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Which Social Media Accounts Really Matter and Why
I think social media is really important. I doubt anyone would argue with me about that. But social media is also misunderstood in some ways. One of those misunderstandings is which social media sites a business or individual should be on.
If you read this article, you’re going to understand which social media sites are best for your brand or business. You won’t have to waste your time messing around on social media sites that have no ROI, and you even might do better at gaining leads on the social media sites that are perfect for your business.
A Quick Look at the Social Media Landscape
Social media isn’t a fad or trend. It’s an enduring reality of online existence. For marketers, it’s indispensable. But when you approach social media as a marketing channel, things may get a bit confusing.
Here’s why. Social media marketing includes a myriad of potential social media sites, a vast array of ways to engage, and a medley of styles for each platform. It’s more than just Facebook. You need to figure out which of the legion networks to join. Then, you need to determine optimal messages, posting frequency, cost of social media management, integration with other marketing channels, and how to make the most of the billions of people who are purportedly hanging out on social media.
To slice through the confusion, here are four questions that you should answer.
1. Where is my audience?
The primary question to ask about social media is where your audience is actually spending time. What social media outlets are they on?
A caveat is in order. Simply because you have followers doesn’t mean that you have an audience. In January 2019, a report claimed as many as 50% of Facebook’s accounts were fake. Simply having a bunch of followers doesn’t guarantee that you have a human audience. If you buy followers, you are almost assuredly buying fake accounts. While these fake accounts might be great for follower numbers, they don’t do much for your actual marketing.
2. Where is my audience active?
Big social media numbers doesn’t mean big activity. For example, there are over 1 billion Google users, but only 35% percent of those users were active in the past month. Twitter, too, has a lot of members with a relatively low number of active members. Of the site’s 645,750,000 signups, only a portion of those are active each month.
A social media user needs to be active on a social media site in order for them to be of any use to you.
In an infographic from Search Engine Journal, here’s how many social media users are active on their respective sites:
(Other sites were not part of SEJ’s reporting.)
There’s a disparity between overall members on a site, and number of active members on the site.
3. Where is my audience searching?
As I’ve discussed before, people use social media for searching, not only socializing.
Every minute, people are conducting millions of queries on Google, Twitter, and Facebook. If you are active on these social media platforms, then you have a chance at appearing in social media search results.
4. What niche social media sites are right for me?
Some businesses are missing out on a deluge of warm leads, because they are absent from niche social media sites.
Someone might tell you, “OMG! You have to join this social media site! We get all our leads from it!” Okay, that’s great. But that doesn’t mean that your business needs to be there. What kind of business do they have? If they are a boutique silk scarf seller, and found a social media site for silk scarf aficionados, then they’ve obviously find the right social media site. But if you’re a SaaS business, chances are you won’t gain as many warm leads from silk scarf social media sites.
I’ve provided these four questions as a framework for determining your social media strategy. Don’t join randomly. Instead, choose intentionally, by answering the four questions.
- Where is my audience?
- Where is my audience active?
- Where is my audience searching?
- What niche social media sites are right for me?
With that in mind, let me explain the social media accounts that truly matter.
Join the Big Three
At this stage in social media, there are three sites that reign supreme. These sites are crucial, regardless of your audience, your business model, and your strategy. Join them.
Facebook has over 2.20 billion users, the largest of any social network. In its ten-year history, it has become a fixture of the daily online experience. Nearly half of all Facebook users are active each day. When they visit Facebook, they spend an average of 18 minutes per visit!
These users aren’t only browsing profile updates or viewing photos. Each Facebook user is connected to an average of 80 pages, groups, or events. That’s where you come in — your marketing efforts and Facebook presence.
Twitter is a happening place. The average user, with their 208 average followers, 307 average Tweets, and average of 170 minutes on Twitter each day, is a market segment full of potential. About half of Twitter users use it daily, and at least 29% of Twitter users are active several times a day.
Twitter isn’t as much a lead generation platform as much as it is a brand loyalty platform. For example. 85% of Twitter users “feel more connected” to a business after they follow them on Twitter. Great content from a brand on Twitter can elicit follows and retweets, but usually an existing customer will decide to follow a favorite brand.
Every second, two new people join LinkedIn. Now, with more than 270 million users, LinkedIn is a force to be reckoned with.
According to Search Engine Journal, marketers love Twitter and Facebook. They leave out LinkedIn. But here’s the deal. LinkedIn is the platform for B2B marketing not B2C marketing.
LinkedIn proudly touts their user base of professionals. Many of those professionals are connected with companies. These companies could benefit from the extra marketing love. Don’t neglect LinkedIn, especially if you’re in B2C.
Those are the big three. Whatever you’re selling, doing, being, or saying, these are the three social media accounts you need to keep active.
Consider the Lesser Three
These are called “the lesser three” (my term) only because they’re not part of the big three. These social media sites are huge, and I strongly encourage you to be present on them as well as the big three.
According to a study earlier this year, Pinterest officially became a more popular sharing platform than email. Pinterest has the highest revenue per click of any other social sharing network.
Early in its life, Pinterest got labelled as a social platform for women. At first, that was true. But now, women account for about half of Pinterest pinners, which isn’t much different from the gender slant on other social media sites. Pinterest is a place to be for any gender, any company, and any brand.
I’ve found that Instagram is a powerful way to promote both one’s personal brand and a business, too. In spite of my not-so-often posting, I discovered that liking and commenting on other photos is a powerful way to grow a massive following.
Instagram is a visual platform. We already know that pictures get 5x higher engagement on Twitter, and photos make up 93% of the most engaging Facebook posts. With Instagram, it’s all photos and video. That kind of visceral appeal is one of the reasons for Instagram’s massive popularity. Throw video into the mix, and you’ve got a social media channel that is basically addicting. Visual content in social media is electric.
Some social media marketers have argued that Instagram only serves the purposes of image-heavy brand content for companies like National Geographic. Sure, National Geographic’s Instagram channel is killer, and they have a strong 4.8 million followers.
However, I would argue that Instagram is effective for nearly any type of business. I’ve seen successful fitness coaches, book sellers, conference speakers, coders, video game designers, SEO companies, and accountants make a dent in the Instagram universe.
YouTube
YouTube has the distinguished position of being the second largest search engine in the world. That’s no small feat, considering that Bing and Yahoo have been vying (unsuccessfully) for that position. YouTube did it without even trying.
But, despite their modest pretensions to massive search, YouTube is a hit when it comes to video watching. Obviously. In fact, YouTube reaches more U.S. adults than any cable network.
Some brands lend themselves to video virality more than others, but any brand can post videos. A video doesn’t have to be expensive or fancy in order to be effective in brand promotion. It needs to be on YouTube.
Check out Two of the Little Ones
My word “little” needs a bit of a disclaimer. These social media sites are massive. However, as social media marketing platforms, their benefit comes in their niche sub-communities for people of shared interest. On Facebook, you might socialize with people whom you went to school with — friends from past and present. On Tumblr, however, you might interact with people who share your interest in, say, aerial photography drones. In that sense, your audience might be smaller, but more focused.
Tumblr
Even though it’s technically a “blogging platform,” Tumblr has enjoyed meteoric growth in its young life.
In 2013, Tumblr was raking in monthly pageviews that soared over 5 billion. With smart posting (i.e., great content), and consistency, many marketers have discovered that Tumblr is an ideal place to make an impact within one’s niche. Some marketers actually host their company blog on Tumblr. (This is something which I don’t recommend for SEO purposes).
Reddit is a news site, basically. But as a social media news site, it has an appeal that goes beyond mere “headlines.” These headlines are voted up and virally shared.
So maybe a dog saying “Hiiiii!” isn’t quite as meaningful as business news or government decision-making. But still, Reddit is a marketing channel that might work for some companies. Of all the social media sites, Reddit is with the highest percentage of news-readers — 62% according to Pew researchers.
To use Reddit effectively, the secret is creating engagement on subreddits, communities that are packed with people who are passionate about what you are. This is your target community. Then, you create relevant headlines and promotions to create an uptick in your stories.
Find One Niche Site
Last, you should explore the niche social media landscape. You might discover that it’s an absolute waste of time and there is zero ROI. Or, on the other hand, you might find a world of untapped potential and dozens of warm leads. It’s worth doing some exploring.
Here’s are a few sorta-popular niche sites. Forget the millions of followers and fans. Here, it’s all about a targeted audience:
- Untappd – Beer lovers
- Behance – Creative professionals
- Care2 – Green lifestyle
- GoodReads – People who love reading
- Ravelry – Knitters and crocheters
- Gentlemint – Pinterest for dudes
The best way to find your niche social site is to google it. You will find something.
Conclusion
The social media scene can be bewildering. But if you follow this plan, you’re going to experience an ROI:
- Must: Join the Big Three: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn
- Should: Consider the Lesser Three: Pinterest, Instagram, YouTube
- Could: Check out Two of the Little Ones: Tumblr, Reddit
- Possibly: Find One Niche Site
As you engage social media, you’ll discover the social nuances of your own niche. It will look different for every business, region, target audience, and personal style.
What social media sites have you discovered to be useful for your business?
This is such a great article! It’s important to know where your target audience is interacting so you can interact with them, build relationships, and become a resource. Not every social media platform is for every industry, but the major 4 mentioned in this article, I agree are must have accounts. It was nice to see the breakdown of what social sites people are using and for how long!
Great analysis related to Social Media. It is an increasing field and thus very necessary to be studied. Thanks for providing a helpful statistics.
Santosh, glad we could help. Looking forward to hearing more from you 🙂
Maybe the article needs updating – Pinterest has grown substantially and not a smaller identity any more
Thanks for letting me know, Adrian!
What a great read. I have to admit to doing forum searches to uncover niches, but not a search for social networks that cater to interests – great tip, thank you.
Sarah, glad we could help. Thanks for the feedback 🙂
Hey Neil,
Thanks so much for all this information in order to clarify the purpose, the usefulness and the necessity to have several social media accounts. I specifically appreciated the fact that you took the time to explain where our focus should be; depending of the niche we are experts in.
I just want to add the fact that presence on these social media sites is not enough. We should never forget about the consistency of comments, valuable content, interactions with our audience.
Social media is very powerful. I have to say that Facebook and LinkedIn have served me well up to now. And I intend to extend my participation into other social platforms with your advice. Thanks!
Fabienne, thanks for sharing all this great advice. I think community engagement is vital. Thanks for sharing and I look forward to hearing more from you 🙂
Great insight about social media, Business without social media presence will surely be left behind.
This feature can help drive better discovery of popular items that consumers want.
Krish, great points! Looking forward to hearing more from you 🙂
Honestly speaking I do not know what to say about this article. There is so much to intake and learn from this piece of content. This is really great and handy for those who are really new to social medias or for them who restricted themselves to the walls of Facebook and Twitter. According to me, personally (as an SEO professional) I feel Google+ is the best among all these if you want to get a good amount of SEO advantages from your social networking and engaging but at the same point of time Twitter can be an SEO help in many different ways (though not direct).
Each platforms do have their limitations and advantages and as a business your success depends how much advantages you can accumulate from these social sites.
Soumya, great points. Thanks for the feedback 🙂
We look forward to hearing more from you!
What about WeChat, if we’re trying to aim for international audience, considering it’s very big in China?
Liran, I think that’s definitely an angle you should approach 🙂
Thank you, will check to see how it works 🙂
I that graph is eye opening. I didn’t realise google plus was so high up (2nd) I will have to re look a few things in my plans.
Jessica, awesome! Let us know what you come up with 🙂
Hi Neil Patel,
I Agree , Really This is a Great Post With Very Informative Points.
Thanks.
This is an exceptionally helpful article! I’ve focused more in my career on the content creation, messaging, and marketing aspects of effective communications. Now Neil has provided clear pathways through the social media jungle to help those of us who are exploring how to maximize impact for ourselves and our organizations. Thank you & kudos!
Janet, glad we could help. Thanks for reading through and we look forward to hearing more from you 🙂
Social Media Optimization is very Useful for any website. Thanks for posting this great analyze report of Social Media Websites.
Nikita, glad we could help 🙂
Thank you, SMM is No.1 in my current blog promotion. Helped me to understand some stuff.
Alex, glad we could help 🙂
Google+ should be the winner in the long haul. The use of rel=author and rel=publisher meta tags, coupled with social signals as a ranking factor (I’m sure they’ll add a tad more ranking weight to their own product) should close the gap between it and FB.
Simon, thanks for these great points. Looking forward to hearing more from you 🙂
Big thanks, Neil, as always. Your insights about how to market and grow a business are unmatched. You’ve inspired me to (attempt) to learn how others are figuring out which social sites their ideal customers are active on. @cytrevino
Cheers,
Cynthia Trevino
Cynthia, glad we could help 🙂
Cynthia, glad I could help. Looking forward to hearing more from you on here 🙂
Great post and read thx, however, I disagree somewhat. I agree that there is no denying one must be on FB and twitter regarding of the brand, business model or strategy. However, there is no denying that for certain brands (fashion, luxury, etc) you will be far better off ensuring you are on Instagram and Pinterest over being on Google+ (for example). Therefore I would say that your division of “must”, “should” etc may be better paired to a B2B than to B2C brand. An image is worth a thousand words and Instagram/Pinterest/Tumblr will provide that visual imagery and storytelling that is more needed/required to a B2C brand than LinkedIn or Google+ ever could. I’m not saying you don’t need to be on those two but for certain categories your “must” vs your “should” could be redefined.
It bothers me that this article doesn’t mention the number of ACTIVE users on Google+. Sure, they may have the second-largest base of registered users, but by many accounts, only 32% of Google+ users actively use the service.
Thoughts?
I like the article, thanks. Being active in social media is important for anyone operating online.
As we know there are many social sites but people mostly used Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Instagram, LinkedIn so for marketing or any kind of purpose we must have to select a right site, it matters a lot.In this article you had shown StumbleUpon and Reddit are also one of the good Social Bookmarking sites.Here also you had shown graphically representation of sites ratio.That’s also really great.!
So happy to spend my 5-10 Min on reading this.
It truly is definitely excellent post. I am really very pleased to check out your website. Its an awesome, appropriate, customized information. Thanks for sharing great and useful social media sites.
You’re very welcome, Ankita!
i was just browsing along and came upon your blog. just wanted to say good blog and this article really helped me.
Nice!
I want my fans to support me
Gain their interest 🙂 Make your brand their go-to!
Some great thoughts here, especially with Twitter being a brand loyalty platform. Some companies don’t see the benefit of Twitter, but it can really connect audiences to your business. We wrote an article about some companies who were really taking advantage of Twitter as a platform to improve a brands perception – check it out if you get the chance! https://littlemediaagency.com/marketing-through-twitter-companies-getting-it-right/
Great!! Thank you for sharing that, Katie 🙂
Great article, Great content with all the helpful information.Thanks for sharing!
My pleasure, Debora!
Thank you for this great article and insight, Neil.
I was debating between Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram for my personal finance / financial independence blog. I think I will focus on Facebook and Twitter for now. Maybe I’ll add Instagram or LinkedIn further on down the road.
I would say those are two good options to start testing with 🙂
Thanks for these social media breakdowns. It’s was really helpful. Now I can delete snapchat, Tik tok, and other tools I find unnecessary to save my time.
You’re very welcome 🙂
I would be interested to hear your thoughts on how to set up social media for companies that have multiple store or branch locations (40+). For each SM platform is it best to have one parent account or a separate account for each location?
I think it’s good to have one overarching account, and then you can have small local accounts as well if you think that will be beneficial to customers 🙂
The importance of social networking sites in today’s world is immense. Indeed, the above mentioned websites are best, however there is also a latest Social Networking site MyworldGo , where you can connect with others. We are also available on iOS and android.
So true, my friend!
Good
Thank you!
dear sir i have come a crossed indian social networking sit famenest that offers multiple features. i am a regular follower of you since many years.
Thanks for following 🙂