With so many social media channels and limited time, not to mention budget, how should a business owner effectively manage all of the options? As with other marketing efforts, we suggest focusing on where your customers are.
How do you know which social media tools your customers are using most? Smaller organizations can simply ask customers, while larger businesses will likely need to make use of surveying tools such as Survey Monkey to reach large numbers of customers in an effective manner. You can also leverage the following statistics from our partner Hubspot, published in January 2017.
Facebook:
- 9 unique monthly users
- Predominantly female
- The best place to reach Millennials and Generation X (ages 18-49). Gen X spends almost 7 hours per week on social media.
- 75 percent of users spend 20 minutes or more on Facebook every day
LinkedIn:
- 106 million unique monthly users
- Slightly more male with 31 percent of online men and 27 percent of online women reporting that they use this platform
- 45 percent of people making $75,000 per year more use LinkedIn
YouTube:
- 1 billion unique monthly users
- Predominantly male
- Reaches more 18-49 year olds than any cable network in the United States
- ~2 million video views per minute
- Emphasizes the need for businesses to create videos to capture customers’ attention
Instagram:
- 600 million unique monthly users
- Predominantly female
- 90 percent of Instagram users are under age 35
- Fastest growing social media channel
- Ideal for visual businesses with products to showcase (jewelers, retailers, interior designers, even restaurants wanting to show their delicious dishes)
Pinterest:
- 317 million unique users
- Predominantly female
- Fairly evenly distributed amongst 18-64 year olds
- People referred by Pinterest are 10 percent more likely to make a purchase on ecommerce than users of other networks
- Best longevity — half-life of a pin is 151,200 minutes versus 24 minutes for a tweet or 90 minutes for a Facebook post
- Interestingly, this platform attracts a lot of do-it-yourselfers (DIY) so if can illustrate how to make your products or services on this platform but only give users enough to want more — and be willing to pay your business for it, this may be a good option for you.
Twitter:
- 317 unique monthly users
- Predominantly male
- Mostly 18-29 year olds
- 53 percent of Twitter users never post any updates
- Users only spend an average of 2.7 minutes on Twitter’s mobile app per day
- Most over saturated social media channel
So which social media platform(s) best aligns with your prospects? Armed with these demographics, you should be able to assemble a marketing plan that best uses your time to target your prospects. Focus on communicating with potential customers to address their needs and as we say on the web development side of our agency, post for the end customer, not just to get more follows. Keep content fresh and respond to inquiries in a timely manner to transform prospects into customers.
