Did you know there are over 200 recognized social media sites on the internet? With a list that long, it can be hard to determine where your company's social media participation should take place.
Although some argue for the value of having as many social profiles as possible, the conventional wisdom of quality over quality holds true in the discussion of branded social media.
Rather than attempting to have a strong presence everywhere, it's advisable to participate on a select group of networks that will yield the most return for our efforts.
When we accept that we should focus on a handful sites rather than the whole spectrum, a second question arises. How do we pick the best ones?
Truthfully, it all kicks back to your buyer personas.
Buyer personas are fictional representations of your ideal customers used to dictate your Inbound strategy.
But don't get confused by the word fictional, because your persona information is not pulled out of thin air.
Rather, it's based on research you've conducted on past and current customers and information you've gathered about the people you'd most like to sell to.
Need a refresher on creating personas? Check out this list of key questions to ask when creating them.
If you're strategic in the way you craft your personas, finding the social network they frequent is relatively easy. This could be as simple as asking customers what social networks they enjoy the most, or having your sales team chat with leads about where they gather information (and noting and social network mentions).
But if you're just starting out, and you don't have much intel on your customers' habits, determining where to invest your social time is a little trickier.
Fortunately, the demographics of most well-known social media sites are public knowledge. Here's a quick rundown of the biggies. To see sources for this information, please visit the links at the bottom of this article:
- Facebook
- Largest demographic: Woman aged 18-29
- Surprise fact: most likely social network to be used by older adults
- Twitter
- Largest demographic: Adults aged 18-29, skewing high for urban living
- Surprise fact: The fastest growing demographic on Twitter is users age 55-64
- LinkedIn
- Largest demographic: Men aged 45-54 with post Baccalaureate education and household income of $150k+
- Surprise fact: 2 new users join LinkedIn every second
- Google+
- Largest demographic: Men under age 24 in technical occupations (developers, engineers, designers)
- Surprise fact: 44% of users report single relationship status
- Pinterest
- Largest demographic: women under age 50 with some college education
- Surprise fact: Average time on site is 16:40 (that's 2x average time spent on LinkedIn!)
Beyond gaining insight into the demographic information of each network, it's useful to understand the motivations users have on each network. Generally, they are as follows:
- Facebook: Personal socializing, gaming
- Twitter: Personal socializing, information discovery
- LinkedIn: Business purposes (networking, job searching, etc)
- Google+: Personal socializing, content sharing
- Pinterest: Shopping and idea gathering
With this knowledge, you can fine tune your communication to meet the goals of users on those networks.
For example, H&M is a fashion retail chain which we could reasonably argue targets the 30 and under demographic. Judging by their large mall and urban locations, we could also assume they're interested in reaching urban dwellers on social media.
With this in mind, it's no surprise we see them actively participating on Google+, as well as Facebook and Twitter. H&M uses their consumer-focused networks (Facebook, Google+, Twitter) to release general company information, share product images, and engage in discussions with customers.
Even though this is a B2C business, they haven't missed out on the opportunity to utilize LinkedIn. Although, it doesn't come as much of a shock that they're not sharing pictures of wedge sandals and bikini tops on that network.
As seen in the screenshot above, H&M utilizes LinkedIn for recruiting purposes, rather than product marketing and branding. This indicates that they have a firm understanding of the intents people have while using each network, and they're speaking effectively to those goals.
Because LinkedIn is a B2B social network, it makes sense that they'd change their communication to speak to that audience.
Interestingly enough, H&M does not have a Pinterest account at the time this article is being written. However, up until today they also had no eCommerce platform.
When assessing the main uses of Pinterest for online business (read: driving traffic to product pages), it makes sense that H&M wouldn't bother to set up an account when they had no means of tracking its effectiveness in generating in-store sales.
It remains to be seen whether they'll roll out a Pinterest page now that users are able to buy online!
In closing, the practice of choosing your social networks can really be boiled down to two questions:
- Where do my buyer personas socialize online?
- How do they participate on those social networks?
- What type of content will best suit their goals and expectations on those sites, while also proving valuable for my company?
What networks are you using to reach your audience? Which ones are getting the best response? Sometimes the process of social media marketing involves trial and error. Hang in there until you find the best fit, and you'll be rewarded with an engaged and profitable follower base! In the meantime, check out these other great articles for growing your social media presence:
Sources:
- https://www.businessinsider.com/strategic-social-media-statistics-2013-7
- https://sproutsocial.com/insights/2013/04/social-media-data-demographics/
- https://www.quantcast.com/linkedin.com
- https://mashable.com/2012/03/09/social-media-demographics/
Image credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/40493340@N00/8583949219