Best Social Media Platforms for Your Business (to get the most results)

1K Shares

What are the best social media platforms for your business?

Which ones will give you the best results?

That’s what I’m going over today: How to figure out which social media platforms are right for your business.

There are like a million social media channels, how are you supposed to know WHICH ones to choose?

Social media can be exhausting, especially if you’re trying to juggle allll the platforms.

So I’ve come up with some pretty clever ways to help you figure out which platform is best for your unique business. Let’s dive into brief overviews of the 5 main ones so right off the bat you can tell if you can totally cross one off your list.

Facebook:

The king of all social platforms.

Asking yourself “Is my audience on this Facebook?” typically won’t help you here, because almost EVERYONE’S audiences are hanging out on Facebook.

Seriously….my 9-year-old niece has a facebook, and so does my 88-year-old grandma.

Facebook has over 1.3 billion users and nearly half of all Facebook users are active EACH day.

So it’s not really a question of “are my users on Facebook?” because 99% of the time….they are. (If they’re not engaging with your Facebook page’s scheduled blog post shares anymore it’s because that stuff’s old news, kid.)

The key to KILLING IT on Facebook is to figure out WHERE your audience is engaging.

Are they in Facebook groups?

Facebook groups are amazing for 2 things: market research and engagement.

Want to engage with your target audience? Go join a Facebook group they’re in and be as helpful as possible by connecting with them, giving tips, and helping when they post questions.

Want to connect with complimenting industry professionals so you can start a referral circle? Go join a Facebook group they’re in and start engaging with them in conversation and following them on other platforms.

Are they watching FB lives?

Chances are….yes. Video marketing is hot right now, and it’s not going anywhere.

Stats show that 78% of online audiences are already watching videos on Facebook Live.

Are you open to using Facebook Ads?

Facebook ads are effective if you do them right. (And they’re a hell of a lot more strategic than doing a random radio ad where you can’t track anything, or tweak anything.)

If you’re down to play with Facebook ads, whether it’s now, or down the road, I would definitely recommend setting up the FB pixel on your website. It’s pretty awesome bc it allows you to have a ton more control over your FB ads down the road. So potentially you could specifically target people that have seen a specific blog post in the past month, instead of wasting money showing your ad to randoms that have never heard of you or don’t know what the heck your industry is about.

Pinterest:

Pinterest is the bee’s knees.

This platform powers over 50% of my website traffic AND it’s the platform I spend the LEAST amount of time on.

How does that even happen?

3 words: Pinterest Group Boards.

These suckers are key because they allow you to reach beyond your own followers. All of the pins on group boards are shown to all of the followers of that board, and if the group board is popular….that could be thousands of people.

To make pinning to group boards a trillion times easier, you can snag a free trial with Tailwind AND start taking advantage of Tailwind Tribes which are like a double whammy when it comes to Group Boards. (Learn about Tailwind Tribes here)

Pinterest is powerful, but is it right for YOUR business?

If your products include fashion, art, home decor, food, or anything else that you can create beautiful images of, Pinterest should be on of your go-to social media platforms to help drive targeted traffic to your site.

Pinterest does really well with industries that rely on visuals, like creative businesses, food bloggers, photography, etc. but it’s ALSO amazing for evergreen informational content.

Evergreen Content is content that’s relevant for a long period of time, instead of like NY Times Top News Stories that have a short lifespan. (Beyonce announcing being pregnant is only news for like a week. Then everyone knows about it, and it’s not really a hot topic anymore)

Evergreen content, on the other hand, doesn’t really have a shelf-life. Like the content on the Mariah Magazine Blog for example: in 2 years, most of the posts are still going to be relevant and helpful.

What else is Pinterest amazing with? eCommerce Stores!

It pushes a TON of traffic to those bad boys. Pinterest is one of the largest sources of traffic to Shopify websites.

Why? Because online shopping is a very VISUAL activity, and Pinterest is alllll about them visuals.

And they integrated a “Shop Now” button so people that have Shopify websites can have their customers check out almost seamlessly on Pinterest.

Bottom line: Pinterest is used just like a search engine (like Google), so if you’re blogging or selling things, more times than not you’re going to want to utilize Pinterest.

Instagram:

Another platform that’s REALLY good for visual content and product-based businesses.

You really want to think about your target audience before you even consider using this one.

Most of the engaged users on Instagram are between teenage years and 30s. If your demographic is a little older than that, this might not be the best use of your time.

Important Question: Are the people you’re trying to reach ON Instagram already?

If you’re not sure, check out some of your competitors: Do they have Instagram? Are they getting engagement?

If your humans are on Instagram, that’s awesome.

This platform could be the best one yet for you, BUT you have to be careful how you use it.

Instagram used to be allll about the feed, now it’s alllll about the stories & reels.

A recent study showed that less than 6% of your followers are even seeing your posts.

What used to work on Instagram isn’t working anymore, so it’s time to adjust your strategy and can you guess what Instagram wants more of……..BAM, meaningful connections!

Twitter:

Twitter used to be THE platform for small businesses, but it’s REALLY fast moving.

If you have evergreen content, it’s usually sufficient enough to set up a social media scheduler and post a blog post a few times a week or even a few times a day because of how fast it moves. Personally, that’s all I use it for because

I think the platform is exhausting hahahaha

Big brands tend to get the most out of Twitter because they have the budget and team to be able to take advantage of it the most.

ESPECIALLY when it comes to Customer Service. If I have a problem with a hosting company, like BlueHost for example (because I always tend to have probs with them) then I reach out to them on Twitter and they answer my question 10x faster than an email….that shits nice.
But being a small online business owner, I don’t have the energy to be able to respond and connect that fast.

If you really want to use it, I suggest using it to connect and engage with your target audience or members in a complementing industry. Like one of my clients, for example, plans destination weddings. She could use Twitter to connect with engagement photographers and start building a relationship with them.

There’s a ton more to this platform, so if you’re really feeling drawn to it or if you notice that your competitors are killin’ the Twitter game, check out this fun visual to see how Twitter can grow your business.

LinkedIn:

If your business is business to business, LinkedIn can be super underrated.

Personally, I’ve gotten a ton of business, website traffic, and made a lot of connections on LinkedIn.

The key here is that you do have to spend quality time building up your profile before diving into it though.

This is another platform that can give results and keep your brand fresh in people’s minds by scheduling a blog post a few times a week that showcases your expertise and helpful content.

What should you keep in mind about LinkedIn?

It’s about connection, just like every other social media platform. Just because it’s a little more professional doesn’t mean people want to scroll their feed and see you trying to sell to them every second.

Take a few minutes and connect with professionals in complementing industries. Get to know them, their services, and reach out to them. Set up a call on the phone to chat about how you guys can potentially help each other.

YouTube:

Important Note: YouTube is owned by Google, so when it comes to pushing out video content for your business and website, they have the same mindset with SEO: Quality over quantity.

But will your business benefit from being on YouTube?

Almost every kind of business would benefit from creating video content, because similar to Facebook, almost everyone’s audience is on YouTube. In fact, YouTube reaches more U.S. adults than any cable network. Wild, right?

The key to creating powerful video content (or any content for that matter) is to find out WHAT your audience needs help with.

How can you HELP them?
What problems do they have?
What solutions can you provide?

People don’t just watch videos for entertainment….I mean, a few kangaroo videos are cool once in a while, but YouTube is one of the first places people go when they have a question and want an answer that can be explained quickly, or visually, which is why How-to videos and Tutorials do the best on YouTube.

Still not sure?

Read this: Does your business really need to be on YouTube?

But how can you figure out which social media platforms will give you the best results?

How can you narrow it down?

I’ll tell ya!

REALLY HONESTLY diving into your business goals and figuring out your target audience.

Sounds boring and vague but THIS is where you get the most insight. Knowing this info will not only help you narrow down which social media platforms will give you the best results, but it will also help you figure out which content to create FOR those platforms.

How can you get insight into your audience?

Try This: Look at Social Sharing Data – If you have social media sharing buttons on your website (which I hope you do) and you’re showing the share numbers (which I’m also hoping you do) then go look at the sharing counts on your blog posts. Which platforms are getting the most shares?

Try This: Dive into Google Analytics – Go into Acquisition >> Social >> Network Referrals and it will literally give you a list of which platforms you’re getting website traffic from.
Want to make your Google Analytics Dashboard less overwhelming?

Try This: Stalk Your Competitors – Notice I said: “stalk” and not “copy”. And when I say “stalking” I’m also using the term loosely. Don’t go peeping into your competitor’s bedroom window.
BUT DO check out their website and social media platforms. Take note of which of their social media platforms and posts are getting the most engagement.

Remember, when you’re looking at other people’s social media platforms it’s honest to god not about numbers, it’s about engagement. If you have 1 million followers, but only 2 of them are engaging with content and posts…..how many do you think are actually buying from them? (There’s no for sure way to SEE how many conversions other websites are getting, but engagement can be a huge indication of what they’re doing right…..or not-so-right)

Conclusion:

So to wrap all this good stuff up, I just want to remind you guys that it’s not about being on EVERY social media platform. It’s really about figuring out where your people are and engaging with them. And I don’t think anyone has the sanity to create content, social sharing images, clever headlines, and engage ON every platform…..(I know I don’t hahahaha)