Wondering which social media platform is the best to use for your business?
You’re not alone: every business owner knows they need some sort of social media presence to elevate their business sales and remain relevant in today’s fast-paced market.
But without spending months – even years – immersing yourself in each platform, it’s hard to tell which one can give the best results. Every platform requires its own strategy.
Moreover, social media platforms are notoriously volatile: new platforms are cropping up all the time (such as TikTok) while others undergo significant changes from updates that completely revamp their capabilities.
We’ve brought together the A Firm growth specialists to breakdown each social media platform and create your new secret weapon.
Great For:
- Scaling your business marketing and sales strategy past performance ceilings
- Brand awareness
- Tapping into new audiences
Not So Good For:
- Marketing plans with small budgets
- Ads that do not feature professional graphic design, photos or copywriting
- Running ads on your own without professional help
Breakdown:
Facebook is arguably the most well known social media for advertising your business – and by far the most effective. When other forms of marketing reach limits because of competition, Facebook allows you to scale indefinitely. It also lets you to find new target audiences in forms of interest groups, and there’s no denying that the video & image elements are strongly compelling.
Unfortunately, Facebook can be a ruthless money sink: you can very quickly spend thousands of dollars with little to no results to show for it. This is why most businesses will opt for professional help.
Great For:
- Organically growing an engaged audience
- Projecting your brand voice, message and theme in an easy to understand manner
- Businesses that have a strong visual element to them: food, fitness, spas, wellness, coffee, etc
Not So Good For:
- Actionable results from day one
- Trackable Ecommerce sales
- Certain types of business, I.E. finance or cleaning and sanitisation.
Breakdown:
Instagram is a fantastic platform to engage your audience and grow it organically with regular posting. It is also a fantastic amplifier for businesses that are visually appealing. Over the years, while Facebook has somewhat declined in usership, Instagram has remained reliably strong.
However, it is a very rare case for a business to operate solely on Instagram. It is more of a platform for new customers to discover your business, rather than drive sales. Additionally, there are some businesses that simply don’t connect with audiences on Instagram: any business that cannot portray it’s product in a trendy, visually appealing way.
Youtube
Great For:
- Brands that want to tell a story behind their product
- Educating customers if your product or service is somewhat complicated
- Engaging audiences
Not So Good For:
- Acting as the primary sales driver for your product
- Reaching a large audience with your full message
- Growing your audience organically in a short period
Breakdown:
Video is an incredibly powerful tool to engage your audience: there’s no better way to communicate your point or brand ethos than video, especially if your product is complex. YouTube is also a fantastic way to add emotion to your ads and a professionally shot video can skyrocket sales when done right.
The immense amount of engagement that YouTube accumulates comes at a tradeoff, however: direct sales & conversions are typically lower than other platforms. Although YouTube operates under the same “interruption-based marketing” tactics as Facebook ads, audiences tend to skip ads much more than Facebook. This is because on Facebook someone might be mindlessly scrolling and an ad catches their eye; on YouTube however, the ad is directly blocking them from content they want to see – leading to annoyance.
TikTok
Great For:
- Tapping into – and experimenting with – new trends
- Reaching a younger audience
- If done correctly, your content has the chance to “go viral”
Not So Good For:
- “Traditional” ads that have not been refitted with an entirely new, contemporary strategy
- Lead generation or service based business
- Reliable results
Breakdown:
TikTok has created an uproar in the marketing world; it’s the newest kid on the digital block, and many marketers are convinced it holds extreme potential. As it is still relatively new, competition is very low and this means that identifying trends could lead to massive ROI for your business. Additionally, 77% of users under 21 years old said they prefer to do their shopping from TikTok influencers as opposed to Facebook.
This experimentation, however, comes with a cost. There are no established strategies on TikTok yet, and this means you could fail as much as you would succeed, with no clear reason as to why either happened. Plus, running ads on TikTok requires extremely up to date knowledge on trends, memes and content to work effectively – and these things go out of date in a matter of weeks.
A Final Note
Navigating the various platforms of social media can be difficult, but the worst part is it can consume all of your time if you let it. Marketing – whether digital or traditional – can also eat up significant amounts of your profits. Want to know how big of a marketing strategy you can afford? Get in touch with the A Firm today and we’ll get your finances sorted!