Social Media Smackdown: The Ultimate Showdown of the Top 10 Platforms
Navigate the social media jungle with ease today.
Social Media Success Starts with the Right Platform
Social media has revolutionized the way businesses reach and engage with their target audience. But with so many social media platforms out there, how do you know which ones are best for your business? We’ve got you covered. In this guide, we’ll explore 10 of the most popular social media platforms and provide you with insights on which ones work best for businesses.
Combined with our tips for selecting the perfect social media platform, you’ll be on your way to designing a killer social media marketing plan that grows your business faster.
Facebook is the biggest social network on the planet, with almost 3 billion monthly active users. 66% of all Facebook users check out a local business Page at least once a week.
It goes without saying that you (regardless of the type of business you run) really need to be on Facebook in some form or another.
As a business, you can use Facebook to connect with customers, build brand awareness, and reach a wide audience. With features like Facebook Pages, Facebook Watch, Facebook Live, Facebook Stories, Facebook Groups, and Facebook Ads, businesses have a suite of powerful tools to promote their products or services to specific groups of people.
Take, for example, the “Instant Pot Community” Facebook Group started by the brand in 2015. This group has grown to 3.2 million followers and has created a supportive community that shares tips, recipes, and advice on how to use the Instant Pot. By fostering this community, Instant Pot has built a loyal fan base that continues to grow exponentially. When you create a Facebook Group for your business, you can do the same – connect with your customers and build a sense of belonging around your brand.
If you’re a clothing brand, starting a Facebook Page can be a great way to reach your target audience and showcase your products. With Facebook Ads, you can even target specific groups of people to promote your brand.
Take, for example, Nutella – a global brand with an active Facebook Page that uses it to promote its new products and engage with its audience. With a packed social media calendar full of promotions, holiday specials, and giveaways, Nutella has built a strong following and increased brand awareness.
If you own a clothing brand, you too can use Facebook to showcase your products and connect with your customers, using creative and engaging social media content to build a community around your brand
What's Facebook marketing?
Facebook marketing is the practice of promoting a business and brand on the world’s largest social network. By utilizing various Facebook marketing tactics, businesses can build brand awareness, grow their online following, generate leads, and sell more products or services.
Some of the most effective Facebook marketing tactics include organic text, photo, or video content, as well as paid, or “boosted,” text, photo, or video content.
- Additionally, Facebook Stories and Reels provide new and engaging ways to showcase content.
- Facebook ads offer a powerful way to target specific groups of people with unique targeting options and ad formats, including video ads, carousel ads, and sponsored content.
- Facebook Groups are a great way to build a community around your brand and engage with your customers in a more personal way.
- Contests and giveaways can also be used to engage and reward your followers.
- Facebook Messenger chatbots or auto-responders provide an easy way to answer customer questions and keep your followers engaged even when you’re not actively online.
- Influencer marketing campaigns can be used to leverage the following of influential people to promote your products or services and increase brand awareness.
TLDR: Your business needs to be on Facebook and you need to consider running Facebook ads.
Instagram has quickly become one of the most popular social media platforms, with over one billion active monthly users. As a visual platform, Instagram allows businesses to showcase their products and services in a visually appealing way. This is particularly useful for businesses in the fashion, beauty, and food industries.
In addition to Instagram posts and reels, businesses can also use Instagram stories to publish timely and in-the-moment content for their followers to view for up to 24 hours. This disappearing content format is great for polls, countdowns to product launches, behind-the-scenes glimpses, and time-sensitive announcements. For example, Shake Shack used Instagram stories to feature their limited White Truffle Menu, creating a sense of urgency and encouraging their followers to try it before it was gone.
Instagram with Facebook
As a part of the Meta family of apps, Instagram is integrated with Facebook, allowing businesses to use the Facebook Ads Manager to create and manage Instagram ad campaigns. This means that businesses can take advantage of Facebook’s robust ad targeting capabilities and reach their ideal audience on both platforms. Instagram business accounts can also link to their Facebook Page to cross-promote their content and gain more visibility.
Additionally, Instagram’s Direct Messages feature allows businesses to communicate with customers and leads directly, and with the integration of Facebook Messenger, businesses can now manage all their messages in one place. All in all, the integration of Instagram with Facebook provides businesses with even more opportunities to reach and engage with their target audience.
Instagram with WhatsApp
Instagram also has integration with WhatsApp, another popular messaging app owned by Facebook. Businesses can use WhatsApp to communicate directly with customers, and can easily link their Instagram account to their WhatsApp business account.
Not thought of as a ‘social media platform’ when it first launched, WhatsApp is now the go-to instant messaging platform for over 2 billion active monthly users, making it an ideal platform for businesses to connect with customers, provide support and share updates.
WhatsApp for Business is a relatively new feature that allows companies to showcase their products in detailed catalogs that link directly to ecommerce sites. This feature is highly effective for businesses running marketing campaigns as they can use the platform to send promotional offers, updates on new products, and exclusive deals.
The Financial Times is one such company that saw tremendous results when they trialed sending two free daily articles in their WhatsApp group in 2019, with more conversions than other social platforms. By using WhatsApp, businesses can increase customer satisfaction, loyalty, and achieve their marketing goals. It’s easy, it’s effective, and it works!
WhatsApp Groups
WhatsApp groups for business (not available in all countries) are a fantastic way to communicate with your customers or potential customers, share information, conduct focus groups, or stay updated with business trends. You can use the WhatsApp Business App or the WhatsApp Business Platform to create and manage groups for your business. You can create a WhatsApp community with up to 50 groups in addition to the announcement group. You can add up to 5,000 members to the community announcement group.
One example of a business successfully using WhatsApp groups is the Brazilian footwear company, Havaianas. They created a WhatsApp group for their employees, where they share important company news, updates, and training materials. The group also serves as a forum for employees to ask questions and collaborate with each other. By using WhatsApp, Havaianas has been able to improve communication and collaboration within their team, leading to better performance and higher employee satisfaction. The company has reported that the WhatsApp group has led to a 30% reduction in email traffic and a 20% increase in productivity
LinkedIn advertising
LinkedIn also offers advertising solutions, allowing businesses to target specific audiences based on job title, company size, and other demographics. This makes LinkedIn an effective platform for B2B marketing and recruitment.
LinkedIn Advertising is a powerful way to reach your target market, generate leads, increase brand awareness, or promote your events. LinkedIn Ads helps you create objective-based campaigns that align with your business goals and target over 850 million active professionals by job title, function, industry, and more. You can choose from various ad formats such as sponsored content, sponsored messaging, text ads, video ads, or dynamic ads.
To run a successful LinkedIn Ad campaign, you need to follow six simple steps:
- Choose your objective;
- Select your audience;
- Choose your ad format;
- Set your budget and schedule;
- Create your ad; and
- Measure and optimize your results.
You can use LinkedIn’s Campaign Manager tool to manage all aspects of your campaign, from creating ads to tracking performance metrics. LinkedIn also offers best practices, tips, and resources to help you optimize your campaign for maximum impact.
YouTube
With over 2 billion monthly active users, YouTube is the largest video-sharing platform in the world. It provides businesses with a powerful tool to create and share videos, promote their products or services, and increase brand awareness. YouTube is particularly effective for creating educational videos that can be longer in format than other social media platforms. By following the concept of “Infotainment,” businesses can educate while entertaining their audience.
For instance, JungleScout, a software company for Amazon sellers, uses video tutorials to showcase how to use their products and shares their expertise and strategies. This helps JungleScout to attract more customers and demonstrates the effectiveness of content marketing through videos.
YouTube Advertising
YouTube can be a highly effective platform for businesses to advertise their products or services – think of it as Facebook Video on steroids.
Here are some of the ways YouTube can help a business advertise successfully:
Reach a large audience: With over 2 billion monthly active users, YouTube offers businesses the opportunity to reach a massive audience. By creating engaging content and optimizing videos for search, businesses can reach new customers and build brand awareness.
Targeted advertising: YouTube allows businesses to target specific audiences based on factors such as demographics, interests, and search history. This means that businesses can deliver their ads to the people who are most likely to be interested in their products or services, resulting in higher conversion rates.
Video advertising formats: YouTube offers a range of video advertising formats to suit different goals and budgets. For example, businesses can use pre-roll ads that play before a video, mid-roll ads that play during a video, or display ads that appear next to a video.
Cost-effective: YouTube advertising can be a cost-effective way for businesses to reach their target audience. Unlike traditional advertising methods, businesses only pay for ads that are viewed or clicked on, so they can avoid wasted spend.
Analytics and optimization: YouTube provides businesses with detailed analytics that can help them optimize their advertising campaigns. By analyzing metrics such as views, engagement, and conversion rates, businesses can make data-driven decisions to improve the performance of their ads.
Overall, businesses can leverage YouTube’s massive reach, targeted advertising, and analytics to successfully promote their products or services to a large and engaged audience.
Partnerships with YouTubers & influencers
Partnering with influencers and YouTubers can be an effective way for businesses to promote their products or services on YouTube. Influencers and YouTubers have built a loyal following, and their followers trust their recommendations. By partnering with an influencer or YouTuber, businesses can tap into their audience and promote their products or services to a larger audience.
There are different ways businesses can partner with influencers and YouTubers on YouTube. One way is through sponsored content, where the influencer or YouTuber creates content featuring the business’s products or services in exchange for compensation. Another way is through affiliate marketing, where the influencer or YouTuber promotes the business’s products or services and receives a commission for any sales generated through their unique affiliate link.
It’s important for businesses to choose the right influencers or YouTubers to partner with based on their niche, audience, and values. The partnership should also be disclosed to the audience to maintain transparency and credibility. When done right, partnerships with influencers and YouTubers can help businesses reach new audiences, build brand awareness, and increase sales.
With Elon Musk’s high profile takeover of Twitter in 2022, Twitter’s reputational surge has been phenomenal. Twitter is a microblogging platform that allows users to share short messages, or “tweets,” with their followers. It has over 330 million monthly active users worldwide, making it a popular platform for businesses to connect with their target audience, promote their products and services, and build brand awareness.
You can include videos and photos as part of your tweet. Businesses can use Twitter to connect with customers, share updates and news, and engage with their followers in real-time to build stronger and more reliable relationships.
Twitter is a great platform to showcase your brand’s personality so make sure your tweets are funny and engaging as the main aim is not to sell to your customers, but to build relationships and optimize engagement. By including relevant keywords and hashtags, businesses can also improve their visibility in search results. Twitter is also a great platform for customer service, as businesses can quickly respond to customer inquiries and complaints and in the case of an airline, provide real-time updates on flight delays.
Twitter is also good for market research as you can easily run polls on what customers like and be able to adapt your catalogue for future planning. For example, Whole Foods Market regularly run polls on customers’ food preferences so as to better stock their inventory.
Twitter for advertising
Businesses are using Twitter in different ways today, especially after Musk’s takeover. And there are plenty of changes afoot around pricing, verified accounts, Twitter Blue etc so this continues to be an evolving space.
Some businesses have paused or suspended their paid advertising on Twitter, citing concerns over Musk’s plans for content moderation and his potential influence on the platform. These include companies such as General Motors, Volkswagen, Audi, Pfizer, and General Mills.
Other businesses have continued to use Twitter as a marketing tool, engaging with their customers, sharing their products or services, and creating brand awareness. Some examples are Netflix, Starbucks, Nike, and Airbnb.
- Netflix, which has over 11 million followers on Twitter. Netflix uses Twitter to share engaging content related to its shows and movies, such as trailers, memes, polls, quizzes, behind-the-scenes clips, and fan art. Netflix also interacts with its audience by replying to their tweets, retweeting their posts, and creating hashtags for popular shows.
- Starbucks has over 11 million followers on Twitter as well. Starbucks uses Twitter to promote its products and offers, such as seasonal drinks, rewards programs, gift cards, and delivery options. Starbucks also uses Twitter to showcase its social responsibility initiatives, such as supporting farmers, reducing waste, and donating meals. Starbucks also responds to customer feedback and questions on Twitter.
- Nike has over 8 million followers on Twitter. Nike uses Twitter to inspire its customers with motivational messages, stories of athletes, and tips for fitness and wellness. Nike also uses Twitter to launch new products and campaigns, such as the Air Max Day or the Equality campaign. Nike also encourages its customers to share their own stories and experiences with Nike products using hashtags like #JustDoIt or #NikeRunning.
Some tips for using Twitter for small business are:
- Pick three goals that align with your business objectives, such as increasing website traffic, generating leads, or improving customer satisfaction.
- Use social monitoring to find customers who are interested in your products or services, or who are talking about topics related to your industry.
- Take advantage of native Twitter media, such as photos, videos, GIFs, polls, and live streams, to showcase your products or services, share testimonials, or provide tips.
- Reuse and repurpose your content across different platforms and formats, such as blog posts, podcasts, newsletters, or webinars.
- Set aside time for content sourcing by following relevant accounts, using hashtags, joining Twitter chats, or creating lists.
- Decide on your brand voice that reflects your personality and values and resonates with your audience.
- Match your profile page to your goals by choosing a clear profile picture (preferably your logo), writing an engaging bio that highlights your value proposition and includes a call-to-action link (such as your website), and pinning a tweet that showcases your best offer or content.
TikTok
TikTok is the ultimate short-form video app that is ideal for showcasing your business and reaching a younger demographic. With videos up to 60 seconds long, TikTok is perfect for companies in the fashion, beauty, and entertainment industries to promote their products and build brand awareness in a fun and creative way.
TikTok has over 1.53 billion users as of 2023, out of which 1 billion are monthly active users. TikTok is used by 30.25% of the world’s internet users. According to Statista, as of January 2023, the United States had 113 million TikTok users, while Canada had 8.5 million users. The United States was the country with the largest TikTok audience by far.
Cognizant of the huge audience, Chipotle has fully embraced this plaatform by not only showcasing their delicious food but doing it in an entertaining way that engages their followers. They’ve cleverly leveraged the humor and nuances of TikTok users while also inviting users to share their own “hacks” which has created a tight-knit community and attracted new customers. Whether you’re trying to build brand awareness or just have some fun, TikTok is the perfect platform to do it on.
TikTok’s in-app shopping also allow businesses to connect its product catalog directly to its profile on the app and lets companies sell their goods directly on the app with a full checkout experience.
Even if your followers don’t like to make purchases on social media platforms or have longer buyer journeys, shopping features can allow you to tag products, add additional product info and drive traffic to your website. This is great for limited edition drops, e.g., announcing an exclusive product launch on social media and linking or tagging the product via your product catalog.
It is also possible to host livestream shopping, which has become a huge market in China. As TikTok gears up its shopping features, its rivals are taking a step back from their e-commerce efforts. Instagram removed its shop tab in January 2023, and more recently, the app has also announced the end of its live shopping features. Facebook also halted its live shopping feature in August of 2022. While Amazon had been experimenting with live shopping in different regions, YouTube released new live shopping features in May 2022. This includes letting two creators co-stream, which opens up a new world of collaborative live shopping experiences.
Pinterest is the perfect platform for businesses looking to promote their products and services in a visually stunning way. With 200 million monthly users, Pinterest offers businesses the opportunity to build brand awareness, increase website traffic and drive higher conversions through its “Pinterest Product Pins” based on keywords, interests, demographics and other criteria. The platform is especially popular among businesses in the fashion, home decor, interior design, travel, and food industries as it allows them to showcase their products in an appealing and creative way.
Take Ruggable, for example, who use Pinterest to showcase their machine-washable rugs and provide their followers with innovative home decor ideas. With its highly visual nature, Pinterest offers businesses a unique opportunity to attract and engage with their target audience through stunning imagery and innovative ideas.
Pinterest for businesses
Some of the benefits of using Pinterest for advertising are:
– Reaching a large and engaged audience that is looking for new products and ideas
– Driving traffic to your website or landing page
– Increasing brand awareness and loyalty
– Generating conversions such as sales, signups or subscriptions
– Measuring your performance with analytics tools
Snapchat
Snapchat is the short, temporary sharing app that’s all about staying in the moment – and for its 363 million daily active users, that’s a lot of moments. From sharing silly photos and videos with friends to keeping up with the latest news and events, Snapchat is the go-to platform for young people who want to stay connected in a fun and creative way. And for businesses looking to reach this youthful audience, Snapchat is an ideal platform to promote their products, build brand awareness, and engage with potential customers.
With 9 out of 10 young people on the platform, Snapchat is particularly popular among businesses in the fashion, beauty, and entertainment industries, where creativity and visual appeal are key. SHEIN, for example, uses Snapchat to showcase its trendy and affordable fast fashion items, connecting with its audience in a fun and authentic way. So if your business is looking to capture the attention of the next generation of consumers, Snapchat might just be the perfect platform to make a splash.
Snapchat for businesses
Businesses can use Snapchat for various purposes, such as:
– Promoting their account on other marketing channels
– Creating sponsored lenses, filters or geotags
– Letting social influencers take over their account
– Featuring user-generated content
– Offering discounts and promo codes
– Taking over another account
– Promoting a new product
Snapchat offers built-in business management tools, which can help businesses make data-driven decisions and continuously optimize their marketing strategy. For example, businesses can use Snapchat’s custom ad targeting tools to reach specific demographics and locations, as well as to retarget customers who have engaged with their brand in the past. The platform also provides analytics tools that can help businesses track their performance and measure their return on investment (ROI). Additionally, businesses can use Snapchat’s product catalog feature to showcase their products and create shoppable ads directly on the platform. By leveraging these tools, businesses can maximize their reach and engagement on Snapchat, and ultimately drive more sales and revenue.
There are many businesses that can benefit from using Snapchat, depending on their goals and target audience. Here are some examples of how different businesses use Snapchat:
– Casper, a mattress company, created a series of Snap ads that showed funny scenes of people pretending to be out at night while staying at home on their comfy beds.
– Netflix, a streaming service, created a lens that transformed users into characters from Stranger Things, a popular show on their platform.
– WOW Airlines, an airline company, ran a contest that offered Snapchat users a chance to travel the world for free if they documented their journey on Snapchat.
– Dunkin’ Donuts, a coffee and donut chain, created a filter that turned users into donuts with sprinkles for National Donut Day.
– Gatorade, a sports drink brand, created a lens that simulated pouring Gatorade over users’ heads after winning a game.
Reddit is like a buzzing hive of discussions and ideas where you can connect with potential customers, show off your industry expertise and build your brand. Businesses can use Reddit to connect with potential customers, engage with their audience, answer questions relating to your industry and/or product, offer your expertise and build brand awareness.
Reddit is a social media platform where users can join, create and participate in communities called subreddits that cover various topics of interest. Users can post, comment, vote and share content on Reddit¹².
Some statistics about Reddit usage are¹²³⁴:
– Reddit has over 430 million monthly active users and 52 million daily active users
– Reddit has more than 3.1 million subreddits, but only 138,000 of them are active
– r/announcements is the most popular subreddit, with 117.14 million users
– 25% of US adults use Reddit (imagine your business being exposed to this audience)
The tech and gaming industries love it, but it’s not the easiest platform for businesses to crack. Why? Because Reddit is all about community building and discussion, so blatant ads (or undeclared ads when spotted) are usually viewed as spam and downvoted into oblivion.
But don’t worry, you can still infiltrate Reddit by hosting an “Ask Me Anything” thread or participating in a subreddit discussion about your brand or industry. Just take a cue from Elon Musk, who used an AMA on r/space to promote the launch of SpaceX’s BFR rocket. And Microsoft also did something similar by engaging with gamers on /r/XboxOne through AMAs with game developers.
Reddit for businesses
Businesses can use Reddit to advertise by creating sponsored posts that appear on users’ feeds or on specific subreddits, create their own subreddit and building a community or by engaging with relevant communities as valuable contributors.
Some of the benefits of using Reddit for advertising are:
– Reaching a large and diverse audience that is highly engaged and knowledgeable
– Building trust and loyalty with potential customers who value authenticity and transparency
– Testing different types of creative and audiences to optimize your campaigns
– Measuring your performance with analytics tools
Reddit ads are sponsored posts that can appear on users’ feeds or on specific subreddits. They can include text, images, videos or links to external websites. Reddit ads can be targeted based on keywords, interests, subreddits, location, device and time of day.
Some examples of Reddit ads that have been successful are:
– Budweiser, a beer brand, tested paid native ads on a budget, using humor and pop culture references to appeal to Reddit users
– Toyota, a car brand, promoted a video about race cars on a race car subreddit, creating relevance and engagement with the audience
– Ally Bank, a financial institution, created promotional ads for PlayStation subreddits, offering discounts on games and consoles for opening an account
– Playstation, a gaming console brand, used Reddit ads to announce new releases and features, generating hype and anticipation among gamers
– Lemonade, an insurance company, used Reddit ads to educate users about their product and offer discounts for referrals
The Final Verdict: Which Social Media Platform Reigns Supreme for Your Business?
So, you’re now probably wondering which social media platform is the best fit for your business? Well, it all depends on your target audience, type of business, and marketing goals. And it could be possible that you have a presence on some or all of them, running different ads targeted at different demographics or products/services.
Generally, Facebook and Instagram are pretty universal options for businesses of all sizes, while LinkedIn is perfect for B2B businesses. TikTok and Snapchat are great choices for reaching a younger demographic, and Reddit is an excellent option for customer engagement with specific interests.
We hope this rundown of the 10 most popular social media platforms has been helpful in guiding you towards the right one for your business.
If you need further assistance with your social media marketing strategy, look no further than Grow Faster Marketing! Our team of experts is ready to help you achieve your growth goals through social media. Contact us today to learn more and take your business to the next level.