Whether you are a marketer looking to venture into social media marketing, or a business owner looking to set a mark on social media, it can be helpful to know the most popular social media sites around. Social media can help businesses develop a brand voice, view competition, and engage with customers. Using the right platform for your business can boost your visibility and sales and take your business to the next level.
90% of marketers have said that social media helped them increase exposure. This means that if you are not using social media to its fullest, you are missing out on a huge business opportunity.
However, getting started can get difficult, and something as simple as choosing a social platform can seem more complicated than you?d think. There are over 65 social media platforms out there to choose from, so choosing a channel for your business and creating a strategy can be daunting.
To make things easier for you, we have done some research and compiled information about the top 9 social media sites.
- Facebook
Facebook is the largest social media platform in the world with more than 2 billion people using the app regularly. According to the latest data, India has the most Facebook users with over 340 million active users. Considering this, it makes sense that it is at the top of our list.
You can find almost everyone on Facebook, provided they have access to internet facilities. This means that most of your customer base has a Facebook account which makes it a top social media site for businesses.
Despite the bad press Mark Zuckerberg has gotten over the last couple of years, in the third quarter of 2020, Facebook was reported to have earned $21.4 billion.
So it comes as no surprise that it is one of the best ways to find your target audience, build an email list and get new customers. It is also a great place to interact with your clients after you?ve caught their attention.
With Facebook, you can share behind-the-scenes of your company, new deals on your services, and more by just creating a simple page. Photos, contests, questions, videos and other short posts do exceptionally well on Facebook.
- Instagram
With over 1 billion users, Instagram is often called the younger cousin of Facebook.? This social media platform, owned by Meta, first exploded on the market as a result of its stunning photo filters. These days it also has features like IG Stories, Reels, Live and IGTV- which can prove to be excellent tools for business.
As a brand, you can have an Instagram business profile that will provide you with access to business features like analytics and insights into your posts and profile. You can also schedule Instagram posts using third-party tools.
Instagram has over 71% of users below the age of 35 and is an ideal place to engage with millennials and Gen Z. It has also proven to be effective in influencer marketing. Photos and short videos do exceptionally great on Instagram and it can also be integrated with your Facebook and Twitter accounts, so you have the option to use the same photos across multiple platforms.
- LinkedIn
In terms of professionalism, no social network can beat LinkedIn. It has a thriving community of working professionals and business owners who share and connect on a professional level. Due to this reason, its users tend to respond better to B2B content than B2C.
LinkedIn profiles are similar to resumes and instead of personal updates, professionals share content relevant to their careers or industry. So, it is a great place to discover people to collaborate with or to employ. In addition to this, you can also utilize LinkedIn advertising to reach your target audience.? People usually use LinkedIn to learn more about their industry, and look for new career opportunities, so it is likely that you can find business partners than new customers.
- Twitter
Twitter is a social media site for news, entertainment, sports, politics, and more. It has a strong emphasis on real-time information and entertainment. It is so popular that ?tweeting? has become as ubiquitous as ?googling?. It has over 336 million monthly active Twitters users.
Twitter is among the few social platforms that deliver both B2B and B2C brands. It is a great platform for reaching executives, freelancers, and consumer audiences.
It may not have the same broad audience as Facebook, but is one of the most accessible networks on the planet. The social media site is a great place to build an online following, for customer relations, advertising, and more.
- Snapchat
Snapchat is a multimedia messaging social media platform. With over 300 million monthly active users, it became popular because of its attractive filters. Instead of text messages, users communicate via video snippets and images. It also has a ton of tools to customize video messages, like emojis, stickers, filters, and a drawing tool. It also has a Stories medium which has since been spread to Instagram stories and Facebook stories.
If your target market is comprised of a younger demographic, it may be one of the most effective social media platforms for your business. Almost half of its users are aged under 24.
It also has advertising options where you can pay to have a linkable Snapchat in the Discovery section of Snapchat. Many big brands have used the social media site to grow their following and increase sales.
- YouTube
Founded in 2005, YouTube is one of the largest online video platforms in the world. With over 2 billion users streaming more than 1 billion hours of video every day, YouTube is overflowing with quality content from numerous creators and brands. The platform can be used by businesses interested in using the power of video marketing.
YouTube has a wide range of corporate and user-generated content from music to gaming videos, DIYs, and educational clips. It is often thought of as the second largest search engine after Google. For this reason, you should optimize your YouTube videos and channels to increase organic views. You can also grow your business with YouTube advertising.
- Pinterest
With over 291 million monthly active users, Pinterest is a great platform to share or ?pin? different visual content for other people to see. The content can vary from a food recipe to outfit ideas, which means almost every company can find at least part of their niche on this network.
Most of the users on Pinterest are millennials between the ages of 25 and 54. It is one of the best social media platforms to promote visual content and is especially helpful if you regularly maintain boards.
Pinterest also gives the option to pin images from your other social media platforms or from your blog/ website, which proves useful if you want to increase traffic to your blog/ website. Additionally, Pinterest also has some organic capabilities that are not there on other social platforms. Organic reach on a pin is determined by the number of keywords in your post and if they align with the user searches on Pinterest.
- WhatsApp
WhatsApp is a messaging application owned by Meta and has over 1.6 billion users. Originally it was a simple messaging app, which allowed users to communicate with their family and friends. Today, it also has many opportunities for business.
The app allows small business owners to set up a business profile on the platform which they can use for customer support, update customers about their purchases, and even make catalogs of their products. As your business grows, you can also upgrade to WhatsApp?s Business API to access more tools and features.
- Quora
With over 300 million monthly active users, Quora is a Q&A platform that allows its users to ask, answer and find information on virtually every topic and industry. It is quite a new addition to the social media scene but due to its ability to make it easy to target users based on topics, questions, and keywords, it performs well as a marketing platform.
Quora is a good way to look for questions related to your professional field, establish yourself as an authority, and link your content or services you have written or offer on the topics being discussed.
So that is a wrap on the top 9 social media sites that you can use for your business.
If you are still confused about which platform to use for your business or need help in managing your social media platforms, then reach out to us and schedule a meeting to discuss how we can help you.
At Hats-Off, we have a team of social media experts who know how to get the most from Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Quora and more.
With the power of social media, we can help your business grow like never before!
