Which social media channels are the best for your business?

Social media channels are the dreamland for businesses to achieve desired goals out of online presence and marketing campaigns including brand awareness, targeting detailed audience based o demographics and interests, directly communicating with potential current clients to increase customer loyalty besides increasing return on investment (ROI) when taking advantage of many available opportunities existing on social media channels.

It’s not a new news that your business has to have a digital presence especially on suitable social media channels (not all channels in most cases) as it’s a waste of time and resources to sign up for social media platforms with no active users of your business targeted audience, no resources, and skills available to create valuable interesting content for these social media sites and above all you’ll not achieve any of your business predefined goals by committing a common social media marketing mistake by having a business page or account on non-suitable channels.

There are many questions to be answered before choosing the suitable social media channels for your business including:

• What are your business goals out of the social media presence?
• Are your targeted audience (potential & current customers) are active on chosen channels?
• What are the popular types of content on the chosen platform?
• Can you devote needed resources to create popular interesting types of content?
• Is the platform features suitable for launching, managing and analyzing your marketing campaigns?

Before choosing any social media site for your business you should decide whether it will add value for your business or not based on the answers for previous questions.

Social media marketing and management is a challenge that starts with choosing the social media channels for your business and in the next sections of this article, we will provide an overview about each channel of top social media sites for businesses marketing to help you in order to make the right decision.

There are many social media platforms in the digital world but you should choose only the channels that will add value to your business with active users from your targeted audience and we have picked top 8 social media channels regarding active users’ volume, marketing, advertising and communication features to discuss in the following sections of this article and to highlight the potential business opportunities on these platforms.

The most popular social media channel with 2.33 billion monthly active users from all demographics and locations all over the world.

Facebook is the right place to achieve desired exposure in front of your potential customers when you create valuable interesting content in many different formats that works great regarding reach and engagement on Facebook including:

• Text Posts (Short posts / Long Posts / Shared blog posts)
• Images (Designs / Illustrations / Infographics / Memes / GIFs / 360-degree images)
• Videos (short / long / live videos)

Facebook messenger for business provides many options for directly communicating with current and potential clients including automated customized messages, sending newsletters and displaying ads for chosen criteria of potential clients.

Facebook Ads provide the amazing features to create, launch, manage and analyze paid campaigns with the ability to create different formats for ads suitable for chosen placements which include (Facebook Newsfeed & Stories – Facebook messenger – Instagram Newsfeed & Stories – Partner websites) include textual and visual ads.

Facebook advertising options provide the ability to target detailed audience based on demographics, locations, and interests with a predefined budget within your allocated advertising budget and detailed insights and analytics to analyze your campaign performance.

If you’re able to create interesting engaging valuable content for your targeted audience and skilled in launching paid advertising ads then, Facebook is the right platform for your business.

A microblogging social media channel for news and real-time information with 330 million monthly active users which is suitable for publishing interest content (text – images – short or long videos) to reach the desired exposure with related trending hashtags added to your published content.

Twitter is one of the most suitable social platforms for social media listening and monitoring as the advanced search options and direct messaging options are valuable to be there for your current and potential and current customers to provide a higher level of customer service performance.

Twitter also enables businesses to launch paid advertising ads to promote the business account besides generating new leads and increase your business website traffic options and detailed Twitter insights about your content and advertising campaigns performance.

LinkedIn as a social media channel is the hub for professional and the source building business relationships with connection with 303 million active users of industry professionals and decision-makers with age range between 25 – 55 years.

LinkedIn content can be in many formats textual or visual (images/videos) but the most valuable and engaging content is what about industry tips and insights that represent your business as a thought leadership trusted by followers (potential leads) with a serious professional tone.

LinkedIn groups are valuable for publishing useful content and discussions with your business industry professionals with the same interests and generating leads of other businesses decision-makers.

Creating a LinkedIn business page is the first step for taking advantage of potential business opportunities on this social platform then your plan should involve creating consistent interesting valuable content, joining related industry groups and communicating with follower and connection in the direct personal messages to generate more valuable leads.

LinkedIn Ads options have a competitive advantages including detailed targeting based on job titles to reach the desired audience of decision makers and qualified candidates for recruitment ads.

YouTube is not only a valuable video-oriented social media channel but also the second largest search engine after Google with more than 1.9 billion monthly active users performing more than 1,3000,000,000 search each day and one billion hours of watched videos.

YouTube is owned by Google which is a proved opportunity for boosting your business ranking in related search results to your content 50 times more when you create engaging valuable content that reaches the desired exposure from potential customers and appears in the blending results of Google search engine.        

The popular sharable content for businesses on YouTube types are creative products and services promotional videos, “How-To” tutorials, tips and insights videos, motion graphics videos, documentaries, and products explanatory videos.

Once you created your business YouTube channel and started uploading content, focus on coming up with creative video titles, descriptions including targeted keywords and related hashtags to reach more and more people from your targeted audience.

Create a unique value engaging content on YouTube and effective YouTube Ads requires devoted financial and human resource with experience in creating exceptional video content for your business channel or you’ll waste time and efforts without achieving desired results.

The most engaging social media channel for visual content with more than 1 billion monthly active users viewing and engaging with visual content published from personal and business accounts.

Your business products promotion could go viral with high-quality photos and creative designs and short videos published for the followers’ base and discovered easily from your targeted audience when adding related trending hashtags to your posts.

Instagram options for published content includes images, short videos, stories, live videos, and long videos to be uploaded to the Instagram platform “IGTV” up to 1 hour in duration.

Create a business account on Instagram to be able to access more features available including insights and analytics about your business account performance and followers’ demographics and behaviors besides Instagram Shopping to promote your e-commerce business products online.

The active audience on Instagram are mainly women with an age range between 18 – 35 years and that makes it a valid platform for fashion, health, beauty, food, and travel businesses marketing campaigns.

Instagram Newsfeed and stories (available for only 24 hours) are available for displaying Instagram ads when you launch paid advertising campaigns from Facebook ads manager for business pages.

Another visual-content oriented social media channel with many potential opportunities for businesses whose marketing team can create and upload High-Quality visual content to present your business products in an elegant engaging way.

Pinterest active users are mainly women with age range between 25 – 45 years but these demographics are changing with more than 250 million monthly active users uploading visual content and curating others’ content with pins viewable to their followers.

Pinterest provides many opportunities for businesses including achieving desired exposure for business products, acquiring valuable backlinks when you add your landing page link to pins uploaded which boosts your business website search engine ranking and more website traffic when optimizing the description and titles for you pins uploaded.

Create related boards for your products and industry tips to add more value for your followers (potential clients) and upload interesting valuable visual content (Images – Videos – GIFs) to drive desired results from organic content.

Pinterest Ads increase your business exposure and drive more traffic and purchase from engaging promoted pins of your products or services that motivate the viewer to perform desired actions.

Snapchat is a multimedia messaging social media channel with 287 million monthly active users communicating in private messages with photos and short videos.

Snapchat created the stories which are a temporary published visual content that is only available to viewers for 24 hours then Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp launched stories in their platforms which caused a huge decrease in Snapchat value for marketers.

Snapchat provides options and tools to customize your visual messages using filters, stickers and a drawing tool and you can also add destination link for your stories and a call-to-action using the paperclip icon to encourage follower (potential clients) to perform desired conversions.

The active users are mainly millennials from teenagers and young adults posting stories viewable to their followers for only 24 hours and also they can create groups for their Snapchat friends to engage in discussions and enable communication via direct messages.

You can promote new products or services through Snapchat stories ads with a destination link to your product or service with a well-crafted call-to-action.

Despite being known as a messaging application with a more than 1.6 billion monthly active users but it is also a potential for a business social media channel when you create a WhatsApp business profile.

When you create a business profile using WhatsApp Business App, you’ll be able to add a description about your business main products or services, your business location, weekly working days and hours, email address, and your business website.

WhatsApp for business offers many features that can add value to your business including quick replies for commonly used messages, automated message to reply to your customers when you’re away, creating labels to organize different customer groups, stories to promote your products or services plus publishing interest content.

Besides being a valuable platform for customer support, WhatsApp will be included in Facebook Ads placements in the stories section soon to add an advertising feature for business interested in targeting active audience from 180 countries all over the world on WhatsApp.

If your business is a business to consumer (b2c) in nature and you aim to target regular customers more than businesses, then you should focus on the following social media channels in a priority based on your desired goals:

• Facebook: your content will reach desired exposure and engagement levels if it adds value to targeted customers besides amazing advertising options to reach the desired segment of potential customers
• Twitter: a valid option for proving customer support and monitoring your targeted customers’ activity and interest plus gaining desired reach through trending hashtags and paid ads
• YouTube: the huge amount of consumed visual content daily from promotional, entertaining and educational videos is an opportunity for brand awareness and increasing engagement with your business from potential consumers
• Instagram: well-crafted visual content with optimized description and using relevant hashtags will drive your business closer to targeted customers with the highest engagement level possible
• Pinterest: creating boards for different products’ categories and industry tips and adding pins of products and services with a creative description and a landing page link or contact information will drive more leads, sales, and higher ROI
• WhatsApp for Business: a customer support platform with options for paid ads and publishing interest content in stories for current and potential clients.
• LinkedIn: it’s a recruitment hub with an active audience of qualified candidates plus a suitable social media channel for promoting career and educational courses
• Snapchat: If your targeted customers are from the millennials (teenagers and young adults), then this is the start communicating with them with creative optimized visual content on stories and via direct messages.

Many B2B (business to business) marketers commit the mistake of not taking advantage of social media marketing as they think social media channels are not suitable for promoting their businesses and generating leads.

Many social media channels are a valid choice to B2B marketing activities including:

• LinkedIn: the platform is all about building relationships with your industry professional while publishing useful content on your business page and engaging in insightful discussions in groups to be recognized as a thought leader and drive more profitable leads
• Twitter: Advanced search options will provide a glimpse about your business reputation among potential clients plus personal messaging options to humanize your brand and improve relationships with clients
• Facebook: It’s challenging to target business through Facebook but when you manage to reach targeted businesses’ decision-makers with your content marketing and paid advertising campaigns, you’ll be able to generate more leads than you expect with personalized communication options and helpful performance insights and analytics.
• YouTube: promotional, educational video content will engage your targeted businesses and increase trust in your business plus the option to generate more leads and traffic to your business website through links and contact information in each video description
• Pinterest: the option available for adding a destination link in each post will increase your business website traffic from active audience interested in what your business offering plus improving your search engine optimization (SEO) activities performance by acquiring valuable backlinks from high authority social media channel like Pinterest.

Choose the platforms that are suitable for your B2B marketing goals with a priority based on your targeted audience behavior on each platform and your experience to create suitable content.

Whether you decide to depend on an internal marketing team or an experienced marketing agency specialized in providing social media marketing solutions, you must choose first the social media channels suitable for your business and active targeted audience to avoid wasting time and efforts without achieving desired goals.

If you choose to deal with an external marketing agency as you’re not experienced or skilled enough in social media marketing, then you should check first the agency portfolio and their official social media accounts to evaluate if their performance and expertise are up to the challenge.

Contact Sendian Creations today to start your next social media marketing campaign

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