Social Media Platforms: Are More Always Merrier for Businesses?

 

With social media platform popularity changing as frequently as the tide, it can be challenging for businesses to know which platforms to focus on.  Rather than dedicate resources to the social media platform flavor of the month, brands should first think about their business goals and how social media can support their objectives. Once this introspection occurs, companies can consider the target audience in relation to each platform, and available resources, before devising an impactful social media strategy with independent goals, key performance indicators, and measures of success. 

The Importance of Goals and Objectives

Goals and objectives are essential to determine how many social media platforms to engage on, and which platforms to choose. According to Sprout Social, “69% of social marketers say increasing brand awareness is their number one priority”, but marketers need to ask if this a top priority of their business (Cover, L). It’s easy for marketers to view a list of categories of metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs) and then determine goals they want to reach. However, if these goals do not align with other departments’ goals or overall company objectives, the social media strategy will not glean the success the business is looking for. Having 1 million followers is great, but if the main business objective is to increase e-commerce conversions on the company website and the social media platform utilized does not allow for easy linking, this presents a problem. If a company has an objective of increasing leads, while a social media marketer may prefer creating content for Facebook, LinkedIn would be the better choice for resource allocation given that “LinkedIn is 277% more effective at generating leads than Facebook and Twitter” (Omnicore, n.d.). 

Business Goals and Objectives that can be supported by social media efforts include but are not limited to:

• Increasing brand awareness, product awareness, and issue awareness
• Increasing foot traffic at physical locations
• Increasing customer service engagement
• Increasing engagement with consumers
• Increasing lead generation
• Increasing e-commerce revenue
• Supporting sponsorship and partnership fulfillment initiatives
• Generating consumer data
• Garnering increased media exposure

Target Audiences of Different Social Media Platforms

Each social media platform has a different target audience, and while there is overlap, it’s important to select platforms where a brand will be able to reach the right audience to achieve its objectives. For example, a makeup brand targeting Generation Z may value having a presence on TikTok given that 41% of the platform’s users are between the ages of 16-24 (Baker, 2019). However, a company like Rogaine, with an older target audience, might prefer to dedicate resources to Facebook, with Chen (2020) noting that “the influx of boomers to Facebook highlights why it’s such a prime place to run ads, particularly among older demographics with more money to spend.” Additionally, brands targeting millennial women in the U.S. might prioritize Pinterest or Snapchat compared to brands targeting American millennial men, given that “79.5% of Pinterest users in the United States are women” and only “39% of Gen Y men use Snapchat compared to roughly 61% of Gen Y women” (Omnicore, n.d.). Brands looking to target men in the United States may favor Twitter in this instance, considering 61.6% of users in the United States identify as male (We Are Social, & Hootsuite, & DataReportal). 

Additionally, marketers need to take into account the geographic distribution of their target audience, and the prevalence of each social media platform in different parts of the world. Tying this back to business objectives, if a brand has a goal of increasing foot traffic, but the platform they are focusing on is not popular or is not allowed in the country where stores are located, the social media platform will not have a high potential for success, wasting time and resources. 

Accounting for Available Resources

While a company may not have to pay Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and other social media platforms for the use of their sites, social media, even organic posts, are never free of cost. Before selecting a platform to utilize, or choosing a number of platforms to participate on, a brand must consider available assets. Creating engaging and impactful content, responding to customer inquiries, social listening, and strategy development all take time for an employee who has experience in the field. If a brand does not have an employee or team able to handle social media strategy, content creation, and management, the company needs to consider if they have the budget to employ a third party or hire additional employees to assist.  While a company may want to have a presence on three or four platforms if it only has the resources to support one platform, it should choose the platform that makes the most sense for the business and adopt it as a primary focus until additional platforms can be supported. 

When selecting social media platforms, companies also should consider the types of content prominent on each platform and the necessary programs, equipment, and skill sets needed to create the content. While Twitter is more text-based, Instagram is highly visual, and a company hoping for success on Instagram will want high-quality photographs, videos, and well-designed graphics. This might involve hiring a professional photographer, buying a high-quality camera, having access and knowledge of photo editing software, purchasing access to stock photos, and having someone with experience with graphic design. Businesses aiming to have a dominating presence on YouTube will need to have access to video editing software, video cameras, light kits, and may consider hiring a videographer or purchasing stock video. Companies hoping to use social media platforms, for example, Twitter, to handle customer service communication, need to budget for an employee or third party to be available and capable of that engagement. According to Omnicore (n.d.), “78% of Twitter users expect brands to respond to their complaints within an hour” but only “11.2% of retail brands respond to users' questions with an hour”, possibly resulting in a poor experience for the consumer. This is a perfect example of how companies who do not have the correct resources to support social media platform involvement can negatively impact their business goals through poor social media implementation. 

Any brand hoping to participate on social media platforms should consider the value of copywriting as well as an understanding of analytics specific to each social platform. These skills are not engrained in everyone, and companies need to prioritize hiring or contracting with the right people to manage their social presence. This comes at a financial cost that companies should consider when addressing budget. Additionally, for companies hoping to utilize multiple social media platforms, a scheduling solution like Hootsuite, Sprout Social, Buffer, or Loomly should be considered. These programs can cost hundreds to thousands of dollars a year for businesses.  

Finally, pending the goals of the organization, a business will want to consider what budget they have available for advertising on social media platforms. Each platform has advertising guidelines, price points, advantages, and disadvantages. If paid advertising is essential to the marketing mix, companies should consider which platforms have the greatest opportunity for conversion for the business. 

Understanding Social Media Platforms

As previously stated, each platform has different benefits to offer companies looking to participate in social media marketing. Understanding each platform allows social media strategists and content creators to design content that will resonate on the appropriate platform, and post it on the platform with the greatest opportunity for conversion. While creating good content is essential, without the opportunity for the content to aid in creating a conversion, it often falls flat in achieving goals. See below for a summary from Constant Contact regarding some of the more prominent social media platforms (Gillooly, 2020). 

Note. Image sourced from Constant Contact

Concluding Thoughts

Every business should participate in social media if it supports their business goals. In particular, I would ascertain that at minimum every business have a dedicated Facebook page, as according to Stokes “users tend to expect a credible business would have a page on Facebook and neglecting a well thought out presence on the network can lead to lost opportunities” (p. 405). However, the decision to engage on additional platforms, budget allocations, and resource allocation decisions are all highly specific to each business and should not be generalized. With 31.3% of companies unable to show a qualitative or quantitative impact of social media on their business, it is imperative that that goals and objectives, the target audience, available resources, and the strengths and weaknesses of each social media platform be carefully considered before a company decides how many platforms they should engage on and which platforms to choose (The CMO Survey). At the end of the day, no matter how trendy or exciting social media may be, if it does not have a positive return on investment for a company, it should be a minimal piece of the marketing mix pie. 

References:

Baker, C. (2019, January 3). Is TikTok setting the scene for music on social media? GlobalWebIndex. https://blog.globalwebindex.com/trends/tiktok-music-social-media/

Chen, J. (August 4, 2020). Social media demographics to inform your brand’s strategy in 2020. Sprout Social. https://sproutsocial.com/insights/new-social-media-demographics/

Cover, L. (2020, May 5). 8 stats that demonstrate how social drives business growth. Sprout Social. https://sproutsocial.com/insights/social-data-for-business-growth/

Gillooly, P. (2020, September 2). Best social media platforms for business. Constant Contact. https://blogs.constantcontact.com/which-social-media-platform-is-right-for-your-business/

Omnicore. (n.d.). Social media benchmark report 2020. Retrieved on April 2, 2021, from https://www.omnicoreagency.com/social-media-statistics/ 

Stokes, R. (2018). eMarketing: The essential guide to marketing in a digital world (6th ed.) Cape Town: Red and Yellow Creative School of Business.

The CMO Survey. (2019). Highlights & insights report. https://cmosurvey.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/15/2019/08/The_CMO_Survey-Highlights-and_Insights_Report-Aug-2019.pdf

We Are Social, & Hootsuite, & DataReportal. (February 9, 2021). Distribution of Twitter users in the United States as of January 2021, by gender [Graph]. In Statista. Retrieved April 03, 2021, from https://www-statista-com.wvu.idm.oclc.org/statistics/678794/united-states-twitter-gender-distribution/