The Best Social Media Platforms for Your Business

You’ve probably heard your business needs to be on social media and have likely seen other companies thrive from their online presence. However, navigating the social media landscape can be daunting, especially if you’re not a regular user. New social media platforms are still popping up, and the existing ones are constantly changing and fighting for relevance.

While being present on every platform is possible, it’s often not an efficient use of time and resources. To maximize your business’s social media efforts, consider where your audience spends time and which platform(s) will best support your business goals.

Read on for insights into aligning your business goals with social platforms, what each major platform does best, how they can complement each other, picking the right platforms for your business, and getting the most out of your social media efforts.

Because a business’s customers are rarely all in one place, there are many benefits to varying the approach to reach them. Some of the benefits include:

• Expanded reach: By leveraging multiple channels such as social media, SEO, and email, in addition to more traditional marketing avenues, companies can significantly expand their reach, engage with a broader audience, and maximize their chances of reaching potential customers at various stages of the buyer’s journey.
• Less risk: Diversifying marketing efforts can mitigate risks associated with relying on a single marketing channel.
• Stronger messaging: Multichannel marketing allows businesses to reinforce their brand message consistently across different platforms, fostering brand recognition.
• More touch points: A presence on multiple platforms creates more opportunities for customers to interact with a company without redundant messaging.
• Increased interactions: Many modern consumer’s purchasing habits involve more than one channel, so by broadening marketing efforts, a business increases its chances of grabbing a potential customer’s attention.

While people may have some social media platforms that they prefer over others, there isn’t a natural hierarchy on which ones are better than others. Instead, each major platform fills a role in the digital landscape, offering strengths you can leverage.

Facebook boasts the most users of any social media platform, representing a wide variety of age groups and locations worldwide. This extensive reach makes it an invaluable tool for businesses aiming to connect with a broad audience.

While the organic reach of posts on the platform has decreased, its sophisticated targeting capabilities allow companies to tailor their advertising strategies to specific demographic segments, making it an excellent tool for those willing to spend money to reach their audiences.

Facebook also offers various tools for creating groups and events, which can enhance engagement and be used to build an online community around your business.

X, previously known as Twitter, is best known for its dynamic pace and immediacy, positioning itself as the go-to platform for real-time conversations and engagement. Its simplistic layout is ideal for businesses that want to participate in current events and public discussions.

X serves as a critical channel for businesses to deliver timely customer service. The swift nature of tweets allows companies to respond to customer inquiries and concerns promptly, enhancing customer satisfaction and public perception.

Instagram thrives as a platform centered around visual storytelling, making it an exceptional tool for brands that want to communicate through compelling images and videos. Because of its visually driven format, it’s perfect for showcasing products to highlight their features and convey the lifestyle and values associated with them.

Particularly with younger audiences, the platform offers various ways to reach users with features like Stories, Reels, and IGTV. These features allow businesses to give users a peek behind the scenes and bring a human element to their brand.

Using this platform to collaborate with influencers who already have the trust and attention of your target audience can also dramatically increase your reach and credibility. These influencers can naturally and authentically introduce your products or services to their followers, driving interest and conversions.

When it comes to B2B marketing, LinkedIn reigns supreme. From professional networking to establishing thought leadership, LinkedIn is an essential platform for companies looking to engage with other businesses and industry figures.

Businesses can significantly enhance their industry authority and credibility by sharing insightful articles, participating in group discussions, and posting company updates. Through targeted advertising and LinkedIn’s Sales Navigator, companies can directly reach decision-makers and influencers within their target industries to drive business-to-business engagements.

The platform’s recruiting tools are also an excellent tool for growing businesses. While posting job listings, you can also be proactive and search for candidates based on specific skills and experiences so your business connects with qualified professionals.

TikTok is an emerging platform for businesses seeking to engage digitally affluent and young audiences and use influencer marketing tactics. Its format is fantastic for storytelling, allowing businesses to craft compelling narratives around their products or services to create emotional connections with viewers.

The platform can be used to participate in viral trends and deliver educational content in an entertaining format, perfect for tutorials and how-to videos. Brands can also creatively introduce new products or features to a vast, engaged audience, using video’s visual and interactive nature to highlight key selling points.

When crafting your social media approach, finding effective platform combinations can significantly enhance your campaign’s reach and impact. Pairing Facebook with Instagram can be highly beneficial, as you can target younger and older demographics while driving visual and text-based content. Since they are both owned by Meta, you can also easily share content from one platform to the other.

X and LinkedIn are another strategic pairing, especially useful for businesses focused on B2B markets or those looking to establish thought leadership. Businesses can participate in real-time and ongoing discussions on each platform to demonstrate industry expertise.

If you want to incorporate long-form videos into your social strategy, use X and Facebook to share YouTube videos with wide audiences. You can also leverage those social media platforms to drive traffic to your YouTube channel.

Lastly, combining Instagram and TikTok can reach a wide range of younger audiences, emphasizing creative and engaging visual content. This approach allows businesses to showcase different facets of their brand personality—capitalizing on Instagram for polished, brand-centric visuals and TikTok for more dynamic, engaging content that often includes trends and challenges.

Now that you’ve determined your goals and know what each social media platform does best, it’s time to decide which platforms are best for your business. This can be achieved through a combination of steps, such as:

• Assessing your competition: If you’re unsure where to begin with your social media strategy, you can look towards your competitors to see where they’ve succeeded.
• Meet your audience: A good strategy should begin on the platforms your audience will most likely use. Are you a B2B business? Create a LinkedIn business profile and follow industry leaders. Does your business release new products? Get on Instagram and begin connecting with your potential community members.
• Evaluate content types: Match the content that best represents your brand and meets your audience’s expectations. If you have difficulty creating visually compelling posts, start by figuring out ways around that.
• Test and evaluate: Your strategy isn’t going to be perfect to start and likely won’t go viral on your first post, so try different posts out on a variety of platforms, discover what performs well, and adapt.

While choosing the correct platforms for your business is a crucial component of online success, many other factors go into creating a successful social media marketing campaign. From creating content to writing copy for posts, success in social media requires careful planning and execution.

Go beyond just posting content. Engaging with users who like and comment on your posts or are heavily involved in your industry is important. Sharing posts from leaders in your industry and community will help your business build a positive reputation and increase trust.

Don’t forget to incorporate your social media profiles with your website. Adding social media icons to the header and footer of your site can help increase traffic to your content. Also, linking your social media profiles and posts back to your website helps build branding cohesion and makes it easier for users to access the products and services in your posts.

Whether you’re just starting your venture into the world of social media or looking to improve your current presence, Stellaractive is here to help. Our team of marketing experts can help you elevate every aspect of your social media initiatives. Feel free to contact us or call 503-384-2413 to begin your journey towards a better social media presence.