How To Choose the Right Social Media Channel

Depending on the type of business you are running, selecting which social media channel(s) to use is vital to getting your product/service getting noticed by the right people. I briefly touched on this topic in my article How to Develop a Social Media Strategy, however today I am going to take a deeper look into the selection of the social media channel. In university, the first thing they will teach you in marketing is to identify your target market.  A target market is basically who you are trying to market your product to. To determine this, you need to determine whom the ideal person is to buy your product. Some of the things you should consider when looking into this are: age, gender, lifestyle, education, culture, geographic location, spending habits, disposable income, as well as many others demographic factors, geographic factors, psychographic factors, and behavioural factors. The factors you choose to analyze will vary from business to business.

So now we have a product and a target market, whats the next step in choosing the right social media channel? To reach your target market, you need to do some research into which social media apps they use the most. Unless your consumer is over the age of 85, you are most likely going to want to use social media of some kind to get in touch with your potential customers. As far as my research has gone, here is some brief insight on some of the top social media applications:

Instagram: 16-24 year olds dominate instagram. If you are a product marketing to teens or young adults, you want to be on instagram.

Facebook: if you want to reach an older demographic, facebook is your best bet (for social media platforms)

% of adults that use Facebook:

• 18-29: 82%
• 30-49: 79%
• 65+: 56%

Twitter: I heard one of my professors say that twitter is dying yesterday. To the average person, this may be true. However, if you are trying to reach a certain niche there are still millions of active users on twitter. Search topics that are related to your business, and if there are lots of results, start tweeting!

Statistics about twitter:

37% of twitter users are aged 18-29

25% of twitter users are 30-49

YouTube: Youtube’s main demographic is people aged 25-34. This is a great bet if you have skills in video marketing (or have the money to hire somebody to make a video for you). Things like How-to videos can also be a very effective way to get your name out there.

Snapchat: 45% of snapchat users are between ages 13-24. This is how you are going to reach today’s youth. Also, if you have an event going on purchasing a Snapchat filter can be a very effective marketing tool.

LinkedIn: age demographics are almost an even split; however it should be used in more of a professional setting. It is a human resources tool, and attracts many business professionals.

You are going to have to do some additional research to the material I have provided before you make any decisions, however this should be a great starting point into the start of your search. As I previously mentioned, there is an extremely good chance that your business should be using social media in some capacity, and with this article I hope you can make an informed decision and find success in whatever channel you pursue.

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