FOMO – the Fear Of Missing Out. While most use this term to describe how they feel when they can’t go to an event or their friends make plans without them, it can also be used to describe how companies feel on social media. In today’s world, it seems like if you’re not on Tik Tok keeping up with the latest dance craze or trendy sound, you’re losing valuable customers. But is that true for all businesses?
When deciding which platform is best for your business, it’s important to keep in mind your own target audience and the general audience of the platform. If you’re trying to reach a younger demographic maybe Instagram and Tik Tok is the way to go. If you’re trying to expand a B2B business, then maybe LinkedIn is your sweet spot.
Audience is one of the many things to take into consideration when planning your social media outreach, here are some tips and tricks you can use to help you in your planning:
Facebook is without a doubt the first platform anyone thinks of when they think of social media. With 2.96 billion active monthly users and 23% of marketers using Facebook for advertising, it’s hard to find a reason not to be using it for your business.
Use Facebook if your goals are:
- To build a community and build loyalty
- To take advantage of additional sales channels that can meet the usage consumption habits of a part of your target audience
- To highlight your products and generate more sales
- To set up targeted marketing campaigns using the advertising network
Tips on how to accomplish these goals:
- Publish visual content, these are the types of content that have the most potential for sharing with video being the most shared type of content.
- Seek to create a reaction among users, thanks to short impactful, and even humorous messages
- Use Facebook’s visibility and targeting tools
- Use Facebook Live to create appointments and interact with the community
The “business cousin” of Facebook if you will, LinkedIn provides a way for professionals in all industries to connect with each other and directly with the businesses themselves. The platform currently has over 900 million users worldwide with over 58.4 million companies and 129,000 schools registered as of 2023.
Use LinkedIn if your goals are:
- To do commercial prospecting and develop your network
- To develop personal branding and employee advocacy
- To promote your activity and show your expertise in your field
- To increase the visibility of your company
- To share the life of the company and put your employees in the spotlight
- To monitor the media and the competition
Tips on how to accomplish these goals:
- Use hashtags in your posts – between 3 and 4 max. They should be adapted to your target audience and to the community’s interests
- Use visual content like images, videos, and PDFs in order to stand out and gain visibility
- Build your publications with the objective of creating engagement and comments
- Pay attention to your taglines – the first 3 lines catch the audience’s attention
- Identify the people involved in your publication – tag them and the companies in your posts
- Have a good frequency – several posts per week is ideal to stay top of mind
The photography-based social platform, Instagram, boasts over 2.35 billion users and over 500 million daily active users globally with those daily active users also accounting for Instagram Stories soaring above Snapchat with 500 million daily active users. On average people spend 29 minutes a day on Instagram (although if you look at my screen time it’s way more than that!).
Use Instagram if your goals are:
- To highlight your activity and create a universe around your visual identity
- To reach out to a younger demographic
- To promote your products
- To bond with your community
- To adopt an influencer marketing strategy
Tips on how to accomplish these goals:
- Build a strong visual identity and purpose by using quality photos
- Show authenticity and spontaneity by using Stories and Live features
- Study the most relevant hashtags and add them to your posts to gain visibility and be more easily found
- Organize a contest with prizes to increase your viral potential
- Study influencers and use them
TikTok
Reaching peak popularity during the pandemic and growing ever since, TikTok is holding strong with over 1.6 billion active users as of April 2023 and those users spend almost 2 hours on the platform each day. Coming in at the youngest demographic, a majority of TikTok’s users are between the ages of 19 to 29.
Use TikTok if your goals are:
- To propose challenges to bond with your community
- To get closer to your younger customers
- To create and share viral content
- To benefit from a very high engagement rate
- To offer creative and humorous content
- To humanize your company
Tips on how to accomplish these goals:
- TikTok offers a lot of effects, so take advantage of them to create quality videos
- Make contests – it is possible to offer gifts on the network to attract new members to your follower base
- Don’t be too serious, the social network is meant to be entertaining
- Follow the trends to gain virality especially popular music and hashtags to gain viral potential
- To interact with influencers
Written by: Elizabeth Conklin, Co-Founder & CEO
Sources:
https://www.demandsage.com/facebook-statistics/
https://www.demandsage.com/linkedin-statistics/
https://www.demandsage.com/instagram-statistics/
https://www.demandsage.com/tiktok-user-statistics/