Social media marketing is an online marketing technique that involves creating and sharing contents on social media sites to attract potential customers.
It is considered as one of the most effective way of marketing, but some business owners wonder which are the best social media platforms to use. Check the infographic below for more information on what are some of the best social media platforms for your business.
Facebook.com
Though Mark Zuckerberg has gotten a lot of bad press over the last couple of years, there’s no denying that he built the (overall) best social media platform for business currently available.
In its third quarter of 2020, Facebook was reported to have earned $21.4 billion and a total of $78.9 billion from 12 months prior.
How is this platform generating so much income? Facebook ads.
Facebook has over 1 billion active users every day. So it’s no surprise that it’s become one of the best ways to find your target audience, build an email list, and get new customers. But that’s not all it’s good for.
It’s also a great place to interact with your clients once you’ve caught their attention. Many companies opt to create private groups on the platform where paying customers can join, interact, pose questions, and have a personalized experience with the brand.
And while Facebook’s user base has drastically slowed down over the last few years, there’s no question that it will remain one of the best social media platforms for your small business in 2020.
Bottom Line: Facebook is a tool that is right for just about any business. Though paid ads can become cumbersome and expensive, they’re totally optional. Your best bet is to have an active account to keep in touch and connect with users.
If you have the budget and time (not to mention the patience) you can look into exploring Facebook ads.
Use Facebook Pixels to Grow Your List
If you really want to take things to the next level, you can use Facebook’s tracking pixels to optimize your optin campaigns for super-fast growth.
Facebook’s ads work with an algorithm that constantly builds a more targeted audience for you. There are many factors involved, but one way you can help Facebook understand your audience is with a Facebook pixel.
These tracking pixels are put on your site. When a customer visits, the pixel will run in the background and determine if this user should see your Facebook ads at a later time.
But you can also add this feature to your optin campaigns, like popups.
Just imagine this scenario: A customer comes to your site and is looking through your content. At some point, you show them this campaign:
Your customer loves the lead magnet and decides to opt into your offer. But you’ve added a Facebook tracking pixel to this specific campaign, which means two things will now happen:
- You get a new contact on your mailing list
- Facebook knows to show this user your ads because they have a heightened interest in your business
Now each of your campaigns is working with Facebook to get you even more leads and sales.
Not only can you increase revenue through your email marketing efforts, but you’ll also see a larger ROI from your Facebook ads.
For more information, check out this helpful resource: Facebook Retargeting Ads Made Simple (& How to Install and Create a Facebook Pixel).
Number of monthly users: 350+ million
Demographics: Men and women, ages 18-49
Twitter gives its users a steady stream of information and new content from all over the Internet. It has millions of engaged users every month, and practically every brand in the world has an account to update its customers. This social network for businesses may not have the same broad audience as Facebook, but it’s easily one of the most accessible networks on the planet.
However, Twitter famously limits its users to messages of 280 characters or less.
That means you have to be concise, interesting, and informative all in one tweet, and that’s not easy. But when you do it correctly, people can favor or retweet what you’ve written so that you can appeal to a broader audience. Basically, when you want to expand brand awareness, Twitter is one of the best social media platforms.
Number of monthly users: 1+ billion
Demographics: Men and women, ages 18-64
Instagram is one of the youngest social networks out there, with a majority of users under 25. That makes it the perfect social network for brands or companies that target young, hip demographics. Photos and short videos with a small amount of text do exceptionally well on Instagram, and it also integrates with your Facebook and Twitter accounts so you can use the same photos across multiple platforms.
Instagram tends to have a bigger following in urban areas, meaning companies that focus on fashion or digital tech will usually do better than companies focused on agriculture or home-building. Although that’s not to say you still can’t find success if you’re not a young, trendy company — just that you’ll have to be little more creative with the photos you take.
A social media agency can help you with this challenge, and help you make the most of this social media site for businesses.
Number of monthly users: 450+ million
Demographics: Women, ages 18-64
Pinterest is a place to share (or “pin”) different visual content so that other people can see it. That can include everything from a scarf to an infographic, which means practically any company can find at least part of their niche on this social network. It’s one of the best social media platforms to promote new visual content you create, especially if you regularly maintain boards.
Use some graphic design magic to spruce up some statistics or other interesting, evergreen content that’ll continue to get pins and grow your brand awareness over time. This is especially helpful if your company makes a product or offers a service specifically for women — statistically, about 85% of Pinterest’s user base is female.
And if you don’t, you can still make Pinterest work for you. It has several hundred million users every month, and some of them are bound to be interested in what you have to offer.
Number of monthly users: 310+ million
Demographics: Men and women, ages 25-64
In terms of professionalism, no social network can beat LinkedIn. It’s a thriving community of workers and business owners who share and connect on a professional level, making it much more formal than other social media platforms. Because of that, its users tend to respond better to B2B content than B2C.
In general, that means companies that seek businesses as clients will have more success than companies that market directly to consumers. Decision-makers and influencers are all over LinkedIn, and if you can get your brand and message to them, you can get another sale.
YouTube
Number of monthly users: 2+ billion
Demographics: Men and women, ages 18-65 and older
YouTube is kind of a catch-all when it comes to content since so many people use it (it’s the second-largest search engine in the world after Google). Comedy and music both do well on YouTube, but that doesn’t mean you can’t use this social media platform for your business.
In fact, it’s just the opposite.
Product reviews, instructional videos, and similar kinds of content do exceptionally well on YouTube, especially when you’re educating part of your target market. Plus, once you make a video, it’ll start to show up in Google and YouTube search results, and you can promote it on your other social accounts. When your customers want to learn, you simply can’t beat YouTube.
Quora.com
When most people think of the best social media platforms for business, Quora isn’t one that comes directly to mind. But maybe it should.
Quora is a good way for you to look for questions in your professional field, establish yourself as an authority, and link to content you’ve written on the topics being discussed.
But be warned: just like Reddit, moderators are good at discerning between genuine contribution to a question and blatant self-advertising. The most successful responses are those that focus on the question rather than on your own business.
Bottom Line: There’s almost no reason not to try out Quora for a couple of months. Once you make an account, start searching for questions in your field that don’t have too many responses so they are more likely to be upvoted.
Be comprehensive in your answer and only provide links to your own work that directly helps answer the question. The best format for a Quora response is typically something like:
“Hey, great question! Here’s a ton of information to answer you [no links to your own work here]. Oh, and by the way, I wrote this article a while back which might be helpful [link to the article]. Have a great day and feel free to reach out if you have any questions.”
By using the basic template above, you can be sure to use Quora to drive more traffic to your site without being banned by the platform.
How to Use OptinMonster With Quora
One excellent way to use OptinMonster with Quora is to redirect traffic to high-converting landing pages.
That’s because people who are interested enough in your topic to search for questions on Quora are super warm leads.
If you can capture a user in the exact moment that they’re searching for an answer to their question (and if YOU are the best answer), then you can make the most of this moment by turning them into customers.
What’s the best (and easiest) way to do this?
You can create powerful exit-intent popups to recover people who abandon that landing page. This is important because most people don’t make a purchase on their first visit to your site.
Here’s a good example of an exit-intent popup for your landing pages:
If you captured their attention on Quora and brought them to your landing page, you have a high probability of adding them to your email list.
Then, you can nurture the relationship over time and gain a lifelong customer.
Don’t have a landing page? No worries. You can easily create professional landing pages with SeedProd:
SeedProd is by far the top landing page builder for WordPress. It comes with tons of templates out-of-the-box to save you hours of time and headaches in the design process.
And all customizations can be done with a drag and a drop. That means you don’t need to know any code to create high-converting landing pages in minutes.
SeedProd works with modern WordPress themes, and it’s lightweight so it won’t affect your site speed.
Facebook Messenger
While Facebook Messenger is a part of Facebook, you have to download the Facebook Messenger app separately from Facebook to use it.
It contains a few additional features outside of the ones mentioned above for Facebook!
Thus, Facebook Messenger is number 2 on our list of social media sites for business.
Facebook Messenger is an app that allows Facebook users to send direct messages to one another.
And lucky for you this functionality also extends to business pages!
Because Facebook Messenger is a part of Facebook, it has the same access to Facebook’s large user base and advertising platform.
You can definitely use this to your advantage!
Facebook has advertising campaigns that are specifically developed for Facebook Messenger.
When someone clicks on an ad, they will be prompted to start a Facebook Message with your business page.
And if they do, your business page can follow up with them in messages from that point on.
If your business model is more focused on lead generation as opposed to eCommerce or more immediate online conversions…
…then this may be a good option for your business!
Outside of using Facebook Messenger advertising, you can also set up automated messages for your business page.
This way, if someone messages your Facebook business page organically, Facebook Messenger will send an automated message back to them.
This is one that you have crafted.
Oftentimes, these automated messages say something as simple as, “Thank you for reaching out to us!”
Someone will respond back to you within 24 business hours. “Thank you and have a great day!”
Even a message as simple as that one helps build trust between your business and potential or existing customers.
Therefore bettering the chances of you making a buyer or repeat buyer out of them.
3. Instagram
Instagram comes very close behind Facebook and is number three on our list of social media sites for business.
Instagram is owned by the same person who owns Facebook and has 500 million daily active users.
Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, saw so much potential in the platform.
And the benefits of Instagram that he bought it out just 18 months after it launched for $1 billion, and the platform has continued to grow since.
Because Instagram is owned by Facebook, it has access to the same extensive user base and advertising platform just like the Facebook Messenger app does.
So Instagram has all of the same paid benefits as Facebook, but Instagram also has its own set of organic benefits.
When we use the term “organic,” we mean functions you can perform or results you can achieve without directly paying for them in advertising dollars.
On Facebook, you have to pay for advertising campaigns to grow your followers and increase the reach of your page and posts.
On Instagram, you can grow your followers organically and therefore grow the reach of your profile and posts organically as well!
This makes Instagram a great option for both businesses with and without an advertising budget.
Instagram is also a visual platform, as you can only publish posts that include photos and videos (as opposed to posting copy without a visual creative).
This works to your advantage as a business since people remember 80% of what they see as opposed to what they read or hear!
Conclusion
Social media networks have become a crucial part of any business marketing strategy. So, while LinkedIn might be an interesting place for corporate sales representatives to discuss sales figures, you probably already know that it’s not the best social network for entrepreneurs. Since there are so many popular social media platforms out there, choosing one to use is often difficult. If you’re building or growing your own brand, then Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest should probably be an integral part of your marketing campaign. However, the choice usually comes down to success vs. popularity.