Top Social Media Sites For Business

As new social network platforms emerge almost overnight, you must be up to date to know the top social media sites for business and their primary targets. Often, we need to be present on every platform without first thinking if it even makes sense.

For that reason, we’ve created a short social media guide to provide an overview of the different platforms and help you decide which ones may be best for your brand. This guide is intended for those starting with limited time to be on every social media channel.

Social Media Statistics for Businesses

In research run in 2019 by Buffer, with 1800 marketers from companies of all sizes, 89.3% believe that social media is an essential piece of their overall company’s marketing strategy, and 73% say their efforts in social media marketing have been “somewhat” or “very effective” for their business.

Summarizing other findings of this research:

• 63.4% think paid social media advertising was “somewhat” or “very effective” for their businesses.
• 85% rely on third-party platforms to manage their business’s social media.
• 60.3% measure return on investment based on engagement (such as comment, like, and share), while 51% care more about traffic and 48% lead.
• Only 42.7% have explored live videos in the previous year.
• The five major platforms used were: Facebook (93.7%), Twitter (84.4%), Instagram (80.9%), LikedIn (70%), and YouTube (60.8%).

How to Choose From the Top Social Media Sites for Business?

Here we analyze 8 top social media sites for business to help you position your brand online for the right target and in the right way.

Here, we also dive into more niche platforms, including Pinterest, Tumblr, and Snapchat, to get the most out of your social media marketing and provide the right content for the right Social Media.

1) Facebook

Facebook has 2.32 billion active users, the most established social channel, and truly has a global reach. Unlike many social platforms, it’s a platform that keeps growing fast, even having an overwhelming user base.

Everyone is on the platform, and it is used primarily to keep in touch with your friends/network, share and discover content, and plan events. Brands mainly publish high-quality visual content (often an extension of brand campaigns) and use it as a form of customer service.

The types of content that work best on Facebook are high-quality imagery with a limited copy and high-quality short videos. Videos specifically have high engagement on Facebook.

You can take advantage of the lives with higher engagement due to their reach. Since Facebook wants to promote this tool, most of your followers receive notifications when you’re live.

Visual storytelling has been a very compelling and persuasive method of communication in this Social Network. It hits the emotional balance among children and adults. Therefore, Facebook is very strict about it, and all promoted posts pass through a rigorous evaluation in which they are not allowed to have more than 20% of text over the total image.

Due to its sheer user base, Facebook helps you achieve brand/campaign recognition, increase website traffic, and reach new audiences. With this goal, a targeting strategy is essential for succeeding here.

There are a few types of targeting options that Facebook provides, which can be vital to making the sale through your ad or not. Targeting refers to the kind of people you choose to see your ad, also known as your audience.

Facebook Audience

With the wrong audience, you won’t sell or convert very high. On the other hand, your conversion rates will be higher with the right audience, and your cost will be low. There are several articles developed to improve your brand’s presence on Facebook. Here you can check a step-by-step on how to write better content for your social media posts to improve your organic reach.

Companies usually aim to grow their fans on Facebook to show popularity and empowerment on Social Media. Still, few people know that the most used way to improve this social network is through promoted page likes, which can be very expensive, especially for those with low budgets or small companies.

ompexPosting with consistency and hosting giveaways are often great tactics to grow without ads. Growing organically is complex and requires a lot of dedication and time. The key performance indicators to look out for are: impressions, video views, click-through rates, likes, comments, and shares.

2) LinkedIn

Acquired by Microsoft in 2016, LinkedIn has 630 million users and 303 million active users; in the USA alone, the number is 177 million.

LinkedIn is a career and business social network. It’s usually for job search purposes and to find new leads.

People on LinkedIn post less often than on Facebook. The engagement is also lower. However, this can be a good thing since when people are not posting regularly, it opens the opportunity for increasing your reach in this social network.

There are some tricks to increase engagement and reach:

• Post as yourself and not your company
• Post directly without using apps such as Hootsuite
• Do not post external links
• Use hashtags
• Add an image
• And tag people in your post.

Another suitable way to increase reach is by posting an article. Since not many people are posting this kind of content, many professionals in your network will get a notification if you post one.

Contents are generally articles, images, and regular text posts. You will see fewer videos on LinkedIn, but they’ve been growing.

LinkedIn solutions for business

There are many ways you can use it for your business. The primary and most used approach is to find great candidates for your job openings. Although there are many other job boards, LinkedIn is considered to have a more qualified crowd.

Another great way to use LinkedIn for your business is to connect with possible clients. LinkedIn has a LinkedIn sales module, allowing you to search and reach out to prospective clients through In-mails. They give you a certain number of messages permitted each month.

Companies also use LinkedIn to advertise to highly qualified professionals. Due to its user base’s high purchase power, an advertisement can be costly on the platform. According to its statistics, about 90 million users are senior-level influencers.

3)Twitter

Twitter is one of the top social media sites for business to reach entertainment and sports. Although there has been recent speculation about the usability of Twitter (330 million active users), it is another very well-established social media platform that can help you achieve great things for your brand.

Twitter is essential if you try to reach niche markets such as Technology, Marketing, Entertainment, Sports, and Politics. A key difference between Twitter and Facebook users is that Twitter has many “spectators” or users who don’t grange much with the content but actively consume it.

Twitter is a powerful tool for business owners. They are on the platform to discover content, articles, and news. Other users have it for one on one interaction with members of their network.

However, getting started cannot be evident due to extreme simplicity. Yes, the product is too simple, and it does not mean it’s easy to understand. Although it’s all about short and to-the-point updates (unlike other platforms that call for more details and imagery), it still stops new users in their tracks with confusion.

The most common way to grow on Twitter is through following other users. Brands primarily use Twitter for real-time participation in TV programs (i.e., Super Bowl, show premieres) and one-on-one customer engagement (customer service, giveaways, contests). However, they provide paid ads that increase your followers and website traffic faster.

The content types are 280 text-based character posts and rely on beautiful imagery, short videos, and GIFs. Like Facebook, because of its many users, Twitter is great for reaching new audiences and generating brand awareness.

The primary KPIs to look out for are retweets, @replies, favorites, followers, impressions, click-through rates, and #hashtags. When considering how to improve your online presence, Twitter is a platform to view.

Twitter Ads

You can invest in Twitter ads as well. They have several types of ads you can choose, depending on the goals you have for your business.

You can promote your tweets and your page and create new creative ads using images or videos.

According to Twitter, video is their fastest-growing ad tool. Over 2 billion video views on Twitter daily, a 67% increase compared to last year. They reinforce that companies that use video das should include a call to action, increasing by 100% conversion.

4) Instagram

Acquired by Facebook in 2012, Instagram (1 billion monthly active users) is the premiere image-sharing social platform. Upon purchase, Facebook made community growth a priority on Instagram. They have incredibly high engagement rates relative to other channels (more than 100M photos are shared on the platform per day). Instagram has a very engaged community but doesn’t allow links on posts.

Instagram users utilize the platform to showcase moments of their lives in unique and artsy ways. Currently, the audience consists of early adopters, millennial parents, and millennial teens. However, as Facebook continues to prioritize Instagram, the audience’s growth will continue to get more mainstream.

Many argue that selfies became famous because of Instagram.

Brands use Instagram as part of their online marketing strategies to publish high-quality photography and video content – they also primarily enlist social media influencers to promote their products.

Instagram is great for brand engagement and purchase intent (you can showcase your product in an appealing, lifestyle-oriented manner). Be aware that videos have 21.2% more engagement than images and 18.6% more than carousels. The platform doesn’t allow links on their posts, so increasing website traffic can be difficult.

The platform’s KPIs are Likes, Reach, video views, Impressions, Engagement Rates, and Hashtags.

5) Youtube

Youtube helps your brand generate awareness, brand equity, and purchase intent. Purchased by Google in 2006, Youtube (1.9 billion users) is the second most popular search engine, with 2 billion videos per day and 1 billion hours of video viewed daily, more than Netflix and Facebook video.

Like Facebook, everyone uses Youtube, but the more publicized and outspoken users are millennials and teens. People use it relatively simple: watch and upload videos and follow or subscribe to video creators, who are rapidly becoming celebrities in their own right.

Youtube helps your brand generate awareness, brand equity, and purchase intent. Brands use the platform to distribute television commercials or other web-specific content that primarily lives on Youtube.

The key performance indicators to look out for are video views, competition, ratings, comments, and likes.

Now that you have a sense of how the big players in the social media industry and have an idea of the top social media sites for business and how they can help your brand achieve its objectives, stay tuned for new social media facts and tips where we go into more niche platforms such as Pinterest, Tumblr, and Snapchat.

6) Pinterest

Pinterest has a unique design compared to other social media websites for business. The company has enjoyed considerable growth in the past three years and was arguably the originator of design language on social media.

Due to the importance of good design and imagery on Pinterest, this trend became essential for all digital channels like websites, banners, and videos.

Pinterest’s demographic consists primarily of women in the 25-54 age range. According to their statistics, Pinterest reaches 83% of all women 25-54 in the US, but the platform has made male usage a priority and has been steadily climbing.

Why is Pinterest considered one of the top social media sites for business?

50% of every signup was male users in the last year. All in all, Pinterest has a monthly user base of more than 250 million people, and it is offered in over 30 languages worldwide.

Users primarily use Pinterest to discover new things and products and to gain inspiration. A helpful statistic is that 84% of active users have reported using Pinterest when deciding what to buy, and 98% tried something new because they saw it on Pinterest. Hence, it is an excellent medium for design and fashion products, like furniture and clothing.

Of course, brands have hopped on Pinterest’s platform to publish high-quality imagery with detailed descriptions to encourage users to visit the product webpage. Besides, brands often have Pinterest’s “Pin” button on their website to motivate user discovery.

Pinterest is one of the top social media sites for business due to its unique way of presenting products. They allow brands to boost their Pins and target selected audiences through paid advertising.

Since Pinterest has a niche but a large user base, participating on the platform can help a brand achieve awareness, brand engagement, higher web traffic, and increased purchase intent. The primary key performance indicators to look out for are impressions, clicks, re-pins, comments, and likes on Pinterest images.

7) Tumblr

Tumblr can be one of the best social network websites for businesses in creative fields. Now owned by Verizon Media, Tumblr is a social platform for those that indulge in creative fields such as photography, fashion, art, and entertainment.

It has a user base of approximately 441.4 million blog accounts and consists primarily of teens and millennials; 43% of male Internet users between 18-24 are Tumblr users.

Although Tumblr is one of the most popular social networks in the US, its monthly unique visitors have declined. One of the reasons is that at the end of 2018, the platform banned adult content, which generated user dissatisfaction and made artists and sex workers look for other platforms.

These users use Tumblr to create pieces of content like GIFs to showcase their personalities and interests. Brands use the platform to curate experiences by reblogging Tumblr influencers and extending their overall brand campaigns.

Tumblr’s content types include text, photos, quotes, audio, and video, but GIFs perform the best. There is paid media available on the platform, and it’s essential (sponsored imagery, GIFs, and videos).

Tumblr can help a brand achieve brand equity and higher website traffic. The primary key performance indicators to watch out for on Tumblr are engagements with posts, impressions, followers, clicks, and views.

8) Snapchat

Snapchat had 287 million monthly active users and 190 million daily active users in 2019. Snapchat has the youngest base of users among the other top social media sites for business. In Q1 2019, Snapchat is used by 90% of all 13-24 year-olds and 75% percent of all 13-34-year-olds in the U.S.

This young audience type uses Snapchat to create photo/video messages to share with their network that expires after 10 seconds. There are 6 billion video views daily on this platform.

Brands are using Snapchat to share behind-the-scenes content and are working with Snapchat influencers to engage with fans. Brands can participate in the platform’s “Discover” and “Stories” tabs that allow paid media.

This young platform can help you increase your visibility in the teenage space. Coupled with the larger, more established social media platforms, these niche-oriented platforms can help you achieve engagement throughout your brand campaign cycle. The key performance indicators to watch out for are video views, screenshots, and replays.

As more brands have been moving to Instagram stories, there is less competition on Snapchat. Remember that Snapchat users are very demeaning in content, so it’s critical to post authentic content that users cannot find on other platforms.

Which is the best for you among the top social media sites for business?

Deciding which platforms are the best for your business maybe it is not an easy one. You should certainly consider your target and the product or service you are offering. Here a list of your main possible choices:

1. Facebook
2. LinkedIn
3. Twitter
4. Instagram
5. Pinterest
6. YouTube
7. Tumblr
8. Snapchat

If your target is more related to high-income consumers and businesses or courses, you will choose LinkedIn.

If you have a product that needs to show off its design, Instagram and Pinterest may be the best ones. For those looking for younger crowds, for sure, Snapchat and Instagram.

Although each has its characteristics and specific users, testing three or four will give you an idea of your business’s top social media site.