When it comes to online marketing, social media is a valuable tool. There are billions of social media users across the globe, and Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are their primary communication platforms of choice. Social media influencers—well-known social media presences that can promote your product or service—are also very visible on these networks, and partnering with them is an excellent promotional tactic. In this article, we will go over the differences between Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram in terms of their purpose for users, as well as businesses’ ability to market with them and social media influencers’ role on the sites.
Facebook is a social media site that operates through the sharing of multimedia posts, HTML, pictures, videos, hyperlinks to news sites, GIFs, and more. Facebook does not have a character limit (unlike Twitter), and it also has an enormous global user base. According to the site, there are 1.65 billion monthly active users. A little over 84% of Facebook’s user demographic lives outside the US and Canada. Started in 2004, Facebook has overtaken the social media pioneer Myspace as one of the longest-standing, largest sites for communication (Myspace reached its peak in 2008, and now it has 50 million followers).
Marketing on Facebook is becoming more and more common, and Facebook’s latest statistics show that there are currently 40 million small business pages on the site. Facebook has even started a department, headed by VP Dan Levy, who has stated that around 1.5 million of the 2 million advertisements on Facebook currently belong to small businesses looking to promote themselves.
Facebook can help you because of the tools it has given business to advertise, regardless of size. The reason Facebook hasn’t lost steam by now is because it continues to change, adapt, and play to its strengths—one of those strengths being marketing. Updated mobile layouts, different sections of a profile for product, contacting, and multimedia advertising, and more detail-oriented features are all examples of ways in which a business can structure their Facebook page almost like a website, combing social communication with a website aesthetic.
Social media influencers on Facebook are prevalent, naturally, and they can direct your product to their audience base. Because of the lack of limits on word count, as well as the ability to post many pictures at a time (distinguishing the site from Twitter), Facebook gives your business the opportunity to communicate rapidly with clients, and in detail as well. Social media influencers also can use that ability to discuss products at-length to their advantage. Facebook is a jack-of-all-trades when it comes to social media.
Twitter, a comparatively newer social media site that was started in 2006, has 310 million monthly active users. Twitter also uses multimedia posts, and allows you to re-tweet and “fave” posts that you like. There are character limits (140), and you can only post four pictures per tweet (or one GIF, or one video). This may present a challenge to companies that feel as though they need more space than that. However, a major advantage to Twitter is its younger user base. The vast majority of Twitter users are between 18 and 29, whereas the majority of Facebook users are in that same age range, but are almost neck-and-neck with users between 30 and 49. There’s also a large 65+ presence on Facebook.
Twitter for small business has also taken off, and Twitter has created a department and online blog just for small businesses. According to Search Engine People, 70% of small businesses are on Twitter, and MediaBistro found that 67% of Twitter users are more likely to purchase products from businesses that they follow on the site. This bodes well for your business, and can help you market if you are attempting to attract a younger audience. Despite the character constraints, Twitter allows you to post links that will direct traffic to your business.
Social media influencers, much like on Facebook, are very visible on Twitter. They primarily communicate through pictures and videos, as multimedia proves to be effective when the character limit prevents lengthy discussion. If you feel that your business can be represented that way, marketing on Twitter is a good idea.
The third most popular social media site, Instagram, is a photo and video sharing site that also allows you to post large amounts of texts beneath it, although seeing lengthy dissertations beneath photos is rare. Instagram has reached 300 million active monthly users, and the vast majority are between the ages of 18 and 29. Instagram has become more popular for small businesses, as companies are realizing that they are able to use picture-sharing and video-sharing sites to represent their business.
Businesses aren’t just shown through text and HTML. With Instagram’s 300 million active users, being able to show visual representation of what your business does is a great way to communicate with people. Instagram has even started a section on their online web page that advises business owners on how to use their site to drive traffic.
Influencer marketing platforms like NeoReach will assist you in representing your business visually by matching you with the influencers who can help promote your brand. Videos and social media posts will show them using and enjoying your product or service, making the saying “A picture’s worth 1,000 words” very, very accurate. A younger, more visually-oriented demographic that is used to social media will appreciate being able to see what you have to offer right away, as opposed to reading blocks of HTML about it.
You don’t have to be a tech expert or have a huge marketing department to use social media sites to advertise. Social media can be taken advantage of by any business, regardless of that business’s size, industry, or number of employees. Sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram all have programs that reach out to business owners looking to advertise on them, and the visibility of social media influencers is a very fruitful marketing strategy.
it is really helpful…:)
Haha.. thanks Mahesh 😀