How to Choose the Best Social Media Networks for Business

Which social media is best for entrepreneurs?

What social media platforms are best for your business?

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I'm Simon Zaku and this blog post contains the necessary steps you can follow to ensure you select only the best social media platforms for your business. 

Over the years, I've tried dozens of social media networks, communities, and forums for my clients and my brand. A lot of businesses may jump to any social media platform without a plan.  

I’ve tried dozens of social media networks for businesses over the years and I will share my unique experience here.

How to Choose the Right Social Media Channel for Your Business - Step-by-Step

How do you choose a social media platform to market on?

What are 3 major factors that need to be considered when selecting the social media networks for your business?

1. App statistics and usage.

2. Content type.

3. How many social media accounts should your business have?

What is the first step for selecting the right social media platforms for business?

The first step is to know and understand the demographics of each social network on your radar.

Social media is a powerful marketing channel today.

With Facebook’s 3 billion users, X's (formerly Twitter's) 500 million, LinkedIn’s 900 million, and Instagram and TikTok's 1 billion active users, social media is a goldmine for business and marketing. 

According to research, users spent an average of two hours and 151 minutes per day on social media platforms (in 2022) which rose from 147 minutes in 2021.

That’s powerful, especially for businesses.

Let’s look at some of the top social media networks according to user demographics, usage, age, and other useful statistics.

And at the end of this post, I researched and included the 12 best social media channels for business today.

1: Understand Social Media Usage Statistics to Inform your Approach

Let’s look at the usage statistics from some of the top social media platforms for businesses; X (formerly Twitter), Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and TikTok.

Facebook Usage:

Facebook Demographics 2023:

• 44% of the population uses Facebook daily in the United Kingdom.
  

• The daily average user spends 23 minutes on Facebook.
  

• The age range is 25 to 34 is the most active on Facebook in the UK.
  

• The number of users aged 65+ has increased from 2019 to 2020 went up by 9%.
  

• 52% of Facebook users in the UK are women and 48% are men.
  

• Largest age group by usage: 25-34 (26.3%).
  

• Gender: 56% male, 44% female.
  

• Time spent per day on the platform: 38 minutes.

Facebook Marketing Statistics for Businesses:

• Over 200 million small businesses are on Facebook
  

• 75% of high-income earners are on Facebook
  

• The average Facebook Page posts 1.68 times daily
  

• More than 1 billion users message a business on Facebook weekly

Instagram Usage:

• Instagram has 1 billion monthly active users and 500+ million daily.
  

• Largest age group by usage: 25-34 (33.1%). 
  

• Gender: 51.4% females and 48.6% males
  

• While 36% of men and 44% of women use Instagram in the United States
  

• Average time spent: 29 minutes per day on the app

Instagram Marketing Statistics for Businesses:

• 35% of users surveyed will purchase Instagram
  

• Users aged 16 to 24 prefer Instagram to any other social media platforms
  

• India has more Instagram users than any other country
  

• Instagram business accounts grow their followers by 0.98% each month on average
  

• Instagram business accounts post 1.71 feed posts daily

X (formerly Twitter) Usage:

• Twitter has 187 million daily active users
  

• Largest age group by usage: 30-49 (44%)
  

• Gender: 62.9% of Twitter users are male while around 37% are female
  

• Average time spent per session: 3.53 minutes

Twitter's Marketing Statistics for Businesses:

• According to X, a 10% increase in Twitter Spaces discussion rooms has resulted in a 3% increase in overall sales.
  

• 40% of users purchase after coming across it on Twitter.
  

• The United States amounts to 25.47% of Twitter’s traffic
  

• 79% of marketers use Twitter Spaces
  

• Using 1-2 hashtags can attract 21% more engagement on your tweets

LinkedIn Usage:

• LinkedIn has 738 million users as of 2021
  

• Largest age group by usage: 46-55
  

• Gender: 49% female, 51% male
  

• 63% of LinkedIn users access the platform monthly, and 22% weekly
  

• 70% of LinkedIn users live outside of the U.S

LinkedIn Marketing Statistics for Businesses:

• LinkedIn Ads attract a 33% increase in purchase intent for brands
  

• 89% of marketers use the platform to generate leads
  

• 62% of B2B marketers said LinkedIn generates leads for them
  

• Videos get 5 times more engagement on LinkedIn
  

• Live videos on LinkedIn get 24 times more engagements

Pinterest Usage:

• Pinterest has a total of 450 million monthly active users. 
  

• Largest age group by usage: 18 to 44
  

• Gender: 76.2% are female and 17.2% are male
  

• The platform has 23 million Gen Z users
  

• Time spent daily: 14.2 minutes
  

• 46% of adult women in the United States use Pinterest
  

Pinterest Marketing Statistics for Businesses:

• 50% of users in the United States shop on Pinterest
  

• Businesses can reach 8 million users through Pinterest Ads
  

• 45% of users in the U.S. have an income of over $100k annually
  

• 85% of users have purchased on Pinterest
  

• Pin Ads have a 32% higher ROAS (return on ad spend) than other social networks

YouTube Usage:

• YouTube has 2.70 billion active users
  

• 80 million users use YouTube's premium
  

• 52% of internet users use the platform at least once every month
  

• India accounts for 467 million YouTube users
  

• The United States follows with over 240 million users
  

• YouTube is banned in China, Eritrea, Iran, North Korea, Turkmenistan, and South Sudan

YouTube Marketing Statistics for Businesses:

• YouTube Ad revenue is $14 billion in 2023
  

• YouTube Shorts gets over 50 billion views daily
  

• Mr. Beast earned $54 million on YouTube in 2022.
  

• The platform is the second most popular in Influencer Marketing

Need to target a female audience? Try Pinterest; over 76% are females!

Need the male audience? Think LinkedIn; 51% are males.

Need to target marketers or the B2B space? Try Twitter and LinkedIn.

Gen Z audience? TikTok and Pinterest would be great.

You should carefully examine the usage, demographics, and business tools each platform offers. And how it can help your business grow.

2: Examining Platform's Content-Type

Moving to the next step, what type of content do you want to publish?

What type of content works in your industry?

What content type does my target audience resonate with the most?

Different Social Media Content According to Top Social Media Networks

Here are the content types most businesses publish on major social networks:

• Stories

• Polls

• Shorts

• Reels

• IGTV

• Articles 

• Infographics

• Podcasts

• Quotes

• Live streams

• Text images

• Short & Long Videos

• Tutorials

• Challenge or Giveaways

• Memes

• Behind the scenes (BTS)

• User-generated content

• Recipes

Select 5 content types your business should be publishing; or rather, your target customers consume daily. 

Here's how to figure out the best social media content type for your business...

Simply stalk your competition to see what they are doing. 

Find and list your top 10 competitors. These could include huge brands, personal brands, or startup businesses.

The next thing to do is to check and see what they’re doing on various social networks.

What social media networks are they publishing on?

What networks generate the most engagements for them?

Are they on TikTok? LinkedIn? Or in Facebook Groups?

Locate their social media pages and see what they’re publishing. You can then see what works in your industry. 

Are your competitors posting videos, articles, infographics, IG content, or snap stories?

These could also be live content, LinkedIn posts, or Twitter content. 

Notice which are frequently posted, and reposted and which attract engagements. 

This will also help you know which social media platforms to use.

Get the idea?

At this point, you have a list of your competitors and also have a list of the types of social media content that work for them.

What's next?

One question I often see in online forums is;

How many social media platforms should my business be on?

How Many Social Media Networks Should Your Business Start With? (2, 5 or 10?)

How many social media platforms should my business join? 

Should you create 1, 2, or 5 social media accounts for your business?

The last social media report by SocialMediaExaminer reveals that marketers spend an average of 6 hours weekly on X alone. 

Now think about having 3 or 5 social media networks!

You’d have to go on each platform daily to keep it up and get the results that you want but that’s wrong!

You may be considering automation but you can not automate every aspect of social media.

“I can just automate my posts on these platforms and won’t have to spend any much time on these networks”

CAN YOU AUTOMATE SOCIAL MEDIA ENGAGEMENTS?

Yes, some A-I tools promise this but I haven’t seen one that does engagements like a human.

Imagine sending the same replies to 10 different comments on your Instagram.

People might think your account is a bot!

I’ve seen brands go out of business this way.

Having to run multiple social media accounts isn’t a great idea especially when starting.

Rather, select 2-3 social media accounts and harness.

Ideally, 2 to 4 accounts on social networks are perfect for a start depending on the type and size of your business.

Finally, which social media platforms are best for marketing business?

12 Best Social Media Platforms for Marketing & Businesses

1. Facebook - 3 billion Monthly Active Users (MAU)

2. Instagram - 2 billion MAU

3. X (formerly Twitter) - 500 MAU

4. WhatsApp - 2 billion MAU

5. SnapChat - 500 million MAU

6. Reddit - 400 million MAU

7. TikTok - 1 billion MAU

8. YouTube - 2.5 billion MAU

9. Pinterest - 400 billion MAU

10. LinkedIn - 400 million MAU

11. Quora - 300 million MAU

12. Threads (Instagram's Twitter Alternative) - 23 million MAU

Download this list as a PDF file by clicking here.

Have any questions for me?

Best,

Simon Taki Zaku

Owner: https://simonzaku.com