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Over 4.62 million people use social media - that's more than half the worlds population!

Do you really know where your target audience spend most of their time? Which social media platform do they use the most? If you don’t know the answer to these questions then carry on reading to find out.

It’s time to look at who your target audience is and categorise them by demographics. You should look at their gender, age, geographical location and buying behaviours and even what they click on when visiting your website. You can find out the statistics of your audience through analytics such as Google Analytics, Facebook Meta Business, Hubspot, Keyhole and many more. At Brightvue, we use a mixture of Meta Business for our social media channels and Google Analytics for our website. However, everyone has different methods of tracking their audience, it’s all down to preference. 

In this blog post, we will go through, one-by-one the most popular social media channels and who uses that channel the most. Hopefully, this will help you decide which social media channels to use target your audience. 

Not all social media channels will be effective in your digital marketing strategy. Your time and money will be wasted if you start posting on a social media channel where your ideal customer isn’t spending any time – all of that effort for nothing in return.

Below, the graph shows how many users are active monthly on the top eight social media channels. Facebook is right up there and it doesn’t come as a shock, as time goes on if you keep updated on social media platform trends, you’ll see things slowly changing – it’s always important to keep an eye on what platform is doing well, and which one isn’t.

Facebook

This platform is the most popular amongst 24 – 35 year old males. No wonder it’s still such a popular platform, it was one of the first social media platforms out there and over 56% of people go to Facebook to find information. Facebook have multiple features which you can use to engage with your audience such as posting a status, picture, video, story, poll, Q&A/FAQ, you can book an appointment, use a chat bot, message a business or person, sell something on Facebook Marketplace, click on a Call-To-Action (CTA), set up FacebookAds, set up Google Pixel and that’s only naming a few features you can use – there’s so much more!

Facebook has a feature called Meta Business, this acts very similarly to Google Analytics where you can track your progression on the growth of your digital community and learn about type of posts your followers and friends love the post. Information about your community will then help you to retarget and improve your digital marketing strategy.

A few years ago, Facebook was most popular between 18–25-year-olds. Since then, their audience has matured and there’s been a change in demographics. It’s important to monitor these changes to ensure you post in the right place and for a purpose.

YouTube

YouTubes audience is heavily concentrated with users ages 15 – 35 years old and is an almost even mix of males and females. Creating an account on YouTube for your business will provide you with a space in which you can post videography for testimonials, how to videos, tutorials, product reviews/customer reviews, educational videos, challenge videos and unboxing videos. Over the past three years, YouTube has upgraded and expanded its space by adding reel and live features. You can see a pattern here, social media channels are merging which improves usability, but takes away the originality of each platform. Consequently, creating an account on YouTube is a wise marketing move for any business that is looking to reach a wide range of potential customers.

It’s a fact that people spend around 1/3 of their activity online watching videos rather than reading content. Videography is a great way of interacting with your target audience and your videos can feature in multiple places on social media and even on your website. Consequently, creating an account on YouTube is a wise marketing move for any business that is looking to reach a wide range of potential customers.

Instagram

Instagram is the most popular with people under the age of 30. There’s an almost even mix of male and female users too and is a great marketing tool – Instagram’s engagement rates are over 15 times higher than Facebook. Facebook and Instagram are both owned by Mark Zuckerberg and luckily, he decided to link the two platforms together so you can actually use Meta Business to monitor activity across both Facebook and Instagram.

With the dual ownership comes with its perks but also, has its downfalls – their audiences are different. You may post the same thing on Facebook as you do Instagram, which may be an easier route to take as you don’t have to create two different posts. However, a user on Facebook may like your post, and someone on Instagram may dislike it, it’s because of the difference in demographics of your audience. What works on one platform might not work on the other. Businesses need to be aware of this when they are creating content for social media.

TikTok

On TikTok, 50% of its users are aged under 25 so it’s definitely the space to produce fun, informative content which will capture the younger generations attention. If you create a business account on TikTok you’ll have high exposure which will result on a high volume of traffic, it’s always important to create a journey for your user and lead them somewhere, this could be to your TikTok shop or website, where your target audience can either get in touch with you or purchase a produce/service.

Since 2018, TikTok has grown by over 800%. Its content is easy to digest as using the platform requires minimal effort, it’s a quick and easy way to generate curiosity on your business/brand, it’s the perfect marketing tool that doesn’t require lots of effort on both ends – you and your customer.

However, TikTok strongly operates through an algorithm and a user’s feed will be determined by what’s popular at the time. If you scroll through your For You Page/FYP, I guarantee you’ll watch a video that’s got the same background music as other videos you’ve seen, with the same hashtags. It all depends with what’s trending at the time, if you don’t jump onto that algorithm your posts and content will be irrelevant and it will be hard for people to find you.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is most popular amongst an almost even mix of males and females who are aged between 25 – 50 years old. Mainly used of professional purposes, LinkedIn has grown by 37% year-by-year as businesses and individuals create profiles to be able to connect with other businesses, alumni and co-workers. On LinkedIn, you can look for jobs and post about events within your career or even start a conversation revolving around world trends, news stories or issues in the workplace.

Furthermore, LinkedIn provides networking opportunities through a virtual space and allows you to connect with likeminded individuals and people within your field of work. It’s also fantastic if you ever need help with something in your career or are just looking for motivation as there’s always seminars, worksheets, help books, free courses and more to develop your skills. As a business, you could also produce and publish these yourself to grow your own community.

Pinterest

Pinterest is highly concentrated with rich, aesthetically pleasing visual content and their audience is dominated by females as approximately 76% make up their audience. Around 38% of Pinterest users are aged between 50 – 64 years old and 34% of users are aged 18 – 25 years old.

Most businesses avoid using Pinterest or simply don’t value it in their digital marketing strategy but, for some businesses which are based upon aesthetics such as wedding planners, hair and beauty businesses, clothing brands, arts and craft companies etc. Pinterest could be a great way of increasing brand authority and sales as 83% of users are likely to make a purchase after interacting or viewing a brands content.

Twitter

Twitter is a microblogging platform which pronominally has users an 18 – 29 years old and around 60% of them are men and 40% are women. Twitter is a platform that allows is users to create quick and easy conversations through threads. The use of hashtags also allows you to find other people talking about what you’re talking about, so it’s a great platform to try and find users who like what you like.

Since 2020, there has been over a 663% increase of users who ask for business recommendations and find the right business for them on Twitter. At the end of the day, people turn to the internet, specifically social media to find a solution to a problem they may have, so get yourself out there and make yourself visible to increase chances of sales and successful leads.

However, one of the worst disadvantages of Twitter is that you’re limited to a certain number of characters per tweet but, to get around this you could post a picture with your tweet to try and get the message across through visual and written content.

Snapchat

On Snapchat theirs an even mix of male and female users who are aged between 18 and 24 years old. Like Pinterest, most businesses don’t consider Snapchat as a marketing tool and they miss out on several opportunities to grab new customers.

Once you’ve made a business account on Snapchat, you can market through stories, generate your own personal filters with your branding. It’s estimated that around 63% of Snapchats are sent with a filter. So, when someone sends their friend a Snapchat with them using your branded filter, it’s highly likely that it’ll spark curiosity and maybe check you out.

You can set a location on Snapchat maps so that people in your area will see your location, click on you and you can feed them through to where you want them to be, for example, your website. It’s a really fun way of engaging with your potential and existing customers, in a way, they’re doing the marketing for you! It’s perfect for location based businesses such as event companies, shops and organisations which are located in a set area.

Now, it's time to get started. Luckily for you, we're just about to announce our brand new social media marketing service - Social Refresh!

We can set up your new social media channels, generate some fantastic ideas and organise them to fit your current digital marketing strategy, and if you don’t have one, we can do that for you too! Social Refresh is for businesses any size and at any stage of their business journey. 

Give us a call today, send us an email or simply send us a message through our social media channels below to start or enhance your digital presence!