How to Choose which Social Media Platforms are Right for Your Business.

In this article:

It can feel sucky to have to think in generalisations, especially when we’re looking at our online audience, but unless you’re basing your ideal client avatar on someone you know well, we have to start with the generalisations to get to know our audience as individuals. This isn’t a snackable blog post, but it does give you the important steps you need to build/improve your own ICA.

(Don't want the detail, but just want an overview? Head to the end of this article for a TL,DR; version!)

Remember when Facebook was the go-to platform for everyone? We didn't have much choice, and honestly, it made it easy to know which social media site we needed to jump on. (Who misses being friends with Tom?! High five if you remember MySpace!) A social networking site was just that, your network.  Friends from school, your mum, and a few randoms you met along the way- just somewhere you used to share information and share which band you were listening to that day.

It's far more complex now, and whether we like it or loathe it, the use of social media has changed! 

Social media users now have SO many platforms to choose from, all of which have active users, (including some aligned spaces like Reddit and WhatsApp) with all the big platforms having millions of users worldwide. So, for brands, it goes far beyond looking at monthly active users. Social media use - the WAY your audience uses it, is important. We have much more work to do now looking at HOW our ideal client (or ICA) actually uses social media.

When I work with clients, the criteria for choosing social media platforms for their brands are directly linked to the work that we do on their ideal client avatar.

This is in-depth work and can take multiple meetings unpacking who they are as a business, and who they help.

However, once we have that research done, it will make the social media marketing and content creation much easier. We have a clearer path to developing their marketing strategy.

Part of that strategy is working out which social platform, or marketing channels like email or blogging, will suit the brand audience best. And it all starts with our understanding of the brand and their particular target audience.

I'm going to walk you through how we do this with clients, it's not a short answer 🙈, but stick with me, whether you offer a product or service, it will be worth the read!

Understanding Your Ideal Client Avatar: The Foundation of Social Media Marketing

When we start looking at the avatar of our clients, we are building the foundations of all our knowledge, and all our educated assumptions about them. At a surface level, we gain insights into the demographics of that ICA, but we then take it further and look into interests, behaviours, and pain points of the audience we want to reach. This foundational step ensures that our social media strategy is not only targeted but also effective in engaging the right people. We have to speak to the right people right?! 

When we do this with clients, we gather data through various methods such as surveys, interviews, and social media analytics. This information helps us paint a more detailed picture of our target audience. For instance, as you'd think, we consider factors like age, gender, income level, education, and location. However, beyond the basic demographics, we delve into psychographics - the crucial part that goes from mere facts, to what they actually FEEL about those facts. Understanding their values, lifestyle choices, and ultimately, what drives their purchasing decisions. It is from these building blocks we'll be able to analyse their lifestyle and motivations, and match up which popular social media platforms might be a good fit.

[I've broken building your avatar into five steps- if you'd like to download the free blueprint that shares all five, you can grab it here.]

Demography vs. Psychography: Your Audience Insights. Best Practice.

Understanding the nuances between demography and psychography is essential for putting together an effective strategy. They both give valuable insights, sure, but they serve different purposes and will give you different types of information about your target audience.

Demography refers to the general statistical characteristics of a population. 

This includes your quantifiable data, like age, gender- if appropriate, income level, education, marital status, occupation, and location. Demographic information helps us to understand the "who" part of their audience. For instance, a company launching a new product might analyse demographic data to identify which age groups (or income brackets) are most likely to buy their product. This type of analysis is particularly useful for segmenting large populations and starting to narrow down marketing efforts to specific groups. This basic demographic work means if you're ICA is located in America, you'd begin by looking at how Americans utilise social media, and how that differs to other large segments.

(Is this the be-all and end-all? No, it’s your start point. Yes it's generic and doesn't allow for individuality, but we start broad and work down as we go.)

Demographic insights can be obtained from various sources, including government databases, market research reports, Instagram polls, interviews (I know I know, these can feel awkward, but are SO helpful!) and surveys.

In essence, what they do is give a foundational understanding of the market and help you to identify potential customer segments. However, I've seen smaller brands stop there, but that is really only a single part of building out your ICA.

So while demographics can indicate the size and potential of a market, they don't really tell you the motivations, preferences, or behaviours that drive your ideal client's decisions. (And in turn, their preferences on social media sites and platforms.)

But when it comes to psychographics, they really do help you to look into the psychological aspects of consumer behaviour, and if you get this part right, they can help you create great connecting social media posts that will make them feel like you're speaking to only them!

What I am getting at, is understanding the values, attitudes, interests, lifestyles, and personalities of individuals. This is looking at them as emotional individuals, rather than a mass demographic. True social marketing if you will! This is the part where that data helps you to see how social media is used in their life, and what forms of social media might be a good fit.

To give you an example, let's say you have some demographics. A 60-year-old female lives in a house with her partner- her children have left home.

Those are demographics. The facts.

But if we look at psychographics, 

perhaps she is super fit, she goes to the gym, although her children have moved out she enjoys the freedom of space in her home, she feels energised. 

Or perhaps she doesn't feel too good these days, she goes to the gym but it's a chore. Her children have moved out and she's feeling the empty nest and misses the busy-ness that her home had.

Same demographics, totally different psychographics, and how you would market to each version would be very different. 

So while demography and psychography are both helpful, they are most effective when used together. Demographics can help identify the target audience, while psychographics provide a deeper understanding of their motivations and preferences.

The Power of Generational Marketing Strategies: Tailoring Your Message to Different Ages On Social Media

Nestled within 'demographics' is age. And 'psychographics' tell us how they feel about that age.

But generational marketing takes this further, and this is where we can get extra information about which social media platforms might be a good fit.

Within an age group, you'll of course find a variety of types of people, with differing views. However, each generation has been uniquely shaped by their shared experiences. Each generation has unique preferences, values, and communication styles that significantly influence their purchasing decisions, and these are due to the climate they grew up in. When we run social media management for our clients, this level of information is so helpful in creating culturally relevant content.

Using Demographics, Psychographics, and Generational Marketing Together to Identify How People Navigate Social Media Platforms

So how do we use all three in combination to get the answers of how we should be using social networking to help our brand awareness and reach our ideal client?

1. Demographics: Who They Are

We know that demographics provide broad information about your ideal client's age, gender, income level, education, location, and occupation. Each social media platform tends to attract a specific demographic group, making it easier to target your audience. This is what it might look like:

• Age:

  • Younger audiences (16–30) are more active on TikTok, Instagram, and Snapchat. Some of them are even completely disinterested in all platforms, only using it to communicate with family!

  • Millennials and Gen X (30–50) often prefer Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Of course, not exclusively. But we're trying to find trends and patterns to help us make business decisions.

  • Older generations (50+) may use Facebook and Pinterest more frequently, and of course, some of the boomers won't use it at all- for some, there is no social media app that they'll use!

• Gender:

  • Pinterest has a higher female user base, while channels like Reddit and YouTube tend to have a higher percentage of male users. (I want to acknowledge here that discussing gender in this way can feel insensitive, as gender, in my opinion, is not a binary concept. However, when looking at population-level data, you know, zooming out and looking at the data of millions, these general trends can provide useful insights to help us decide on platform choice.)

• Income and Education:

  • LinkedIn generally attracts professionals with higher income and education levels as its origins are a professional network. This has of course, morphed into a more diverse social networking platform, but the remnants of its original purpose still seem to linger.

  • Facebook and X serve a broader range of income and education levels, where the purpose has always been vibrant discussion and sharing of thoughts- microblogging if you will!

• Location:

  • Platforms like WhatsApp and Facebook are more popular in certain regions, while WeChat dominates in China.

2. Psychographics: Why They Act

Psychographics looks at interests, values, lifestyles, motivations, and behaviours - HOW they feel about their facts, which help you understand what drives your clients to engage online, and how they do it.

• Interests and Hobbies:

  • Visual and creative audiences may prefer Instagram or Pinterest. If their hobbies and interests are heavily covered by video content, then a video-first outlet like YouTube will also be favourable.

  • Tech-savvy users often gravitate toward Reddit or X (and potentially BlueSky or Mastodon) for news content and discussions. You'll also find that Reddit is a go-to platform for advice- it seems every topic is covered! So it can be one of several platforms that has potential for thought leadership.

• Values and Beliefs:

  • Socially conscious audiences might be less active on platforms like X, preferring to follow brands with strong values and thought leadership.

• Lifestyle:

  • Fitness enthusiasts, travellers, or foodies often use Instagram to share and consume content related to their passions, and these industries are heavily represented by creators on TikTok.

  • DIY and home improvement enthusiasts might be found on YouTube to see how to do a project, and on  Pinterest to save inspiring projects to come back to.

• Buying Behaviour:

  • Impulse buyers are more likely to engage with brands on Instagram and apps such as TikTok due to the visually appealing, short-form content- the fact that these platforms have such integrated ads every few videos shows that they see this, and is informing their marketing decisions too.

  • Research-driven buyers may prefer social networks like Facebook or LinkedIn, where they can read reviews and detailed information.

(Did I use AI to help me summarise this section?... you bet I did. Sometimes AI can be a wonderful tool in helping us uncover what social media participation our audience has, and I would highly recommend telling AI all you know about your audience, and seeing what it might suggest. 

Will it be correct? Who knows, it's just a language model after all, so do your due diligence and cross-check the info, but it references a lot of existing information that will help you analyse which of the various social media options might be right.)

Competitive Analysis: Identifying Opportunities and Avoiding Pitfalls In Social Marketing

Your competitors are already selling to your audience, and already present online. Social media allows us to examine where competitors are focusing their efforts, and whether it's social media, traditional advertising, or influencer partnerships, we can identify areas that may be oversaturated, as well as gaps that we can exploit. And in this case, it lets us see where they have the largest social media presence, and on the surface level, see how effective social is at connecting with their audience.

I know, we can't see their data, and someone with a large following can have no sales, so as always, this is an educated analysis. But social media helps us see which platforms they are putting their marketing budget behind, and which ones are perhaps less important to them.

Does it mean yours will be identical? No. But looking at social interaction and seeing how users create relationships with the brand is like a peek behind the curtain, that helps us when we use it with our demographic and psychographic analysis.

So how can we do this?

Mapping Competitor Presence:

Start by creating a comprehensive map of your competitors’ online and offline presence. This includes things like their website traffic, social media engagement, and customer interactions. Tools like SEMrush, Ahrefs, and surface-level social media analytics (manually counting likes for example to calculate engagement rate) can provide insights into their performance and strategies. Free tools like Social Blade can also be helpful. You're looking for patterns in their content, messaging, and customer engagement tactics. Social media today is less transparent than it used to be, with more actions being taken on 'dark social'- meaning DMs and off-platform sharing, so we can only see so much. But you'll be surprised what you can see when you start having a looksie!

Identifying Strengths and Weaknesses:

A SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) can be done for each major competitor. This will help you understand not only what they are doing great but also where they might not be doing so well. For example, if a competitor has a strong product offering but poor customer service, this might represent an opportunity for your brand to differentiate itself. If you're doing this for your own brand, I'm not suggesting this task to take hours, but even a look at their social channels from a user's perspective might be enough to start making some helpful observations. Are they successful on some platforms and not others for example?

Spotting Emerging Trends:

I'm not one to jump on a trend for the sake of it, but it is worth keeping an eye on industry news and emerging trends within your industry, in respect to what your competitors are acting on. Competitors may be early adopters of new technologies or marketing approaches that could give them an edge, which you might be able to learn from. If it's possible, attend industry conferences, subscribe to relevant publications, and join in with online chats, as this will also give you a chance to talk with others about their social media, and hear if they have insights about your audience.

Testing Your Presence:

We have to be social media scientists, testing our theories and seeing the fallout. I'm not suggesting throwing spaghetti at the wall, that's just a waste of good spaghetti, but once you have researched and theorised, and put a plan on paper, then you do have to test it out, and give it a decent amount of time to see what happens.

We can do all the analysis we want, choosing our platforms with care, but there comes that time when you have to just do it and see what happens!

You can run small-scale tests on the platforms where competitors are strong, and the other places you have identified as potential platforms. This could mean launching targeted ad campaigns, engaging in conversations, or experimenting with different content formats. 

Platform Selection: Matching the Right Tool to the Right Job

This is all well and good, but what if you have identified that your audience is on multiple platforms? And what about your own business goals- how does this help you use social as a marketing tool? 

We need to look at how your audience uses them differently, but also, how these online platforms actually help your business goals.

For example, perhaps they speak to Nan on Facebook, joining in a Facebook group about their local area, shopping on Pinterest, and looking up recipes on TikTok. Just because they are present on them all, doesn't mean you need to reach them on all the channels, and seeing how they use them differently can help.  

There are two ways I look at this,

firstly, I look at my competitors and their followers, and for any that have a public profile, I see if there are any clues as to how they use it. (Just because they follow a brand on TikTok doesn't mean they are reposting it!) Clues might be:

Likes, comments, shares... Are there particular types of content that gets the biggest response, and what types of topic are getting the love.

Timing- Are there days/times that seem more popular.

Are videos getting more traction or is text-based winning? Of course, we can't see the data behind the scenes, but we can draw some conclusions based on what we can see. Is it the whole picture? No, but it is part of the puzzle that we are putting together.

The second is looking at general data about the platforms, and consider how my brand might be able to use those channels:

Facebook: 

Personal connections, community building, and chatting in groups. It's great for reaching a broad demographic, especially older adults. We can look at using Facebook for community engagement, customer service, and targeted advertising. very much the Yellow Pages of the top social media sites!

Instagram:

Despite people being disenchanted with Instagram, people still love it because it is the most visual. Users often look for inspiration, lifestyle content, and behind-the-scenes glimpses. It's excellent for influencer marketing, despite TikTok coming along to push it off its perch!

X (formally Twitter):

If you want to know what people think right now about your favourite TV show, X (formerly Twitter) is your platform. Real-time updates and conversations are the bread and butter of X, and it's hugely popular for customer service, and for customers to get a quick response from brands. Brands can use it to establish thought leadership and for quick, snappy interactions with their audience.

(Worth noting (as of 2024), X has been on shaky ground on an ethical basis, and even though X is still in the top 10 social media platforms, many have been choosing not to support it any longer. Ad budgets pulled, and major brands and celebrities have closed accounts. They have chosen Threads and BlueSky as their alternatives- both of which the number of monthly active users is increasing.)

 LinkedIn:

The most professional network option out there, and is best for B2B marketing sharing industry insights. If thought leadership is one of your business goals, LinkedIn is a great option. Content here has been more formal and business-oriented, but that is beginning to shift and a more down-to-earth approach is being adopted by brands.

TikTok:

Initially known for dance trends, (I can hear you cringing from here!)  it has evolved, and it has had its glow up!

It now includes much more variety of content types, including educational material- perfect for your evergreen content. It's excellent for reaching younger audiences and showcasing personality through short-form video content. But don't rule it out for the older generations either, over 40s TikTok is going strong!

Pinterest: 

Though not strictly considered a social platform, many social media users will visit it as frequently. It's often used for planning and inspiration, particularly in areas like home decor, fashion, and DIY projects, but it's a powerful platform for driving traffic to e-commerce sites. Your audience isn't going to be using it for social news like popular social media sites like Facebook, but it generates a huge amount of website traffic and should be considered.

YouTube:

What I like to call the home of 'how to' content! YouTube is fab for long-form video content, tutorials, and in-depth explanations. It's widely used across different generations and can be powerful for building brand authority and providing value through informative content. They have also tried to bring a more real-time element to it with the advent of shorts.

Your Brand and Business Goals:

I've thrown a lot of information at you, but your brand has its own needs, goals, and content creation constraints and preferences, and that also needs to be taken into consideration. Here are some questions you can ask yourself that will help you refine those platform choices even further.

Content type:

Does your content align with the platform's primary format (e.g., images for Instagram, long-form videos for YouTube)?

Are you able to commit to creating the type of content it needs?

Business goals:

Does the platform offer features that align with your objectives (e.g., direct sales features, and lead generation tools)?

Resources:

Do you have the capacity to create and maintain a presence on this platform effectively?

Engagement style:

Does the platform's typical user behaviour match how you want to interact with your audience? If you hate real-time interaction and would rather schedule time in your diary to do it, then X is less likely to be a choice for you because it needs immediacy, but Facebook might be a better one, for example. 

Remember, it's often better to excel on a few well-chosen platforms than to spread yourself too thin across many. Sure, many of the big brands are on all the social media websites, but unless you have a full marketing team behind you, it's just not possible. By understanding how your audience uses different platforms, you can tailor your content and engagement, and choose which social media is also best for you.

Platform Capabilities: Making The Most Of Direct Messaging, Live Streaming, and Advertising In Your Social Media Presence

Lastly, (phew!) we then cross reference all of that audience work with platform-specific data, like

do we need solid direct messaging, (Threads currently (2024) doesn't have that, for example)

live stream capabilities,

optimised for video, (LinkedIn for example is doing more for video, but the platform itself isn't geared for video, not in the same way as YouTube for example)

advertising options,

 alignment of the platform with the brands' culture and values.

These platform capabilities play a crucial role in determining the most effective channels for our marketing strategy. These are some elements we might look at:

Direct messaging allows for personalised, one-on-one interactions with customers, which lets us build stronger relationships and providing immediate support. We might also what to choose more 'real-time' platforms like X to use as customer service. For example, I tweeted Walmart not so long ago, and they replied on the same day to my query. If you can be available for real-time customer service, then considering timing on platforms is helpful.

Live streaming also offers real-time engagement opportunities, perfect for product launches, Q&A sessions, or behind-the-scenes content that lets you actually connect in real-time and have conversations.

Advertising options provide targeted reach and visibility, helping to expand our audience and drive conversions, but each platform has different ads options, and not all of them will be right for you.

By thoroughly assessing, we can determine which platforms not only reach our target audience but also provide the tools necessary to engage them effectively, and also fit us as the creators too. This approach makes sure that our chosen channels align with our communication goals, content strategy, and overall brand objectives.

Ultimately, this sounds pretty long-winded, but it is really worth your time going through the process, as you'll really feel confident in your choices, and being able to go for it, once you have strategically chosen.

TL,DR;

If I had to boil it down to a checklist for you, it would be this:

1. Start with Your ICA:
• Demographics (who they are, the facts)
• Psychographics (how they think, what do they feel about those facts)
• Behavioral patterns (what they do)

2. Match Platforms to Your Audience (Generational markers):
• Gen Z ➡️ TikTok, Instagram
• Millennials ➡️ Instagram, LinkedIn
• Gen X ➡️ Facebook, LinkedIn
• Boomers ➡️ Facebook, Pinterest

3. Consider Platform Strengths:
• Facebook ➡️ Community building
• Instagram ➡️ Visual inspiration
• LinkedIn ➡️ Professional networking
• TikTok ➡️ Educational content
• Pinterest ➡️ Planning/shopping
• X ➡️ Real-time conversations

3. Needs of you and your brand:

- Focus on 1-2 platforms initially
- Align with your content strengths, prefer video? Text only?
- Consider your own time/resource/financial constraints

Want a deeper dive into building your social media strategy? You can grab my blueprint here to walk you through it: 

Alternatively, book in a call and we can have a chat about how we can do this for your brand. 🍵