Which Social Media Platforms Should You Use for Your Business?

Author:

Harriet Tuite

Head of Paid Social

Categorised In:

Digital Marketing Social

Tags:

TikTok instagram social platform pinterest linkedin twitter b2b lead generation Digital Marketing Social Paid Social

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COVID-19 highlighted more than ever the importance of evolving with the times; a strong digital presence can be the make or break of your business.

Social media marketing plays an incredibly important role in this. Whether you’re looking to hyper-target specific users with ads, grow general awareness of your brand, drive quality traffic to your site or all of the above, social media is an incredibly valuable tool within your marketing arsenal.

With the ever-growing number of social media platforms, and each one of them constantly evolving, it can be hard to know which social media platform is best for marketing your business. It is for this reason that we’ve gathered some relevant facts and figures that will help you to understand the demographics, benefits and potential downfalls of each platform. And, if you decide to use them, some tips and tricks that may help you to maximise your success!

Want to know more about how we can help you? Learn more about social media management and why it’s essential for your business to stay relevant here.

Choosing The Best Social Media Platform For Your Business

Facebook

Facebook is largely considered the ideal platform for reaching a wide audience, with it’s humongous user base spanning across a vast array of demographics. It’s granular targeting options also means you can serve ads to users with niche interests, or specific user behaviours.

Facebook has 2.91 billion monthly active users
36.8% of the world’s population use Facebook monthly
Despite Facebook’s reputation as a platform with an older audience, users ages 25-34 represent Facebook’s largest demographic
26.4% of Facebook’s user base is made up of millennials. That said, 36% of Facebook’s audience are 45 or older.
98% of Facebook users access the app via mobile
70% of users visit the platform daily, with 49% checking Facebook “several times per day”
The average Facebook user spends 33 minutes per day on the platform
Two-thirds of adult users consume news through Facebook
Facebook’s new user growth rate is the second-lowest of all social platforms (only 0.8% in 2021) This is perhaps the most worrying statistic – accompanied by the rapid growth of TikTok, it illustrates that younger users are generating a shift in the social media landscape
However, Facebook is still the most-used social media platform among marketers.
Facebook has over 10 million active advertisers
The platform accounts for over 25% of all digital ad spending, right behind Google (28.9%) and surpassing Amazon (10.3%) – your competitors are most likely advertising on Facebook!

Instagram

Instagram is a video and photo-sharing platform that has experienced a huge amount of growth and evolution in the past 12 months. It’s creator focussed tools and updates to make paid partnerships as easy as possible make it the ideal platform for influencer marketing, as well as the place to share engaging visual content to increase brand awareness.

Instagram has more than 1 billion users using the app every month.
18 to 34-year-olds make up around 60% of the platform’s user base
Instagram is used by 25% of smartphone users.
62% of users log into their account at least once per day
A mere 0.1% of Instagram users only use Instagram

71.9% of posts on Instagram are photos.
14.2% of posts on Instagram are videos – 9 out of 10 users watch Instagram videos weekly
13.9% of posts on Instagram are carousels.
500 million accounts use Instagram Stories daily
58% of users say they’re more interested in a brand after seeing it in a Story
200 million users check out at least one business profile each day
The “perfect caption” has less than 10 words and 20 emojis.
23 emojis in video posts increase the average engagement rate to 4.95%
24 emojis are recommended in carousels for the best performance.
Posts that include a Geo-location receive nearly 80% more engagement than posts that don’t.

Twitter

Twitter is a social networking service; the ideal place to generate discussion and converse with potential consumers. Users are also in a unique mindset when browsing this platform compared to others. As they often go to the platform for informative, rather than entertaining content, it is thought that its audience is more receptive.

Twitter has around 396.5 million users
206 million users access Twitter daily
The majority of Twitter users are male (68.1% male, 31.9% are female.)
38% of Twitter Users are 18-29 years old
Almost 50% of Twitter users consume news regularly on the platform, with 46% saying Twitter had helped them to understand world events
16% of internet users aged 16-64 say that they use Twitter to research brands
54% of users reported taking action after seeing a brand mention on Twitter
Time spent viewing ads on Twitter is 26% higher than any other social platform

Pinterest is widely used by people looking to find inspiration for their projects, interests and hobbies. Whilst it may not be the first platform that comes to mind when thinking about your social media strategy, it holds a lot of potential for advertisers.

Pinterest has 431 million active monthly users

The platform has a predominantly female user base (71%) but its male audience continues to grow

82% of users access Pinterest on mobile

85% of Pinners say they use Pinterest to help them plan new projects

87% of pinners have purchased an item because of Pinterest.

People who use the platform on a weekly basis are 2.2x more likely to say it’s the most influential platform in their purchase journey compared to other social media platforms.

75% of weekly Pinterest users say they’re ‘always shopping’

70% of users claim that Pinterest is where they go to find new products, ideas or services they can trust.

Shopping ads on Pinterest drive 3x the conversions and 2x the return on ad spend versus competing social platforms.

Shoppers on Pinterest spend 2x as much monthly than social shoppers on other platforms.

Linkedin is a professional networking site, perfect for reaching higher-income individuals. The ability to target based on job title, industry, location, level of education and more makes it the ideal platform for B2B and lead generation.

Linkedin has 810 million members across over 200 countries, and 675 million monthly users.
40% of monthly active users use LinkedIn daily
There are over 30 million companies on LinkedIn
61 million LinkedIn users are ‘senior level influencers’ and 40 million are in decision-making positions.
Linkedin’s userbase is predominantly male, although the gap is closing (57% male, 43% female)
It is the most used social media platform amongst Fortune 500 companies
It is 277% more effective at generating leads than Facebook and Twitter.
92% of B2B marketers include LinkedIn in their digital marketing