It’s a Match! Are you using the right social media platforms for your audience?

Updated: 11/23/2020

The power of social media

Are you an avid social media user? Who isn’t nowadays! Social media has been a part of the lives of many individuals for quite some time now. At first, social media platforms were seen as websites that individuals could go to just to interact with others. These include acquaintances, friends, family, and practically anyone that has a computer and internet connection. One of the first modern social media platforms that were available to the masses was introduced in 1997 by the name of Six Degrees. It wasn’t until the early 2000s when the platform Myspace came into play. It was perhaps the first social media site that propelled and inspired the platforms that are dominant today.

Many remember Myspace. Do you?

Did you have your profile customized with a unique background that was true to you? Did you have your favorite song on your profile for a long period of time or did you constantly change it? Where you excited to receive friend requests, photo comments, comments on your profile, new messages? Also, did you constantly have to figure out which group of friends would be part of your top 16 or top 8? There are so many things that could be said about Myspace. This platform is certainly nostalgic for many of us!

As you may know, good things come to an end. By the late 2000s, Facebook was all the craze. It was different from Myspace, but what remained constant was the ability to help create connections and manage friendships like its predecessor. Nowadays, we have many other social media platforms that play an essential role in maintaining relationships and engagement between entities. These platforms include Instagram, Snapchat, Youtube, LinkedIn, Pinterest, TikTok, Twitter, among others. Throughout the years, businesses and other influential individuals have discovered how useful social media can be.

This is where we believe the influence and power of social media were solidified. Social media platforms were no longer seen as tools simply for leisure. These entities now see these platforms as avenues to create connections, build and maintain relationships, and generate brand awareness for years to come. The transformation from a platform of leisure to an integral tool for any marketing campaign is truly incredible.

Below we will discuss how you can utilize social media platforms the right way for you and your business.

Understanding your business’ target audience and what social platforms they use

(You don’t need to be on every platform!)

There are many ways in which you can define an audience. These include analyzing your competition and analyzing your current base by investigating certain commonalities, but by far one of the most effective ways of doing so is through the use of demographics and psychographics. Demographics include a group’s age, gender, education level, and occupations. Psychographics includes the attitudes, opinions, and lifestyles of the group of individuals being studied. If organizations can pinpoint audiences in this manner, the probability of having a successful campaign dramatically increases. When it comes to social media, there are ways we can target audiences depending on the social media platform. Not every social media site works the same. They all serve different purposes, and most importantly, each of these platforms serves a diverse audience.

 

Let’s begin with Facebook. According to Statista, only 17 percent of users that are of ages 18-24 use this platform in comparison the 25 percent of users that are in the 25-34 age group. The following age groups, for example, 18 percent of them belong to the 35-44 age group, and 15 percent belong to the 45-54 age group, makes it clear that a majority of users of this site tend to be older. They prefer to use this site for various affairs. If you are working in a social media campaign that is trying to reach older audiences to advertise a particular service or product through a business, such as a financial group, for example, you can conclude that using Facebook is perhaps one of the most cost-effective ways you can reach such audiences.

When it comes to Snapchat, if you want to reach younger individuals, this is the place to go. The premise of Snapchat is to disseminate video, pictures, and messages, where those items can only be seen during a 24 hour period. After that time, all content is gone. You might think that the time limit may be a hindrance of some sorts, but we believe it is what makes this app so successful. Yes, we understand that Snapchat has experienced specific difficulties regarding updates and other changes regarding design, but Snapchat continues to be a dominant force within the social media world. Many companies that may target younger audiences such as universities, fast food restaurants, and other industries that cater to a younger audience can find many benefits by using this platform to create a connection and to sell a product or service.

 

Twitter is also a robust platform that many young individuals use on a daily basis. It is by far the best way for businesses, public figures, and consumers to interact with one another. There was a time where normal, everyday people did not have the ability to connect with a favorite celebrity or business entity. Those days are indeed over. Connecting with someone with a considerable amount of prominence can be instantaneous. It only takes a tweet to do so. You can tweet at your favorite celebrity or business and in a matter of moments, you can create powerful engagement that can have a lasting impression.

Wendy’s, for example, has built such strong engagement through its audience via its Twitter page is incredible, to say the least. By tweeting quirky, witty messages to consumers, it made this organization a popular figure for younger audiences. They were engaging with their target audiences in ways that were not seen before. They were communicating in a way that was not forced. It is why it appealed so much to younger audiences. Wendy’s also engaged with other competitors as well, creating even more engagement amongst their respective audiences.

 

Instagram, another popular social media platform for younger audiences, is a powerful tool to use if your business has a considerable amount of imagery that you will like to display in order to obtain an audience. Perhaps you are running a bakery or a restaurant. This is the perfect platform to include images of the foods you created, provide pictures of customers, the place of business, among other things, in order to create engagement that will inspire more people to obtain your services.

 

A place like LinkedIn for example is the perfect place for individuals who would like to create more connections and obtain more business-to-business opportunities. Having the support of other businesses can help your own business run more efficiently. This can be of tremendous benefit to you and your business.

 

Lastly, Youtube is the perfect place if you would like to connect with influencers. These influencers may have up to thousands, if not millions of subscribers, and if you are trying to promote your products, for example, a makeup line, this can be of such benefit for you. When an influencer legitimizes your product, it can create an effect on the audiences you are trying to reach, making them consider that your product can also be of much benefit to their needs. Because there are many social media platforms that you can choose from, you will only need to decide on the ones that will benefit your business in the future. Analyze all your possibilities to the fullest extent, and by doing so, you will have the opportunity to increase the probability of obtaining great success when you decide to market your products or services through the right social media platforms.

Crafting the right message for your audience

You know a lot about your product or service. You know the ins and outs of the product or service and the benefits that it will bring to consumers. Now it’s time to create the perfect messages through the platforms you have chosen will be best able to reach your audiences. It is certainly a difficult task that anyone in charge of a social media marketing plan can face. There are ways in which you can create the right message that will ultimately create the impact that you are looking for your business to receive.

First, get to know your audience.

As we have mentioned before, you can figure out so much about an individual or group of people through certain strategies. Within these strategies, you can use demographics and psychographics in order to define which messages will have the most impact on your desired audiences and which individuals or groups will receive and embrace your product or service. What are their likes and interests? What are their views about certain customs and beliefs? What do they do for a living? When you are able to answer these questions, you are closer to establishing messages that will resonate with your target audience.

Creating a social media audit is also a great way of creating strategies that will create an impact.

By knowing informing regarding followers, how much you post on your social media webpage, what posts created the most impact, you can determine and create messages that will create a more significant impact later one. A social media audit can be simple to create. A word document or a spreadsheet is all you need to gather the most important information from an audit. Another way of creating the perfect message is by creating a content calendar. The purpose of this document is to keep up with your social media pages and become consistent with the messages that you are trying to disseminate.

Perhaps there are certain messages with content that must be on social media regularly. Maybe there are specific messages that may only need to be posted once a month. A content calendar will ensure that you are on your toes regarding posting, and will also help ensure that your messages will be done in a timely manner. A document of this manner will make sure you don’t lose track of your audience in the long run.

How often should I communicate?

How often you should communicate depends on various factors. Each social media platform has an audience that tends to get online during certain times. Some platforms have audiences that tend to be active on certain days of the week, and on certain hours of the days. For example, Pinterest users tend to become engaged in the website from  8 p.m. to 11 p.m. and 2 a.m. to 4 a.m. For Instagram users, they tend to become engaged on the website on Wednesday at 11 a.m.. You need to investigate which times your audiences tend to become active in order to post the messages that you desire. Not only do you need to consider which days or hours of the week to post content, but you should consider that engagement is crucial to the success of any social media marketing campaign.

It is no use to post content if you do not create a relationship with your consumers. Create content that is relevant to them, but also post content that creates action, for example, you can ask questions for your next post. Depending on the social media platform, you can create contests or simply respond to a certain inquiry they may have on your social media pages. By doing this form of engagement, your audience will know that they are being listened to. It is an incredible feeling for someone to know that a company is able to create a dialogue. You will be able to maintain and create relationships that will last for a significant amount of time. This will strengthen the relationship you have with your consumers through thanks to the engagement you create through your social media pages.

Third-party sites that allow you to post to multiple social media accounts from their portal

There are many sites that allow you to post content from different social media accounts just by using one platform. Hootsuite is one of those. Hootsuite is a social media management platform that allows users to post and schedule content in whichever way managers of such accounts deem fit. This tool also helps businesses get to know more about their audiences. This tool allows organizations to know what certain strategies they made are working. There are many other websites that allow you to do similar work. Creating a plan from inception to completion must always include analyzing if the strategies that have been made are working. If you cannot answer if your strategies are working, then it can create a damaging impact on your overall social media goals.

There are many tools that you can use in order to analyze if your strategies are working. These programs include Buffer, which is a site that allows you to increase engagement, drive traffic, and helps you understand your audience. Other tools include Facebook Page Insights, which allows administrators to know about how much of a reach you were able to obtain through your content, it will also give you information regarding your followers, as well as information about how successful your posts are. Twitter Analytics allows you to see how well your tweets performed, the impact of the hashtags you created, and the impact of your retweets and mentions. Because there are many tools that provide you with the information necessary to see if your campaign strategies are functioning, individuals who are leading a social media campaign must always have an analytical tool at their disposal if they want to ensure success.

In Summary

Social media has not only revolutionized the way we communicate but also how we conduct business affairs. It is certainly a tool that will continue to have an impact on our society for years to come. It is incredible how social media has been able to transform from something only meant for leisure and keeping in touch, into being a tool that has been able to strengthen the bonds between businesses and consumers from all over the world.

Many have underestimated the power of social media, but in today’s age, we live in a world where we can’t imagine where our society would be without the use of such magnificent platforms.