In 2024, social media remains a critical component of any successful marketing strategy. With a plethora of platforms available, it's crucial to identify those that align best with your target audience and business goals.
Here's a breakdown of five essential platforms and their key benefits for businesses, along with examples from brands using them the most effectively.
Key Features:
- Posts: Share text, images, videos, and links.
- Reels: Create short-form video content.
- Stories: Share photos and videos visible for 24 hours.
- Groups: Build communities around shared interests.
- Pages: Create business profiles that allows users to stay up-to-date with your organization.
- Marketplace: Sell products and services.
- Messenger: Communicate with customers.
- Events: Create and promote events.
- Ads: Target specific audiences with paid promotions.
Core Benefits: Wide audience reach, detailed targeting options, strong advertising capabilities, robust analytics, and community building. Facebook remains a cornerstone for businesses seeking to connect with a broad audience and measure campaign performance effectively.
Corporate Example: Slack is a dominant force in the world of productivity apps, but they are not resting on their laurels. They regularly post a variety of content on Facebook—reels, events, images—and it all aligns with their product’s purpose.
In particular, they do an excellent job of creating interest in new product features and then rolling them out, creating a mini-sales funnel on their page without coming across as pushy.
Key Features:
- Posts: Share photos and videos.
- Reels: Create short-form video content.
- Stories: Share photos and videos visible for 24 hours.
- IGTV: Share long-form videos.
- Guides: Curate content on specific topics.
- Shopping: Tag products for direct purchase.
- Direct Messaging: Communicate with followers.
- Live: Broadcast live videos.
Core Benefits: Visual storytelling, influencer partnerships, strong engagement, shopping features, and a younger-leaning audience. Instagram is ideal for businesses focused on visual content and building a brand identity. Its shopping features also make it a prime platform for e-commerce.
Learn more: 6 tips for using Instagram for business.
Corporate Example: Chubbies is a mens’ apparel company that has made a name for itself with an irreverent brand voice embodied by non-traditional models wearing the company’s “proper-length shorts.” The company’s Instagram page uses a variety of visual storytelling approaches, with a heavy emphasis on short-form video content.
Shopping is made easy directly from the Chubbies profile, but they rarely post content that’s purely sales-driven. Instead, the company aims for authenticity (aligned with the use of non-traditional models), highlighting behind-the-scenes footage from photo shoots and user-generated videos of their apparel in action.
TikTok
Key Features:
- Short-form videos: Create and share 15- to 60-second videos.
- Effects and filters: Enhance videos with creative tools.
- Sounds: Use popular audio clips.
- Duets: Collaborate with other users.
- Stitches: Create new videos using parts of others.
- Live: Broadcast live videos.
- Creator Fund: Monetize content.
Core Benefits: Short-form video creation, viral potential, younger audience, creative expression, and trend-driven content. TikTok is perfect for businesses looking to tap into a younger demographic and create engaging, shareable content. It also gives brands the opportunity to be a little less buttoned-up and have more fun. Its powerful algorithm can propel content to a wider audience quickly.
Learn more: How your business can use TikTok to make a splash.
Corporate Example: DuoLingo, a web-based language learning platform, has earned a beloved following on TikTok for its fun and unhinged content starring green owl mascot, Duo.
The company’s social team is an expert at taking popular social trends and twisting them in ways that fit in with the company’s brand, mission, and voice.
@duolingo adding magician to my resume
♬ original sound - Day Trip
X (formerly Twitter)
Key Features:
- Posts: Share text, images, videos, and links (formerly tweets).
- Reposts: Share other users' posts (formerly retweets).
- Likes: Show appreciation for content.
- Replies: Engage in conversations.
- Direct Messages: Communicate with other users.
- Lists: Organize and follow specific accounts.
- Trends: Discover popular topics.
- Spaces: Host audio conversations.
Core Benefits: Real-time engagement, news and current events, customer service, rapid information dissemination, and influencer marketing. X is a platform for quick, direct communication with customers and following industry trends. Its large user base and real-time nature make it valuable for crisis management and customer support.
Corporate Example: Southwest Airlines does an incredible job of engaging and following through with customers via X. Their customer service team acknowledges and responds to every tag online, even including the name of the customer service rep in the reply. When issues require a more in-depth solution, they encourage customers to follow-up via direct message.
Threads
Key Features:
- Text-based posts: Share thoughts and updates.
- Replies: Engage in conversations.
- Reposts: Share other users' posts.
- Likes: Show appreciation for content.
- Direct Messages: Communicate with other users.
- Following and Followers: Build a network.
Core Benefits: Text-based conversations, community building, integration with Instagram, potential for niche audiences, and a focus on real-time updates. The newest social platform of the bunch, Threads has the potential to become a strong contender for building communities around specific interests. Its integration with Instagram offers a lot of opportunities for cross-promotion.
Learn more: Threads for Marketing, Your Questions Answered.
Corporate Example: The American Red Cross uses Threads to humanize a large organization with a wide-sweeping mission and range of activities. The organization uses Threads-native functionalities like polls to highlight their disaster relief services while also encouraging engagement and conversation among their audience; they are also experts at using the platform to bring attention to individual stories of incredible generosity.
Each of these social media platforms offers a variety of opportunities to engage with your target audience and bring new prospects on the journey from awareness to conversion. To do this, you have to understand the unique strengths and features of each platform and develop a comprehensive social media strategy to reach them effectively. If you need help setting up yours, reach out to the expert social media marketers at Informatics today!
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