Social media platforms dominate the world of social and professional networking and they are also an essential tool for businesses in virtually every vertical. The sheer number of users, the amount of time they spend on the platforms, and the analytics tools and ad creation options provided to businesses mean that nearly every nascent marketing campaign must take social networks into consideration.
However, there are a number of different platforms, with varying user-bases and atmospheres to consider. For example, you wouldn’t try to put together an anime cosplay event on LinkedIn or advertise denture adhesive on TikTok. Recognizing which platforms match your goals and building a campaign that can reach the right people in the right space is essential for your campaign’s success.
Choosing the right social media for business ads
To ensure you’re finding the right social media network for business marketing campaigns here are some questions to help narrow your search:
- What are your goals?
- Who is your audience?
- Which social media platform do they frequent?
It is this final question that we will take a closer look at in this blog, helping you to define which is the right social media for business marketing that suits your goals.
Audience: Facebook has the largest user-base in the world with over 2.9 billion users across the globe. Its audience skews predominantly male and older than some other networks, with males 18-44 making up 42.8% of their users. This is nearly 50% more than females in the same age-group (30%).
Benefits: If you’re looking to reach a more mature customer base Facebook is a good general-purpose social media for business marketing. Facebook ads provide a huge amount of targeting options allowing you to ensure your marketing spend is reaching its intended audience. As most companies will also have a Facebook profile anyway it can be easier to build engagement with your community and grow brand awareness organically through sharing.
Audience: Instagram is the 2nd-largest social network with over 2 billion monthly global users. Its core base is Gen Z and Millennials, with 18-34 year-olds making up 61.2% of its users. The gender gap is more even than Facebook, skewing slightly male at 48-52%.
Benefits: Users on average spend 29 minutes per day scrolling through Instagram and nearly 60% say they log in daily. This means a retargeting campaign can get great traction with regular interactions. Instagram is a great social media for business marketing because its user-base is maturing in age and income.
Audience: Twitter has 211 million users, though some dispute this figure, suggesting it is actually inflated by fake or bot accounts. The network is overwhelmingly male (61.6% – 38.4%) and older (52% are 30+) and has actually started to decrease in size in the US. However, its user-base is generally wealthier and highly educated — a third of Twitter users are college-educated and earn over $75k per year.
Benefits: With an older, wealthier demographic Twitter can be a good target social media for businesses dealing with big-ticket expenditure. It’s also acknowledged as an important location for thought leadership, with most organizations releasing their statements or important product or investor information on Twitter first.
Audience: With 810 million users, 180 million of which are in the US, LinkedIn, the professional social network, has quite a sizable user-base and it’s also roughly even in the gender split (48%-52% male). The largest demographic is Millennials, with nearly 60% of its users between 25-34.
Benefits: For B2B companies, LinkedIn is the social media for business platform they need, with 80% of users being part of their organization’s decision-making process. The company has been ranked as the best social platform for B2B marketing with 40% of B2B marketers saying that LinkedIn was the most effective platform for leads. Brands see a 33% growth in purchase intent following LinkedIn advertising campaigns.
TikTok
Audience: TikTok grew by 50% in a year and now has over 1 billion monthly users. The user-base is much younger (a quarter are under 19) and also skews heavily female (61%-39%). TikTok has a very dedicated following with users spending nearly 90 minutes a day on the platform.
Benefits: TikTok is definitely the location for brands looking for youth credibility but this can often end in misjudged disaster. Understanding the nuances of what video content gets liked and shared on TikTok can be difficult so a collaborative campaign with relevant influencers can definitely help to reach your campaign’s goals. As TikTok expands and looks to improve monetization it will likely introduce better ad targeting and campaign-building features.
Conclusion
With social networks playing such a large role in people’s lives they are nearly unavoidable when planning a marketing campaign. Getting the most out of your social media for business marketing relies on understanding where and how to reach the audience that fits your campaign goals. Each social media platform has unique attributes in terms of its user-base and how people interact with it. There is cross-over but that doesn’t mean an ad can easily be cross-posted, as the same person may view an ad differently if it appears on Instagram or Twitter.
If you’re planning a marketing campaign and are looking to choose the right social media for business advertising why not get in touch with the experts to make sure you are optimizing your ad spend? At Bloom Ads we are complete nerds when it comes to fine-tuning marketing campaigns to get the right reaction from the right demographic. To find out more, feel free to get in touch with us.
