Recent estimates put the number of social networking sites just north of 500, though many are already shuttered or don’t attract enough users to remain viable in the face of behemoths like Facebook and Instagram. When designing or revamping your brand’s social media presence, it’s tough to know which social platforms are best for your business and which may not bring you the best return on your investment. Let’s take a look at some factors that can help you make the best choice for your brand.

1. Choosing the
Best Social
Network For
Your Business

2. Recent estimates put the number of social networking sites just north of 500,
though many are already shuttered or don’t attract enough users to remain viable
in the face of behemoths like Facebook and Instagram. When designing or
revamping your brand’s social media presence, it’s tough to know which social
platforms are best for your business and which may not bring you the best return
on your investment.
Let’s take a look at some factors that can help
you make the best choice for your brand.

3. The biggest factor when choosing which social networks are best for your company is
deciding what demographic or target market you’re trying to reach.
Though many people have accounts on multiple social platforms, individual networks
tend to attract user with similar attributes. For instance, Twitter is popular with
college-educated people under 50 while Pinterest users are predominantly women in
the 18-29 age range. That means Twitter might not be the best place for brands selling
retirement property and Pinterest may not be the right site for companies selling
men’s running shoes.
“Very few companies out there will have the same exact target audience,” explains
Adweek. “For example, two car companies may both target the same 18-through-22
age group, but one of those brands could be a pickup company that sees much more
sales coming from rural regions. The point is that you should spend the time figuring
out exactly who the main consumer of your product is before choosing which
networks to utilize.”
Know Your Target Market

4. Selecting the right social network depends on what networks your customers use
most. Facebook, with 1.09 billion daily active users worldwide, is a safe bet for nearly
any company on the planet. However, not all social platforms are equally popular
across the globe. Qzone, a virtually unknown social site in the US, boasts a whopping
639 million Chinese users and Russian site VKontake has over 100 million users.
Knowing which global platforms to choose is only part of the equation, notes Greig
Holbrook, director of Oban Multilingual Search. “Each country has its own unique
preferences, from platform and user behavior trends right through to phraseology
and tone of voice expectations. These individual characteristics need to be integrated
into local strategy and international strategy tailored accordingly.”
Go Global or Stay Local?

5. No matter which social networks you decide to join, make sure you keep an eye on
the overall industry to see what new platforms are gaining popularity with your
customers. Snapchat was once considered a 'tweens and teens' hangout, but brands
are now flocking to the photo messaging app in droves. Taco Bell recently broke a
Snapchat record with the most viewed lens campaign, reaching 224 million views in a
single day.
“Social media is a tumultuous playing field,” says Forbes. “While it’s been dominated
fairly consistently by Facebook since the late 2000s, every year sees new emergent
platforms that either fail in a blaze of glory, get gobbled up by one of the major
players, or go on to see individual success on their own. All of these cases provide
learning opportunities for the average social media marketer - the failures show what
users don’t want to see, the consumables demonstrate a hint of new features and
new technologies on the horizon for major players, and the breakout successes
represent new opportunities all on their own.”
Stay on Your Toes

6. No matter which social networks you decide to join, make sure you keep an eye on
the overall industry to see what new platforms are gaining popularity with your
customers. Snapchat was once considered a 'tweens and teens' hangout, but brands
are now flocking to the photo messaging app in droves. Taco Bell recently broke a
Snapchat record with the most viewed lens campaign, reaching 224 million views in a
single day.
“Social media is a tumultuous playing field,” says Forbes. “While it’s been dominated
fairly consistently by Facebook since the late 2000s, every year sees new emergent
platforms that either fail in a blaze of glory, get gobbled up by one of the major
players, or go on to see individual success on their own. All of these cases provide
learning opportunities for the average social media marketer - the failures show what
users don’t want to see, the consumables demonstrate a hint of new features and
new technologies on the horizon for major players, and the breakout successes
represent new opportunities all on their own.”
Stay on Your Toes