If you’re not a seasoned Social Media Manager or Digital Marketer, it can feel like you should be spending time and money on every Social Media Network. The truth is, you may not need to be on more than a few on a consistent basis. Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with setting up a profile or business page across the countless Social Media Networks, but there are a few considerations you should take into account first:
- For one thing, if there’s no one in your company who can check the status of your account or profile on a regular basis, you may end up missing messages from would-be buyers.
- This, in turn, can cause these potential customers to lose trust or feel your business is unresponsive, while on your end you’re just trying to test the waters.
- Think about where your target audience will be – which networks are they spending their time on?
- Understand which type of content should be posted across each platform — this will help you determine which is most suitable for your business and your audience.
Listen to Your Audience
So, rather than setting up every account across the board, a better strategy is to determine where your audience spends their time and what they’re looking at on those platforms. Then, do your research by comparing your competitor’s content and ads. You could also conduct a survey from your current and past clients asking them what Social Media Network they spend time on.
Here’s an overview of the most popular social networks worldwide as of January 2021, ranked by number of active users according to Statista:
- Facebook 2.7 billion
- Youtube 2.3 billion
- Instagram 1.2 billion
- LinkedIn 800 million
- Tik Tok 700 million
- Snapchat 500 million
- Pinterest 450 million
- Reddit 430 million
- Twitter 353 million
- Quora 300 million
Marketing Tactics and Lead Generation
Once you have determined where your users are, you can begin your strategy. LinkedIn is a popular platform for business to business marketers, with good reason:
- LinkedIn is the most popular platform of B2B marketers, followed by Twitter. (Content Marketing Institute)
- As of January 2020, 663.3 million users have been reached by LinkedIn Ads. (We Are Social)
- Data shows that the most engaging LinkedIn posts are published on Wednesdays between 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. and noon, Thursday at 9 a.m. and 1 p.m. to 2 p.m., and Friday at 9 a.m. (Sprout Social)
- LinkedIn’s lead conversion rates are 3X higher than other major ad platforms, including Google Ads. (LinkedIn)
- Roughly 15% of marketers are creating content for LinkedIn. (HubSpot)
- Only 10% of marketers say they’re investing in LinkedIn. (HubSpot)
- In a study of over 5,000 businesses, HubSpot found that traffic from LinkedIn generated the highest visitor-to-lead conversion rate at 2.74%, almost three times or 277% higher than both Twitter (.69%) and Facebook (.77%). (HubSpot)
Social Media Around the World
Key takeaways from their Datareportal Global Overview report published in January, 2021 are:
- More than half of the world now uses social media
- 4.66 billion people around the world now use the internet, of those users, 316 million new users have come online within the last 12 months
- There are 5.22 billion unique mobile users
Also, keep in mind that if you’re only doing organic posts, unless you already have an enormous following, you won’t truly see where your audience is. Running targeted ads to your specific audience will show you where engagement is happening and how successful your campaigns are. You’ll want to run the analytics to get a full view of what’s working and what’s not, so you can then decide which networks make the most sense for your business.
Learn more about social media networks, targeting your audience and more on our podcast! Think you’d like to be a guest? Apply here!
Sources
Hootsuite, Facebook, Google
eMarketer: https://www.emarketer.com/content/linkedin-to-grow-faster-than-expected
Hubspot: https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/linkedin-stats
Pew: https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/fact-sheet/social-media/
Oberlo: https://www.oberlo.com/blog/social-media-marketing-statistics
Smart Insights: https://www.smartinsights.com/social-media-marketing/social-media-strategy/new-global-social-media-research/
