing the human side of your business, and turning leads into loyal followers and customers. Facebook groups are popular and can provide insights into what customers want and enable you to connect with prospects and customers.   

Many different content types do well on Facebook, but video content (and live video if you have the capacity) to show off products, how-to tutorials, provide industry or company news or host live Q&As), behind the scenes content, and user-generated content tend to do well. 

Top tip: Check out how to create or improve a Facebook Business Page. 

YouTube for Business

The ubiquitous video platform has over 2.5 billion active users and is the second-most visited website after Google so has huge potential for reaching your audience. 

Obviously, the content you want to create to be successful on YouTube is video! 

Some of the many types of videos that perform well on YouTube are: 

• How-to or tutorial videos
• Product reviews 
• Unboxing or reveals
• Interviews
• Behind the scenes videos
• Testimonials
• Q&A videos
• Podcasts
• Influencer content

YouTube Shorts has also gained popularity since its launch in 2021 to compete with TikTok’s popular short-form videos. These videos have collectively earned over 5 trillion views. 

Here’s an example from beauty brand Glossier using a short video to promote a product.  

It’s worth noting that in February 2024, YouTube videos appeared on search engine results pages (SERPs) for over 791 million search queries in America alone the United States alone reported SemRush. YouTube is also streamed more often than Netflix on TVs according to Nielsen data. 

Top tip: YouTube also has a popular advertising platform (with ads that can reach 30% of the world's population according to DataReportal) so it’s worth thinking about if your company creates a lot of video content.   

WhatsApp for Business

Hot on the heels of Facebook and YouTube, WhatsApp has over 2 billion active users globally. With such reach, it’s a great platform to gain traction for your brand. 

But, what the platform is great for is customer service and you can set up a Business profile that also acts as a virtual storefront. 

Through its WhatsApp Business option, small businesses can reply and chat to customers and its ‘Catalog’ feature allows the showcasing of products and in-app browsing. 

You can also use ‘quick Replies’ to answer the most commonly asked questions and set an away notice so people know you are on holiday and not able to respond.      

People can also search for businesses through WhatsApp and using ‘Discover’ or a QR code. Shopping is also possible using the ‘Shop’ icon as people can add products to a cart and then discuss payment options in-app (some countries do offer payment through Meta, but not many yet).

Top tip: Use the ‘Broadcast’ feature to announce promotions, special offers and new inventory to multiple customers at the same time.

Instagram for Business

There are 2 billion users on Instagram and 85% of them are younger than 45. So if that’s your demographic, Instagram could be a platform to look at.  

Originally a photo-sharing app, Instagram has evolved to expand into video and has a number of formats. Like Facebook, live video has become very popular on Instagram along with its Stories (posts that only last 24 hours) and Reels (short-video content) features.  

Instagram Shopping makes it easier for brands to promote products and make money on the platform. People can purchase in the app rather than being directed to a landing page or website. 

On your Instagram Shop, you can include:

• Collections based on a theme (e.g. new arrivals, colors etc.)
• Product Detail Pages (includes pricing and descriptions and content where the product is tagged)
• Product Tags and Product Ad Tags (highlight items from your catalog in images and videos and product mentions in your profile bio or feed copy)
• Checkout for payment  

This example from Droosh featured on Instagram’s ‘Shop’ page for emerging brands has a link to its website in the bio section along with a brief description to inform and engage.

Many influencers made their name on Instagram. And it’s still a platform that many influencers and content creators use to promote themselves and partner with brands. More businesses are partnering with micro-influencers on Instagram to connect with their target audience, raise brand awareness and drive website traffic.  

Here’s an example of an influencer partnership for Warby Parker with Tracy Wiley (12.5k followers). 

Top tip: As  Meta has integrated its AI chatbot across Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram, your audience can now communicate freely across social channels. This is food for thought when it comes to customer service.

TikTok for Business

With over 1.5 billion users, TikTok is a platform that has seen unbelievable growth over the past few years. The reason? Short-form videos are favored by a young demographic (and a lot of influencers) that have the potential to go viral. 

The platform’s popularity makes it a great channel for businesses that use it effectively. TikTokers love the platform as they see it as authentic so you don’t need polished or professional videos. 

If you’re not familiar with TikTok, browse through the videos on the ‘For You’ and ‘Explore’ pages and look at the editing features, effects and filters. TikTok challenges are very popular so it’s worth seeing any you can take part in to raise brand awareness by using the ‘Search’ bar. 

When you set up a TikTok Business Account there are a few features you can use:

• Welcome message - automatically send once someone starts a conversation with your business. 
• Suggested questions - customize an FAQ menu that’s displayed when a user enters a chat with your business for the first time.
• Keyword auto-reply - send automated responses to users based on custom keywords.

You should also make use of the ‘Profile’ features such as including your website and contact information, adding an app download link, and embedding a lead generation form. These will help drive engagement and traffic. 

Influencers are big news on TikTok and they come in all sizes! Look for influencers that may resonate with your audience or have knowledge that can help boost your business. TikTok has a Creator Marketplace that could help you connect with creators.

TikTok advertising is also worth exploring. Seen to be cheaper than other social platforms (at least for now), 55% of users say TikTok helps them discover new products and brands. There are several ad formats such as in-feed ads, Top view, TikTok Promote and branded. Check them out to see what may work for your business.    

Top tip: TikTok is fast becoming a search engine so make sure to tap into that by using SEO tactics such as keywords and trending hashtags. 

Pinterest for Business

Pinterest is a visual discovery network that allows people to post ‘Pins’ and create ‘Boards’ on themes. With nearly 500 million monthly users and around 60% of those female, it’s a platform that can work well for small businesses. 

With a Pinterest Business account, you can drive traffic by linking back to your website. By posting ‘Pins’ you can promote products and create ‘catalogs’ that link to your feed and can upload shoppable items or travel listings.

So what you should put on your Pins to boost your brand? Your Pins can contain an image or a video. The types of posts that are best for promoting a business, selling products or services, and driving traffic to a website include: 

• Products 
• How To’s and Product Tutorials
• Recipes
• Blogs
• Infographics
• Promotions

You can also create ads in different formats such as a vertical or square image, video, carousel quiz, or collection. Targeting and analytics help you select a target audience and craft content that engages. 

Clothing brand, Sweaty Betty uses Pinterest to drive engagement and conversions. They use direct links in their posts to drive people straight to the website along with a ‘Shop the Look’ carousel that allows people to pin the images. 

Top tip: Use Pinterest’s Trends tool to see what’s trending by location. This can help you get noticed by users who may have not come across your business before. 

Become a Social Media Master

Social media provides marketers with opportunities to connect with audiences from all demographics on a global scale. But there’s an art to using social media channels effectively for your audience. DMI’s Professional Diploma in Social Media covers everything you need to know to be effective across all networks. You will learn about social research, social content, social commerce and affiliate marketing, social customer service and social strategy. You will also explore the ins and outs of all the key platforms such as Facebook, LinkedIn, TikTok, Instagram, X and WhatsApp. Enroll today to get started!