What Social Media Platform Should You Be Advertising On?
79% of people in the United States use social media (according to Statista). In the years 2018 and 2019, the number of people watching traditional TV dropped by 20%. Newspaper circulation decreased by 13% from 2018 to 2019. Of all platforms, social media is by far the most seen, making it your best option for advertising.
What are Your Options?
Social media is the best way to reach your customers. There are many different platforms to choose from. They all have different strengths and weaknesses and they're all suited for different niche audiences. To find the best social media platform for advertising your business, you need to first understand your audience. If your audience is primarily women ages 18-34, you'll advertise differently than if your audience is primarily men ages 45-60. Regardless of your audience, there's a social media platform best suited to your customers.
If you want to learn more about creating a more cohesive and appealing online presence, read this post.
Facebook is a social media platform used by the majority of people. 1.66 billion people log in every day. This means it has one of the widest reaches of any social media platform. Facebook is the best for businesses in smaller communities of older people.
Who Uses Facebook? 60% of Facebook users are women. The average age of users is 40. More people in rural communities are logging on consistently than anywhere else.
Pros of Advertising on Facebook: Because of the amount of information Facebook collects from its users, it's the most individually targeted platform for advertising. It only costs $1.72 per click. On top of that, it allows you to create a calendar and budget so you know what you're spending.
Cons of Advertising on Facebook: There are a lot of content restrictions for advertising. Because of the way Facebook advertises, there are few opportunities for organic reach. If you want your page to be seen, you have to promote it, otherwise, people will have a hard time happening upon your page naturally.
Instagram has been around since 2010. Facebook bought it in 2012. 37% of the population uses Instagram regularly, making it less popular than Facebook. Instagram is the best for businesses with a more stylized audience.
Who Uses Instagram? 35% of Instagram users are ages 25-34. 30% are 18-24. Its users are about half men, half women. It works best for younger audiences.
Pros of Advertising on Instagram: Ads on Instagram aren't disruptive on your feed or in between stories. They're the only posts on the platform with clickable links. This makes it easy to get people onto your website from Instagram. Each ad only costs $0.50 to $1.00 per click, making it a lot cheaper than Facebook.
Cons of Advertising on Instagram: Because of how easy it is to skip past ads on stories, these produce fewer clicks than other ads. The audience on Instagram is much more limited because the majority of users are people between 18 and 34.
Twitter is a social media platform with many niche audiences in a lot of different communities. Many people use it for their first source of news. Because tweets can only be 280 characters or less, it's best for short pieces of information. This would be the best place for your business to advertise if your audience is primarily online with shorter attention spans.
Who Uses Twitter? 66% of users are men. 38% are between the ages of 18 and 29. This means it's a good platform for younger men.
Pros of Advertising on Twitter: Because of how niche Twitter is, you can target ads to very specific audiences. There are many different types of ads you can make: you can have ads for your account itself or for specific tweets. These have different costs. To advertise a specific tweet, it costs between $0.50 and $2.00 per click, whereas to advertise your account, it costs $2.00-$4.00 per follow.
Cons of Advertising on Twitter: The analytics you get from Twitter are a lot less specific than other platforms. This makes it especially hard to prove a return on investment. The way Twitter is set up makes it difficult to be seen through the clutter of other tweets as well.
Youtube
Youtube has over 2 billion users worldwide. Almost every video has an ad before it and there are ads on different parts of the screen too. Youtube is best for your business if you have very visual content you'd like to advertise.
Who Uses Youtube? 62% of users are male and 37% are between the ages of 18 and 34. This is another platform that's good for niche audiences.
Pros of Advertising on Youtube: Youtube is the third most popular social media platform in the world. It also only costs $0.10-$0.30 per click, making it the cheapest social media platform to advertise on. Also, you can target keywords on Youtube for much less expensive than on Google.
Cons of Advertising on Youtube: You have to catch people's attention in less than five seconds if you don't want them to skip your ad. When advertising on Youtube, you don't have any control over the videos your ads are placed with. This means your ads could be before videos you don't support or agree with.
Advertising on social media is the best option for any business. You can target your ads to very specific audiences and demographics. Finding the social media platform that works best for your business is as simple as understanding your audience. The social media platform you should be advertising on is the one your audience uses the most.
