Blog
Deciding which platforms are right for your business is all about really putting your target audience at the forefront of any choices you make. The key thing is sharing content where your ideal customer is hanging out! It really shouldn’t be influenced by where you have more followers, or which channel you personally prefer, although we know it can be easy to slip into posting more on your favourite!
So, kicking off with Twitter! Let’s put aside for one moment all the press and hype around whether Elon Musk will or won’t buy Twitter, and whether or not a lawsuit follows this. Twitter was established in 2006 and its short (240 characters) format has become a place for news, current affairs, debate, and so much more.
From a business perspective, Twitter can be a great way to be in the moment at events or to be able to add thought leadership to a trending topic.
Some businesses, that have a standout or well know leader, may have more followers than a company account, but for smaller businesses being heard on Twitter can be hard. Because so many of the threads are in real-time and there are 867 million tweets posted a day it’s not hard to see why. Research shows that during 2022 92% of firms tweeted more than once every day, 42% do it 1 to 5 times, and 19% tweet 6 to ten times.
So, if you have the resource and it’s the only place to really target your audience then invest time in Twitter and all that it can offer in terms of Spaces and the latest audio functionality. But if you are short on either of these, consider using it as a research and social listening tool, or when attending events.
YouTube
YouTube is often not seen as an obvious Social Media channel as people use it as a search engine, as they would do Google. But because it encourages interaction in the form of likes, comments, sharing and replying it is in theory ‘Social’!
YouTube was one of the first platforms to offer sponsorship and monetise its offering, but in recent years the move from long-form video to short-form video has meant it’s had some catching up to do! For businesses YouTube was seen as somewhere to host professional corporate videos, rather than the more informal short videos shared on Facebook or Instagram.
If you have a YouTube Channel already, have a look at the analytics and determine who your audience are. Are you making the most of tagging your videos so they can be found by people who don’t follow you?
As a place for uploading videos that can be found when people are searching it’s great to have a presence on YouTube, and it could be an effective way of generating more traffic to your website. But in terms of developing deeper relationships with your target audience, it is unlikely to pack as much of a punch as the other channels.
TikTok
TikTok is the new kid on the block when it comes to Social Media, and if you thought it was all people dancing and only had an audience of 13-18 year olds think again! It was the most downloaded App of 2021, which is a huge achievement.
When we discussed Instagram we shared that much of the changes they are making are in direct response to the success that TikTok is having. Short form video is where it’s all at. It’s engaging and informal, and because TikTok provides a scrolling feed offering up suggestions to users, people don’t have to follow you to be served your content.
The demographic for TikTok is developing and you know when Marks and Spencer’s and John Lewis have accounts there must be something in it. According to TikTok 1 in 4 users can’t be found on any other platform.
The audience breakdown for 2021 in the US (figures are shown to be similar for the UK too) are:
Ages 10-19 are 25% of users.
Ages 20-29 are 22.4% of users.
Ages 30-39 are 21.7% of users.
Ages 40-49 are 20.3% of users.
Ages 50+ are 11% of users.
We’ve heard of TikTok being referred to as the Wild West of the Social Media world. It can feel a bit like that for many that are considering using it, as it’s a quite different platform – but people are spending longer on it than many other platforms and the opportunity of being an early adopter is tempting for many.
If you haven’t read the first blog, head there to decide if the platforms you’re using currently are really the ones you should be investing precious time and money in, or if you would like to discuss what the options might be for you why not consider our Social Media Audit which help make that decision really clear.
