Talkin' 'Bout My Generation: Defining Demographics to Find the Best Social Platforms
Most businesses can't be amazing on
every social media platform; that takes a huge amount of bandwidth and
resources. Instead of having a sub-par representation in a lot of places, the
key is to be amazing on a select few of them, especially when first starting
out.
It can seem daunting figuring out how
to choose which platforms work best for your business. Here’s 3 easy steps to
follow to help you decide:
1.
Identify
your audience
·
Who
is your typical customer? How old are they? Are they male or female? What’s
their income?
2.
Define
your goals
·
Do
you want to drive sales? Develop relationships? Build brand awareness? Deliver better
customer service?
3.
Find
your audience
·
Now
that you have your audience profiled and your goals defined, it’s time to find
your audience. To do this, you’re going to determine which platform your
audience uses by looking at the demographics of the users on each
platform.
Social media at its core is about
communication. It’s that simple. The trick is deciding how you can best story
tell and engage on a platform where your target audience spends most of their
time.
How do you decide which platforms will
reach your ideal target audience? Here’s a brief overview of the most
significant platforms in terms of most monthly active users and their
demographics to give you a better grasp on the platforms that your target
audiences are using.
Facebook is one of the most
powerful social platforms in the world. It’s size alone—2 billion monthly active users (MAUs)—is a positive for any
business, because you can assume that most people are on it. This, combined
with the ability to build relationships with consumers through one-on-one
interactions and utilize their targeted ads, make Facebook not just an “option”
but a must for all businesses.
Facebook is the most diverse when
it comes to demographics as it’s unique in being popular amongst all age groups
and genders. 79% of internet users regularly log into Facebook (Carey-Simos,
2015). Some of the key demographics amongst those Facebook users include:
·
56%
men, 44% women
·
88%
of 18-29-year-olds use Facebook, while also 84% of those aged 30-49, 72% of those
aged 50-64 and 62% of those that are 65+
·
The
U.S. has the most users out of all countries
·
84%
of adult users make less than $30,000, 80% make between $30,000-$49,999, 77%
make between $50,000-$74,999 and75% make over $75,000
Gary
Vaynerchuk calls
Twitter “the water cooler of our society.” This is because Twitter is where you
go for trending topics and news, to share short updates, communicate with
people and search for things that you might need answers to. This is also one
of the best platforms for providing customer service to your audience in-real-time.
Twitter tends to pull a younger demographic
than other platforms (Carey-Simos, 2015). Some of the key demographics amongst
Twitter users include:
·
53%
men, 47% women
·
36%
of 18-29-year-olds use Twitter, while also 23% of those aged 30-49, 21% of
those aged 50-64 and 10% of those 65+
·
30%
of adult users make over $75,000, 28% make $50,000-$74,999, 23% make less than
$30,000 and 18% make $30,000-$49,999
Instagram has always been more so
about the visuals rather than actually communicating through words. This is
perfect for businesses with a visual or physical product art, food, retail,
beauty, etc. as you can best showcase that product through this platform. The
introduction of Instagram advertising makes it even better for business. It
also gives the ability of a second form of interaction to take consumers
“behind the scenes” with Instagram stories.
Instagram, which is now owned by
Facebook, is one of the fastest growing social platforms ever with more than 800
million active users (Carey-Simos, 2015). Some of the key demographics of those
users include:
·
68%
women, 32% men
·
59%
of 18-29-year-olds use Instagram, while also 33% of those aged 30-49, 18% of
those aged 50-64 and 8% of those 65+
·
38%
of adult users make less than $30,000, 37% make more than $75,000, 32% make
$30,000-$49,999 and 32% make $49,999-$74,999
LinkedIn has the distinction of
being the most utilized platform for older audiences. This is because it is a
niche platform aimed at professionals. Even before the term "social
media" became fashionable, we had social networking, and that clearly
defines LinkedIn’s purpose. LinkedIn, who is owned by Microsoft, has over 35
million MAUs (Carey-Simos, 2015). Some of the key demographics of those users
include:
·
56%
are men, 44% are women
·
31%
of 30-49-year-olds use LinkedIn, while also 30% of those aged 50-64, 23% of
those aged 18-29 and 21% of those 65+
·
45%
of adult users make more than $75,000, 32% make $50,000-%74,999, 21% make less
and $30,000 and 13% make $30,000-$49,999
Allocation and Conversation
It’s important to start with only
two or three social media channels and build from there as you want to ensure
that your marketing resources are allotted strategically. The most successful
budgets allocate resources according to the strength of the return on
investment in that particular marketing channel. In other words, if Facebook is
bringing your website the most traffic, and you’re seeing the most success
there, then you should allocate a larger slice of the pie there.
Now that you have your budget
allocated and your social media channels chosen to best fit your target market,
you’re probably asking the question, “What do my consumers really want to see?”
There’s the old adage that “content is king,” but one might instead say that, “Conversation
is King, and content is just something to talk about.” This is because human
interaction is at the center of all social channels.
Content without conversation is
just advertising. Maybe a piece of your message will stick and maybe not.
However, if the content is engaging, it may just start a conversation and
resonate. Social media users are constantly sending out information, but the
fun doesn’t actually start unless those morsels are taken up by someone else
and responded to, passed along or “liked.” And for that to happen, there has to
be a conversation starter somewhere in the message. Our world is shaped by the
relationships and conversations we have with other people and by the emotions
we feel as well as the information we receive (Novak, 2012).
Stick to that mindset and ask
yourself, “Will this start a conversation?” before each post, and you’ll have a
social media strategy that resonates with your target audience and builds your
online presence to the best that it can be.
References
Carey-Simos, G. (2015, June 4).
2015 Social Media Demographics. Retrieved from http://wersm.com/2015-social-media-demographics-for-marketers/
Levy, S. (2013, December 2). How to
Choose the Best Social Media Platform for Your Business. Retrieved from https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/230020
Murphy, A. (2017, May 8). How to
choose the best social media platforms for your business. Retrieved from https://medium.com/strategic-content-marketing/how-to-choose-the-best-social-media-platforms-for-your-business-e7e0f668e4e8
Novak, C. (2010, July 27). Why
conversation, not content, is king. Retrieved from http://socialmediatoday.com/wordspring/152636/why-conversation-not-content-king
York, A. (2017, March 6). Social Media
Demographics to Inform a Better Segmentation Strategy. Retrieved from https://sproutsocial.com/insights/new-social-media-demographics/#facebook
Great post, really liked the info graphic!
ReplyDeleteI agree that budget is often allocated on how well a specific social media site drives traffic to your site and creates the type of conversions that we want. With that said, we also need to recognize that social media is often not an overnight success...especially if we are new to social media. It will often take us a while to hit our stride and for our audience to also get into the flow of what we are doing or that we are even there.
ReplyDeleteEven at the pace we now live in, somethings just do not happen immediately, and there should ideally be a time period established before we even start that indicates how long we will give to try and understand any given platform.