Social media is no longer optional for businesses today. It should be a crucial part of your overall marketing plan. Many business owners know this but struggle to make it a reality. What are the key factors in doing social media and engagement?
Why Social Media
You may be asking, “Why do I have to do social media?” There are a number of reasons it is important.
- Helps Your Online Presence – this is an important factor in today’s online, virtual world.
- Brand Awareness – you build your brand’s awareness and begin to show your audience who you are in this online space.
- Ranks in SEO – Google picks up your business listing as well. This can help your overall SEO.
- Build Relationships – through many social platforms, you should be connecting with other entrepreneurs and building relationships. I will not go into depth here, but you should create a plan of reaching out to a specific number of them each week and actually connect via video or other ways.
- Engagement – this increases your online presence significantly. So as much as possible try to ask questions in your posts to engage your audience.
- Sales and/or Promoting Special Offers – often selling your services can begin on social media through brand awareness, building relationships, and getting engagement.
- Share knowledge – helps you share your knowledge and build your reputation as a thought leader in your industry.
What Platforms Should I Use
One of the first things we must decide about social media is what platforms we will be active on. This can depend on the type of business and whether you sell products or services.
- Facebook – Facebook has been around for a long time now. Most use it for personal sharing (kids’ photos, vacations, etc.), but many businesses use it as well. It is great for trying to build a following if you are a keynote speaker or influencer. If you offer services it can be valuable as well but you need to make sure you are connecting with others and meeting them via video or other options. Best also if utilize groups to help promote your brand.
- Instagram – connected to Facebook, so if you utilize FB you will probably also post on IG. It is wonderful for creating a following and sharing your knowledge. Instagram is especially good for brands that sell products as it is a visual platform.
- LinkedIn – is known as a professional social platform. It is good for professionals to connect with online. Making a plan to connect with a certain number each week and communicating with new connections can help. Others also use it to look up types of people they need or want to connect to at that time. For instance, if someone needs a virtual assistant they may search LinkedIn.
- TikTok – I do not know a lot about this platform but is especially good if you can create funny videos. These should be seconds to less than a few minutes long.
- Twitter – is a fast past social platform. Best utilized if you have time to get on several times a day.
- YouTube – is one of the best video social media platforms. This platform also plays a role in your SEO (search engine optimization). The videos stay searchable for as long as they are housed on the platform.
Performance of Social Media
At this point, you are probably wondering about these platforms and how each one performs. At the end of the day, we want to know how many people in our ideal audience we can reach.
Below, I’ve included a couple of different resources to give you an overall view of each platform. Obviously, Facebook is still leaps and bounds above others with YouTube coming up as a strong second.
-from Datareportal [LinkedIn doesn’t publish monthly active user data, so we can’t include it in this list.]
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More Social Media Performance
If you want more data to back this up, Buffer is happy to supply it. The top 21 social networking sites of 2023 according to Buffer
- Facebook — 2.96 billion MAUs
- YouTube — 2.2 billion MAUs
- WhatsApp — 2 billion MAUs
- Instagram — 2 billion MAUs
- WeChat — 1.26 billion MAUs
- TikTok — 1 billion MAUs
- Sina Weibo — 573 million MAUs
- QQ — 538.91 million MAUs
- Telegram — 550 million MAUs
- Snapchat — 557 million MAUs
- Kuaishou — 573 million MAUs
- Qzone — 553.5 million MAUs
- Pinterest — 444 million MAUs
- Twitter — 238 million MAUs
- Reddit — 430 million MAUs
- LinkedIn — 424 million MAUs
- Quora — 300 million MAUs
- Discord — 150 million MAUs
- Twitch — 140 million MAUs
- Tumblr — 135 million MAUs
- Mastodon — 2.5 million MAUs
*MAUs = Monthly Active Users
Return On Investment (ROI)
The other question many business owners like you want to know is, “What is my return on investment?” Let’s dig into this question as there can be many variables.
ROI Variables Can Include…
- How often do you post?
- Whether you post your own content or if you hire someone to post content.
- Do you produce your content or hire someone to do it?
- If you have someone doing your social media, how much is costing you (as this will certainly cut into your ROI)?
- Is it more expensive for you to take time to post or have someone else post on your social platforms?
All of these factors should be considered when deciding on the best ROI for you and your business.
Advertising On Social Media
Figuring out ROI on ads placed on social media is a little more straightforward as it simply takes the dollars put in and the output produced by the ad. If you want to be even more precise you should include any costs involved from those helping you to place these ads, if not yourself.
“As a general rule, businesses should aim for a return on investment (ROI) of at least 3:1 for social media advertising. This means that for every dollar spent on advertising, the business should earn at least three dollars in revenue.” (Apr 16, 2023)
-Neil Schaffer
Other Considerations
Some other things to take into consideration are the best types of posts. Videos generally get more eyes on them. Also, knowing the best time to post is huge. Any scheduler you utilize should help you with this. If not, please take a look at your analytics to see when you are getting the most engagement.
Overall
Lastly, when you consider the overall benefits of using social media you should see that it can benefit you greatly. The risks versus rewards absolutely come out on the reward side for businesses. Therefore, if you are not currently making the most of your social media for your business now is the time to become more active online.
