Social media can attract new customers and build deeper connections with current ones, but not all are appropriate for what you offer.
Are photos and videos the best representation of your services? Then perhaps Instagram or YouTube is for you. Maybe you have useful knowledge that you can share in articles – that sounds great for LinkedIn. Or you might want a one-to-one chat area with a chatbot, something best done through WhatsApp.
How do you know which is best for your company? Let’s examine the biggest and most popular social media services from a business perspective.
Facebook might be losing traction with younger audiences, but it remains a giant space with over 2 billion people using the site daily. While Facebook is not as focused as several other platforms on this list, it has great features to help companies, including business pages, targeted advertising, in-depth analytics, many different niche communities, and integration with its sister sites, WhatsApp and Instagram. Even if you don't use Facebook directly for business marketing, you can use its powerful tools to manage those services. Plus, most of these features are free.
YouTube
YouTube is the centre of the online video world and videos can be a powerful way to promote your business: a tour of your premises, a product profile, presentations covering technical topics, or tutorials demonstrating your expertise to prospective clients. YouTube is technically the world's second-largest search engine, and you can host and share video content for free. If your videos gain enough viewers, you can even make extra money from YouTube ads.
If photos and videos are ideal for marketing your products and services, but you don't need long-form videos, then Instagram is the best option. You can add photos, galleries, and short-form videos. Want to show off new products instantly as you unpack them? Just take a short video and a few photos and post them on Instagram. You can keep them or use time-limited formats for fleeting moments such as flash sales. Or maybe you sell your advice; in this case, give people a sample by posting little snippets. Instagram also has a brilliant ad system that uses Facebook's massive database. You can even create ads out of your posts to attract new followers and expand exposure.
TikTok
TikTok is the flashier and younger-skewing alternative to Instagram, though it primarily focuses on short-form videos. Be prepared to put in the work, as TikTok users' attention spans are notoriously short, just like the site's videos. But when used right, it can work very well. For example, TikTok's quick video shopping ads are a potent way to quickly move merchandise. However, the platform’s biggest downside is its lack of community tools and scope to create followers. Your exposure is at the mercy of its content algorithms.
It's easy to overlook LinkedIn, which rarely gets mentioned when people talk about social media. LinkedIn is a big social media player; it just approaches the concept differently, allowing it to remain low-key yet relevant among its loyal users. LinkedIn is often the best place to create business networks and promote services to professionals. It's developed a vibrant content scene where experts from all sectors post articles and share links with their followers. If you have knowledge that is best expressed in articles and essays, LinkedIn can show potential customers that you know what you're talking about. You can also use your business connections to promote your brand, and LinkedIn's ads are a popular way to reach high-value individuals.
Even though it goes by the name X these days, everyone calls it Twitter because there is nothing quite like it. While there are better places to post pictures, create business pages, or promote looping short videos, Twitter is the town crier of social media. It's where news drops first. A regularly used Twitter account can become the home for announcements and a place to give your opinions on specific topics – but remember that you are representing your business, so keep it professional! There are alternatives to Twitter, such as Threads and BlueSky, but they’re small compared to Twitter's vast community and presence.
WhatsApp is technically a chat service, but it's also considered a social media platform. That gives it several advantages that other services can't match. It's an excellent place to have private one-to-one conversations with customers. It's also become very easy and affordable to have a WhatsApp chatbot that can help customers with queries. You can use WhatsApp to create private community groups, and its new Channels create a spot to feed news and create controlled community interactions. Running a WhatsApp business account could incur some costs, depending on what you use it for. But most of the service is free and offers a more cosy and convenient space to interact with your customers.
