According to a Nielsen Company report, the average American spends around 10 hours in front of a screen per day, and 20% of that time is spent on social media sites.
The reality is that brands can no longer ignore social media as it’s one of the most effective ways to create awareness of your brand, engage with your audience and increase your turnover.
With so many social networks to choose from, it can feel quite overwhelming. Most brands also have limited time available to dedicate to social media marketing so it’s important to be selective about the social media platforms that you decide to pursue.
Social media stats
According to Statista, Facebook is the most popular social media platform worldwide, followed by WhatsApp. In terms of overall growth, Twitter is lagging behind and when looking at engagement stats, Snapchat and Facebook are coming out on top this year.
Tips for choosing the right social network for your brand
While it might seem logical to choose the social media platforms with the highest number of members and engagement rates, these aren’t the only aspects to take into consideration.
Go where your audience is
As you start researching social media platforms, compare their stats to find out where your target audience spends most of their time online. Your time will be better spent on platforms where you know you’ll be able to reach users who are potentially in the market for what you have to offer.
Take your available resources into accountt
Who is going to be managing your social media accounts? If you don’t have someone available to dedicate a few hours every day to managing your social media profiles then it’s best to only sign up on one or two platforms that you know you have the time to be active on. Too many brands sign up on several social platforms but they’re only active once a week, which won’t make much of a impact in the long run.
Where do your strengths lie?
What does your team do best? If you don’t have the capabilities to create great videos, it might not be the best idea to create a YouTube channel. The same goes for platforms like Pinterest. If you can’t really take good photos and get creative with them, this probably isn’t the platform for you either.
