Which Social Media Network is Right for Your Business?
Social media platforms now number in the dozens as potential avenues for marketing a business: Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, X (formerly Twitter), TikTok, Pinterest, YouTube, etc. The myriad of choices can be overwhelming small business owners trying to decide where to best spend their limited cash and time resources. In truth, there is no single correct answer. A good advertising site will always be based on who your target audience is; how much time you can realistically spend on content creation; and what your goals are with social media.
The goal of this set of guidelines is to explore and determine which social media platforms will be most beneficial for your business relative to the objectives of the company as a whole.
Even if newer platforms have emerged, Facebook still remains the most popular social media platform in the UK. Especially dominant is the Facebook demographic of users aged 35 to 65 years old. This makes Facebook ideal for small businesses that provide services to a particular local community and, especially, those that aim to reach families or homeowners.
Ideal for: local businesses, community engagement, hosting events, providing customer service, advertising to 35+ audiences, and custom, targeted ads.
Not suitable for: businesses that offer products and services aimed at teenagers and young adults (who are predominantly using Instagram and TikTok), and businesses that don’t have a community or social angle.
Instagram is an excellent social media platform for reaching young adults aged 18 to 34 years old who are part of an active and highly engaged user demographic.
Similar to Facebook, younger audiences make up the majority of users who are under 34 years old. For this reason, Facebook places a lot of emphasis on encouraging the user base to post content of very high quality and high resolution, especially in the form of Reels and other short video formats.
Many organic audiences can build businesses in a large number of sectors such as food, fashion, beauty, fitness, travel, and interior design where the aesthetics of a business are important.
- Best Suited For: visually appealing products or services, interiors, restaurants, beauty salons, gyms, lifestyle brands, 18-34 age group
- Worst Suited For: B2B services, services that are difficult to visualise, businesses that have a limited ability to create and share new visual content regularly
Approximately LinkedIn has been the largest and most prominent B2B networking and marketing platform. In contrast to all other social media platforms, the users are exclusively business owners, directors, and professionals. LinkedIn provides a very straightforward route for reaching the most important people in a business. Moreover, the organic reach for LinkedIn is also better on average when compared to Facebook and Instagram, especially for posts that are well structured and based on experience.
- Best Suited For: B2B business with professional services (consulting, legal, accounting, HR); recruitment, networking, marketing, office, thought leadership and other roles that are decision-making
- Worst Suited For: local businesses that sell directly to consumers, low-cost or spontaneous purchases, highly visual consumer products
X
In the last few years, X has become more fragmented and commercially unviable as a platform. Many companies are experiencing declines in organic reach and interaction.
Real-time commentary, businesses involving high service inquiries, and anything where news and opinion fuel engagement (such as media, politics, finance, and sports) have the potential to increase engagement.
- Most suited for: businesses with direct engagement with customers, interactive in real time, media, news, expert personal branding
- Least suited for: small local enterprises, e-commerce, and products or services for a community
TikTok
Though its primary audience is young adults, TikTok has experienced remarkable growth and has managed to appeal to a considerably broad range of age groups.
The entire platform is video-based, making it impossible to use unless a business is able to create and post short, interesting videos frequently. TikTok offers a high potential for organic reach because, unlike other platforms, its algorithm tends to favor newer accounts. Despite this, the platform does require considerable time and creative effort, making it a poor choice for a lot of businesses.
Most appropriate for: brands that are visually attractive (food, fitness), trades where they show their work, businesses willing to invest in short video creation, and those aiming to reach an audience under 35
Least appropriate for: B2B companies, vendors of professional services, and those who are unable to make videos on a regular basis
Although many view Pinterest as an ineffective marketing channel, it is surprisingly effective for a limited number of categories.
Pinterest is not a typical social networking site. It focuses more on aspiring users to discover ideas in varying domains, like home improvement, fashion, weddings, gardening, recipes, etc. Therefore, if you run a business related to these domains, Pinterest would be a great source of traffic to your website.
Most suitable for Pinterest: Crafts, gifts, and anything visually appealing (home improvement, weddings, food, fashion, etc).
YouTube
YouTube is the second-largest search engine, and is thus extremely valuable for businesses that can produce video content like tutorials, case studies, reviews, etc. These videos can help the business rank on Google and YouTube simultaneously. Additionally, when a video is properly optimised, it can attract viewers for several months, or even years, after being published.
Long-term investment in complex business services, demonstration videos, instructional content, educational resources, and video content is most suitable for:
Finalising Your Options
Instead of spreading yourself thin, select one or two platforms and create content specific to those platforms and your target audience. After that, you can build on your success to expand to other platforms. Having an engaged audience on a single platform is more valuable than having a dispersed and disengaged audience across several platforms.