How To Choose The Right Social Media Marketing Platform To Boost Your Business

Manthan
Read Time: 13 Minutes
How To Choose The Right Social Media Marketing Platform To Boost Your Business

Do you know how many businesses do their marketing on social media? 

If your answer is all of them, you are not far from the truth. More than 90% of marketers use social media for marketing! 

Yet, ineffective marketing remains one of the biggest reasons for startup failure, and not using the right marketing channel plays a significant role in that. Many business owners still can’t figure out how to choose the right social media platform for their business.

But if you choose the right social media platforms for your business, you can potentially convert most of your audience into loyal customers. As most of the global population uses social media,

If you are also a small business owner and about to start social media marketing (SMM), this blog is for you.

Here, we will discuss why you should have a social media presence, strategies to choose a social media platform, and an overview of social media platforms. So you can start winning customers using SMM.

Why Choose The Right Social Media Platform For A Small Business

Saves Resources

A few years ago, the marketing process was very time-consuming, and businesses had to spend a lot of resources on advertising. But it has all changed with social media. You can promote your business with a few clicks.

But for a small business, choosing the right social media platforms is crucial. To avoid draining resources.

For instance, to promote a gaming business, one has to use platforms like TikTok and Instagram (where most teenagers and young adults are active) instead of LinkedIn, where people generally look for businesses or jobs.

Another example of saving resources is using an effective Instagram marketing strategy that uses UGC (user-generated content) and saves a lot of resources that may have gone into producing original content.

By choosing the right platform, you can save significant time and resources that you can utilize to grow your small business.

Interaction With The Right Audience

If you are in the service sector, you are aware that selling services is more challenging than product marketing. One of these challenges is the inability to find and interact with the right audience.

Traditional methods of marketing, like hoardings and TV ads, don’t allow for multiple customer interactions. However, with the right social media platforms, you can directly interact and book clients on social media. 

For instance, the targeted audience for a home service business like carpet cleaning is homeowners who are in their 40s and 50s. If such businesses try to attract customers on social media platforms like Instagram where the users are mostly teenagers and young adults their posts wouldn’t get desired reach and engagement here are some top brands using Instagram Reels.

Another example is, if business owners want to appeal to a female audience, they can build an attractive business profile on Pinterest and market there as it has a higher number of female users.

Higher Lead And Conversion Rate

As a small business owner, you are always on the lookout for ways to increase your customer base. A strong social media marketing software strategy on the right platform can help you convert and book clients on social media

Sharing pictures, videos, and posts on social media increases the visibility of your brand on social media. But you can convert them only if your posts are visible to your targeted audience; otherwise, you may end up wasting your time and money.

For example, if the business that provides tile cleaning services advertised its services on Instagram, Instagram users will scroll past the ad without interacting with it because such an ad is unsuitable for a platform like Instagram, which is mostly used by people in their 20s and 30s. But if the same business posts the ad on LinkedIn or Twitter, it will get a greater response. On the flip side, if you sell engagement ring insurance, you’ll want to choose a social media platform that is visually appealing to allow you to convey your services with ease.This approach highlights the beauty and value of engagement rings, making the need for insurance more relatable to your audience.

Networking And Partnership

In business marketing, only advertising to your customers is not enough to make your brand stand out. If you don’t collaborate with other businesses, your business will stall, and that will affect any potential chance of gaining new customers.

But don’t worry, if you know what SMM is and how you can use it correctly, by choosing the right social networking, you can build lasting partnerships with the businesses within your niche, for example, if you run an SEO software agency you can collaborate with copywriters and graphic designers to put out the most optimized content. Social media platforms like LinkedIn and Instagram are the best places for partner marketing. 

Strategies To Choose The Right Social Media Marketing Platform

Consider The Goals Of Your Business

We know that the main aim of marketing any business is to increase sales. But to get there, as a small business owner, you will need a set of goals to meet your specific business requirements. Before choosing the right social media platform to advertise, you should know the desired outcomes.

For instance, consider a new carpet cleaning business. The goal should be to make customers aware of the business through social media platforms by posting pictures and short videos of your cleaning methods. And for an older carpet cleaning brand, the goal would be customer retention.

Some common goals for a business are:

  • Improve Brand Awareness: Choose a social media platform that will improve the brand awareness of your business.
  • Generate Leads: With the right social media channel, you can generate high-quality leads that you can convert into potential customers to increase your revenue.
  • Increase Web Traffic: A good social media platform will redirect all the traffic to your web page.
  • Acquire New Customers: The right social media platform can help you expand your business. By helping you get new customers.
  • Improve Customer Value: Choosing a social media platform where you can build a community will keep customers loyal to your brand.

Know Where Your Audiences Are Most Active

The total number of users of a social platform doesn’t matter; if your targeted audience is not on that platform, it is not a good choice for your business. Knowing where your audience is the most active is the key to an effective social media marketing strategy.

For instance, the targeted audience for house landscaping services will be high-income families with large houses and gardens who are more likely to be on Facebook. While the targeted audience for the game truck business will be teenagers and young adults who are more active on newer channels like TikTok or Instagram,

Before you choose the right social media platform, you need to define your target audience. The target audience is the people who will be most interested in your product or service. After knowing your targeted audience, you can study the statistics of different social media platforms to know where your audience is most active.

Know Where Your Competitors Are

By keeping track of the platforms where your competitors are advertising their content, you can get an idea of which social media channels you should use.

You can perform a useful competitor analysis using Social media platforms, as they can help you

  • Understand the benchmarks for your business, such as engagement, average followers, and how many people are talking about your brand. 
  • Know the best times to post to get the most results
  • Gain an understanding of how to approach your targeted audience (formally or casually)
  • Learn how to make your brand stand out from the competition.

If your competitor is getting good reception on a social media platform, chances are you will too. You can use social media competitor analysis tools like Semrush and Sprout Social to monitor your competitor’s activities.

Consider The Industry You Are In

The popularity of social media channels varies according to industry. And though Facebook and Instagram have the most users, They may not be popular choices for every industry. To know the industry benchmarks of different social media platforms for your industry, check out the data provided by Social Insider.

According to the social sprout index, there is a discrepancy between the social media platforms consumers use and where they follow a brand.

Choosing a social media channel according to your industry will help you narrow down the options and optimize your advertising strategy.

Constantly Measure Results  And Change Accordingly.

Once you have decided to use a social media platform for your business, you should monitor it constantly to ensure that you are getting the desired results.

A good way to analyze your social media activities is to see where your content is performing well and which content is performing well. Social media monitoring tools can help you analyze different stats of social media platforms in one place. 

Using marketing tools such as insights, you can measure the performance of your business by metrics like reach to see how many non-followers saw your post. The interactions (likes, comments, and shares) your posts are getting, how many of your CTAs (calls to action) are getting clicked, and what are the responses to your posts by the users

You can use social media marketing tools by mentioning the hashtags used in your content and keeping up to date with the latest trends. The marketing tools will allow you to see the performance of your content across different social media platforms, along with mentions and the demographics of the targeted audience.When it comes to demographic data, not all social media platforms give these audience insights as a part of owned analytics. For example, Instagram provides community demographics for business accounts that are not private. Conversely, X doesn't provide Twitter follower demographics as a part of its own Twitter analytics dashboard. Fortunately, there are social media analytics tools that give demographic data about the geolocation of followers, the languages they speak, their gender, their interests, and most importantly, the time when they're online.

Overview Of Social Media Platforms You Should Consider For Your Business 

Why Choose Facebook?

With close to 2 billion users, Facebook has been the most popular social media platform since it started in 2004. Most social media users have an account on Facebook. Because of this, Facebook is a popular spot for social media marketing.

Pros: It is easy to create a business account on Facebook, and it can reach a large number of people, so you can convert your followers into loyal customers. 

Facebook is also an excellent platform where you can build customer loyalty. Facebook also has advanced advertising tools that you can use to create high-converting Facebook ad copy.

Cons: However, Facebook has some drawbacks, the biggest of which is that you have to keep your audience constantly engaged, and to do that, you need to have a dedicated social media manager to handle your Facebook account. Also, it is hard to increase your reach with Facebook as it is a vast platform and your content stays confined within your network.

You can market on Facebook if your business goal is; to stay engaged with a loyal customer base. But if you want to acquire new clients, you should be looking elsewhere.

Why Choose Twitter?

Twitter is the social media platform used by both small and large businesses. With close to  240 million monthly active users, Twitter is the platform that brands use to keep their customers updated.

Pros: Twitter is the most accessible social media platform. With Twitter, you can be concise, engaging, and informative in just one tweet. It is also an excellent platform for building brand awareness. 

You can keep an eye out for what’s trending due to the use of hashtags. You can also align your tweets with the latest trends to contribute to the conversation.

Also, the CPM (cost per thousand impressions) of Twitter is the lowest of all major social media channels, which makes it a budget-friendly option for small businesses.

Cons: The biggest drawback of Twitter is that you only have 280 characters to work with. And it may limit the interactions you can have with your audience. Also, Twitter posts the content on social media chronologically, which may lead to some users missing out on your content.

But recently, Twitter has also expanded to include a community with the new tools Twitter Communities and Twitter Moments to share interesting content with your followers. 

Why Choose Instagram?

After Facebook, Instagram is the most popular social media platform used by marketers, with 79% of them using it for marketing purposes. As most Instagram users are in the range of 18–35, it is the ideal social media platform to target young demographics. 

Pros: Short-form content performs well on Instagram. You can create a lot of buzz on this platform if you are capable of publishing high-quality pictures and videos. 

Using Instagram features like reels and stories can help you market your business more efficiently. Also, You can repost Instagram posts on Facebook and Twitter to garner extra attention.

Cons: The drawbacks of Instagram are that to market on Instagram, you need to be tech-savvy and trendy to match the audience. Also, Instagram doesn’t have a feature apart from captions where you can describe your product or service in detail. Businesses like home services are at a disadvantage on Instagram. While technology, food, and entertainment businesses tend to do well on this platform,

To trend on Instagram, you must have the ability to present your content in a creative and aesthetically pleasing way. If you can do that, Instagram is the place for you.

Why Choose Linkedin?

LinkedIn is a unique social platform, as it is the only one on which you can connect with people on a professional level. It is a great place for businesses that want to grow their network. 

Pros: Apart from being the best place for B2B connections,LinkedIn is also the best place for networking for your business.For small businesses, LinkedIn provides the best opportunities to generate new leads via ads, LinkedIn carousels, and your contribution to important discussions in the field.

Moreover, it is a great place to stay up-to-date with your competition by monitoring their strategies. The LinkedIn Analytics tool provides a great platform to monitor metrics like reach, impressions, and engagement of your brand with the customers.

Cons: On the downside, LinkedIn is a platform used by professionals. So, users are less active on it as compared to other social media platforms. Also, interactions on LinkedIn are limited by its formal overtone.

But if you are a business owner keen on making new connections and staying on top of your competition, LinkedIn is a useful social media platform for you.

Why Choose Pinterest?

Pinterest is a great place for visual inspiration and creative DIYs. But it is also a social media platform that is gaining popularity among marketers. On Pinterest, about 85% of users make purchases based on pins from brands!

Pros: Building an attractive business profile on Pinterest and linking your pins with your web page will increase traffic to your website and generate new leads and revenue. 

Pinterest is also a search engine for image results. Therefore, by optimizing your profile with SEO, you can make your business stand out.

Cons: Because Pinterest is a visual platform, you need to invest in strong graphics to keep users engaged with your content. Moreover, you need to post more frequently to get noticed on Pinterest, which is difficult and costly to automate.

If you want to dive into Pinterest marketing, there is a lot of scope for success. However, Pinterest marketing requires patience and creativity. If you have them, you are good to go.

Why Choose Tiktok?

TikTok is the latest trending app, and with about 755 million users, it is gaining traction with Gen Z and younger demographics. It has become popular due to its viral videos and the opportunity to boost your presence through Tiktok likes. But if used correctly, Tiktok can be an excellent social media platform for advertising.

Pros: Tiktok has a vast user base consisting mostly of Gen Z and younger millennials. They also interact with it more frequently compared to other social media platforms. Which means you have a greater chance of advertising your business to them.

Another benefit of Tiktok is the increased chance of exposure due to Tiktok's ‘for you’ page, which puts your content into the spotlight even if a user is not following you. TikTok also gives the audience more chances to engage with your content by providing features that encourage engagement.

Cons: However, like Pinterest and Instagram, Tiktok is limited by its short video content format, which can take a long time to produce and is also resource-intensive. Advertising on TikTok is also expensive, as in-feed ad plans start at $50. Due to such a high cost, you should think carefully before allotting your ad budget.

TikTok is an excellent app for producing creative content for customer engagement and building brand awareness. But if you are a small business with a limited budget, Tiktok may not be the right choice for you.

Although TikTok provides unrivaled access to a large and active audience—particularly among Gen Z and younger millennials—there are important things to think about before entering its advertising space. Navigating the site has inherent obstacles in addition to its popularity and the chance for your content to shine on the 'for you' page.

One significant obstacle is the short video-centric nature of TikTok. It takes time and resources to create powerful and captivating content within these limitations. The production process can be resource- and time-intensive, which could provide problems for companies with constrained bandwidth.

Furthermore, one important consideration is the expense of TikTok advertising. For in-feed ad programs, which start at $50, it's important to consider your budgetary limits in addition to the possible return on investment. For tiny companies with little funding, this could be a crucial factor to take into account.

But in spite of these difficulties, TikTok is still a major force in promoting originality, user interaction, and brand recognition. TikTok should be carefully considered in relation to your complete marketing plan once you have taken the time to consider your budget, creative talents, and company goals. Knowing the subtleties of each social media platform is crucial when it comes to social media advertising since it guarantees that your efforts are not only noticeable but also strategically matched with your company goals.

 

Bottom Line

Small businesses can benefit from improving their social media marketing strategy by choosing the right social media platforms to market and advertise. 

After taking into account the needs of your business and all the pros and cons of various social media platforms, you should choose a social media channel that meets your requirements and can benefit your company for years to come.

Explore TechImply Featured Coverage

Get insights on the topics that matter most to you through our comprehensive research articles & informative blogs.