You’ve got a business, so you need to post on all of the social media platforms, right? Wrong. In New Zealand, the four main social media platforms used are Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram (Social Media Stats). This doesn’t necessarily mean they should be your default platforms though. Picking the right social media platforms involves first understanding who your target audience is and identifying the platforms they use.
How to Choose Social Media Platforms for Your Business
You’ve probably got a go-to social media account where you go to catch up on what your friends and family are doing. It would be normal to think that you should have a business account on there too. The issue is though, your audience may use a completely different one! Of course, the far simplest way would be to ask your audience what they use. The problem is though when you are in the early stages of setting up a business, real customers are short on the ground. You could ask those in your target demographic though.
Assess Your Demographics
To make an informed social media decision, you will need to look at your audience’s demographics, including:
- Age
- Male or female
- Where they live
- Hobbies and interests
- Finances
- Education and career
- What content they like to see and share
Assess the Social Media Platforms Demographics
From here, you will need to choose platforms based upon your analysis of your target audience’s demographics and the types of user each platform tends to attract:
- Facebook – over 60% of all men and ¾ of all women over the age of 18 use Facebook. This tends to be an informative platform, used a lot for visual and text-based information.
- Instagram – most users are under 30 years old, and it’s reasonably evenly split between males and females. Instagram is a highly visual platform popular with artists and those selling products to consumers.
- Pinterest – a highly female-dominated platform, with 44% female and 16% male. Around 37% of all adults under the age of 50 use Pinterest regularly.
- LinkedIn – a business-orientated platform, users are evenly split between male and female. LinkedIn is mostly used for networking with other business owners and employees, making it great for B2B promotions.
- Twitter – a very American based social media platform, but one which is growing in usage by NZers. Slightly more men than women use it, and it is predominately text-based.
Get Started With Your Chosen Social Media Platforms
Your next step is to get started using your chosen platforms, and for that, we’ve got just the article for you. Our Beginners Guide to Social Media for Your Business will walk you through the benefits of using social media, developing a plan to use it and how to create content for it. What are you waiting for: get started now!