How to Choose the Right Social Media Platforms for Your Business
Social media is no longer just the future; it’s the present. With over 2.34 billion people worldwide on social media (and that number is expected to grow to about 2.95 billion by 2020), your business simply cannot afford to not have a presence online.
Our goal is to help your B2B business be successful, whether that be in-person or online. Because social media is highly intertwined with everyday life, we want to help you choose the right social media platforms for your business.
Identify your business demographic
The first thing you need to do is nail down is your target demographic, which if you are already familiar with who you’re targeting to increase sales, this won’t be too hard!
The reason you need to determine your demographic is because different people are on different social media platforms! If they are on multiple, they typically use them for different purposes. Sprout Social has an informative report detailing the demographics on the top platforms, and depending on the type of people on the platform, that may sway your decision.
Determine what social platform(s) your target clients are on most
Whatever social media platforms your target audience is already active on are the places your business needs to be. Meeting them where they’re at will make them more likely to engage with you! Choosing the path of least resistance to potential clients will allow you to make the most impact without spending the most time and money.
You can easily gather this information when you send your welcome emails! In your survey to get to know your audience better, you can ask what social platforms they are currently on.
Want to take online engagement a step further? Follow people in your target industry; like and comment on their posts! When you show you care, they’ll care and engage with you more in return!
Identify your social media goal
You should know how you want to interact with your target clients prior to solidifying your decision. What is it that you want to accomplish online?
Do you want to show off your employees and how they’re helping businesses? Maybe you’ll create detailed posts on Facebook and/or LinkedIn and explain how your business can help other companies.
Or is your goal to educate? Maybe you create a plan to utilize Facebook Live or Instagram Live to engage with your community in real time.
Do you want your current and potential clients to see you as serious, funny, inspiring, or any specific trait? While you can make any reputation work on any platform, it will shape the way your organization shows up and how your clients engage with you.
Do you plan to utilize ads to create a hyper-targeted campaign or a Lookalike audience of your current clients? All of these points are essential not only to choosing what platforms you use and how to show up online, but to your marketing efforts as a whole!
Determine your resources
After figuring out where your target audience hangs out online and your social media goal, it’s time to take your resources into consideration! Maybe your B2B business has determined that being on Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram is important and you also want to incorporate paid advertising on these platforms as well.
The size of your internal team will determine what platforms are most important and will be tackled first. If you have a smaller team, you might need to pare down your social media list a bit, or consider outsourcing organic and/or paid social media management.
Even if you just start with one social media platform for your B2B business, a start is better than not being present at all!
Download our guide to up your digital marketing strategy
Creating effective social media content to share with your target audience is a crucial part to your marketing strategy.
Using our expertise in content creation, we’ve created this guide to help you cultivate a more engaged audience and, ultimately, help you grow your business.
In this download, you’ll receive:
The steps you’ll need to follow in order to create social media engagement.
4 essential elements to add in every content piece.
Information on different types of graphics your business can post for brand awareness and engagement
Key strategies for lead generation