Many small business owners think they can’t compete with large retailers and corporations in marketing and advertising. However, social media marketing has become a cost-effective strategy for helping businesses of all sizes connect with their target audiences. Unfortunately, social media for businesses isn’t as straightforward as for personal use. You’re trying to capture a market rather than sharing images and videos with friends and family. 

Finding the right social media platforms for your business is a crucial first step. You must identify where to connect with your audience to attract and convert customers. Keep reading to find tips to help you choose the best social media platforms for your business. 

Research Your Audience

Before starting marketing on social media, you need to know which platform your audiences use. Each platform has a unique audience geared toward different age groups and types of individuals. For instance, if you sell e-commerce products, LinkedIn, a site for professionals, won’t help you attract customers. However, TikTok and Instagram might. 

If your audience isn’t active on a channel, you won’t gain anything from it. Instead, you must determine which social media platforms your audience actually uses. You can determine this through market research, customer surveys, and in some cases, common sense. 

Consider Your Offerings

After determining who your target audience is, you should consider your offerings —the brands, products, and services you sell. Your offerings will largely determine the best place to market them. For instance, if you sell a service and your audience is business owners, you might not gain attention on TikTok, whose primary audience is individuals rather than businesses. 

Taking into account what you sell will help you determine which social media platforms are right for your business and its audience.

Learn About Your Competitors 

Learning about your competitors can help you learn more about both your audience and industry. For instance, where are your competitors promoting their products and services? If you notice all of your competitors are using the same two or three platforms, it could mean that there’s an opportunity they’re missing. However, in most cases, it means those platforms are the most successful for them based on their product and service offerings and target audience research. 

Align Your Goals

Why are you marketing on social media? Determining your goals and metrics will give you something to measure. These goals should be based on the overall business objectives. For instance, if you want to increase brand awareness, you might use metrics like reach or engagements. 

Influencer marketing measurements typically include engagement because they’re a better indicator of the success of a campaign. In traditional social media marketing, engagement is just as crucial because it tells you not only how many people saw a specific ad or post but how many felt compelled to engage with it. 

Research the Different Platforms

Most of us understand the basics of all the social media networks out there. However, learning as much as possible about them and their specific audiences can help you choose the best social media platform for your business. 

The general demographics of each platform’s users can help inform your decision. However, you should also look at how people use these platforms. For instance, many people use Twitter for news, Instagram for photography and videos, and Facebook for catching up with friends and family. 

Knowing how these platforms are used can help you better allocate resources based on the perceived interests of your audience. For instance, if you know your audience uses Facebook to primarily catch up with family and friends, you can use this information to inform your campaigns and make them more personal. Meanwhile, knowing your audience expects high-quality photography and videos on Instagram, you may need to hire a professional photographer. 

Consider Budget and Resources

Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter may all be used by your primary target audience, but it may not be feasible for you to market on all of them based on your available resources. You need people, money, and time to market on social media. You can’t create the same posts for every platform and expect them to perform well. The odds are that your target audience has already seen the post on another platform. 

Additionally, you may only have enough of a budget to employ one person to handle all of your accounts within the social media marketing strategy. This person can only do so much in a day. Remember, social media marketing requires more than posting every day; you must engage your followers and create advertising and organic campaigns that attract and convert followers into paying customers. 

Meanwhile, organic social media marketing is challenging because new algorithms show fewer corporate posts and more personal posts from family and friends, so not all of your followers will actually see your posts. Investing in social media advertising is a cost-effective way to increase your reach, so we recommend having a budget of at least a few dollars a day for campaigns. 

Collect & Review Content

Much of the time spent on social media marketing is creating the actual posts, which involves having graphic design and writing skills. In many cases, you’ll need to rely on existing content you use for other marketing initiatives, such as your website, blogs, and graphics already created. 

Collecting and reviewing all the content you have at your disposal is a great way to determine which social media platforms to use. For instance, if you don’t have video content, TikTok isn’t the right solution for your business at the moment. Meanwhile, you may have tons of beautiful product photos, which can be edited and transformed into social media content for Facebook and Instagram. 

Choosing a Social Media Platform

Knowing who your audience is and where they spend their time can ensure you choose the right social media platforms to connect with customers. Unfortunately, the work isn’t done there. After choosing one or more platforms, you’ll need to continuously make unique, engaging content on a daily basis to attract and convert social media users into paying customers. 

Ashley Nielsen

Ashley Nielsen earned a B.S. degree in Business Administration Marketing at Point Loma Nazarene University. She is a freelance writer who loves to share knowledge about general business, marketing, lifestyle, wellness, and financial tips. During her free time, she enjoys being outside, staying active, reading a book, or diving deep into her favorite music.