Before we start listing the best social media platforms, it is important that you understand the criteria to choosing the best platforms for your business.

Here are the 3 biggest things you need to keep in mind.

1.  Choose Social Media Platforms Where Your Audience is Located
2. Choose Social Media Platforms That are Specific to Your Content Type
3. Limit the Number of Social Media Platforms You Choose to be On

Facebook is not the newest and coolest social media platform. But the fact is that it is still the largest social media platform by far in terms of users.

It has over 2 billion monthly active users! 

Facebook is probably the most versatile of the platforms, in the sense that it suits all types of content. Think of it as a way to communicate and engage with your audience. You can post everything from informational and statistical content, to a special offer or some light-hearted posts.

Facebook is the best platform for sharing content in the form of external links, or guest posts with images and short text. Facebook groups can also be created as a way to stay in touch with customers and create a line of communication between you as a business owner, and your audience.

Facebook is the perfect platform to promote content from your blog, or to share various resources and guides with your audience.

3/4 of Facebook users visit the site on a daily basis. Half of Facebook users visit the site several times per day.

Oh and if you thought teenagers aren’t using Facebook, think again. Over half of teenagers use Facebook. And nearly half of people above the age of 46 use Facebook!

With Facebook the question is more about who doesn’t use Facebook?

In addition to providing you the ability to connect with a great number of people from diverse backgrounds, there are a few unique features that Facebook can offer your business.

What makes Facebook one of the best social media platforms for business is its targeted digital advertising platform. With Facebook ads, you are able to target those who are most likely, willing and ready to purchase your products or services. This ensures that your business gets your ad content in front of the right users at the right time.

Another reason why Facebook is one of the best social media platforms for business is their e-commerce integrations. Facebook makes it easy for users to purchase from your company through the social media platform. Making a purchase is as easy as clicking one button.

Now that Facebook has allowed brands to interact with customers through Facebook messenger, you can also provide shipping updates and other order notifications through the Facebook platform as well.

With an average of about 330 million active Twitter users worldwide, this channel is yet another one of the best social media platforms.

Twitter is a real-time social media platform. It’s like sending text messages to the whole world. Alternatively, think of each tweet as a radio advert in that it is has a short lifespan.

Because it’s limited in characters, it forces you to be creative with what you have to actually say and it’s one of the only social media platforms where you don’t necessarily have to have loads of videos or photos to stand-out.

Twitter is best used for snappy, quick and to the point content. Tweets have a much shorter lifespan – just think about how often the trending page changes – so it’s the place for industry news and latest updates. The 280-character limit means shorter and more precise tweets are what work best for shareable content. Because it’s limited in characters, it forces you to be creative with what you have to actually say and it’s one of the only social media platforms where you don’t necessarily have to have loads of videos or photos to stand-out.

The retweet function means you can share other pages’ content, as well as your own, and promote their content too. Uploading images and designed content, such as posters or infographics, is popular content on Twitter. Short videos can also capture the attention of someone scrolling through their feed. Twitter popularised the use of hashtags to allow users to follow a particular topic. Using hashtags means your brand’s tweets can reach a wider audience.

So what are the stats on Twitter?

Twitter has over 330 million active users, so about the same as LinkedIn but nowhere near Facebook and Instagram.

In terms of age, Twitter’s biggest demographic consists of people between the ages of 18-29.

38% of people in their category actively use Twitter, and surprisingly 32% of all teenagers use Twitter as well.

You can also find about 26% of its users between the ages of 30-49.

In terms of income and education, Twitter is not the highest on our list here.

Only 32% of high-earners use Twitter regularly, and likewise, only 32% of people with college degrees use Twitter regularly.

Twitter has over 330 million active users, so about the same as LinkedIn but nowhere near the numbers on Facebook and Instagram.

When it comes to Twitter, there are a few valuable features that may help it qualify to be one of the best social media platforms for business.

• Brands can use Twitter to reach and engage their audience.

• Hashtags allow you to follow and participate in conversations about trending topics in your industry.

• You can use hashtags to reach new audiences who might be interested in your content. Your brand can also take advantage of topics that are trending to expand your reach.

• Twitter also offers advertising opportunities for companies that want to deliver digital ads to their target customers on the social media platform.

• They have multiple options for ad formats, depending on your unique digital advertising goals.

• You can promote your account, which will show up in the left column or promote a tweet from your brand, which will appear in the user’s Twitter feed.

• There is also the option to promote a certain trend that your company may be using to start a conversation among target users.

It’s also worth noting that Twitter is well-known for its search engine.

LinkedIn started as a business and employment-based social media platform. It’s full of professionals across a wide-spectrum of industries, especially B2B companies.

LinkedIn currently boasts just over 300 million users are active on a monthly basis. So, in terms of audience size, it’s 4x smaller than Facebook, and 2x smaller than Instagram.

However, this fact is actually correlated with a major strength behind LinkedIn. Because LinkedIn’s newsfeed is not as competitive as other giants like Facebook and Instagram, businesses are able to reach more of their connections and followers without paying for advertisements.

LinkedIn is mainly used as a professional platform to share newsworthy or work-related content. As such, it’s a good platform for sharing case study stories and content aimed at the working professional. Give your audience an insight into company culture and share any networking events or awards you attend. Plus, LinkedIn is great for sharing any changes you are making in your business to adapt to a current trend, or to provide unique industry insights.

For context here, because Facebook and Instagram news feeds are so crowded, they rely on specific algorithms and rules to determine if they will actually show your content to your followers.

We mean, you’d think that people who chose to follow you would automatically see your content. But no, it simply increases their chances of seeing your content on those platforms.  

Anyway, the cool thing about LinkedIn is that it is not as stingy with its news feed. Which provides businesses and professionals an opportunity to build massive awareness and engagement on their platform.

Now regarding LinkedIn’s demographics…

• LinkedIn is mostly used by professionals between the ages of 30-49 years of age.

• However, about a quarter of professionals above the age of 18-29, which we’d really say 22-29 use LinkedIn.

• As well as another quarter of people between the ages of 50-64 that use LinkedIn on a daily basis.

About half of people with  degrees use LinkedIn on a regular basis, probably searching for their next job opportunity or seeking to consume professional content.

One of the best qualities of LinkedIn is that audiences on this social media platform are business-minded. This means that they are often open to networking opportunities and hearing about ways to improve the way they work or make their job easier.

This provides an excellent opportunity for B2B brands that would like to connect with business decision-makers across different industries.

Another feature that makes LinkedIn one of the best social media platforms are their digital advertising opportunities. Though digital ads on LinkedIn may be more expensive than ads on Facebook, this ad opportunity allows B2B brands to reach individuals from the specific industries that they are targeting.

Similarly, LinkedIn allows you to deliver ad content to those with the job roles that are involved with making purchasing decisions related to a company’s B2B offering.

LinkedIn also has groups that users can join and participate in based on their industry, job function, or career interests. This provides an excellent opportunity for brands to drive real engagement with influencers and decision makers across different industries.

Ultimately, if you serve businesses or professionals, then LinkedIn Marketing should definitely be in the running as a top-contender for social media platforms to choose for your business.

Pinterest is a great social media platform with major search engine capabilities. Most people use Pinterest to find inspiration or helpful content.

For example, if you wanted to try a new cooking recipe, you could jump use Pinterest to find a food you’re interested in cooking. While this is just an example, it’s really how most people use Pinterest. Pinterest is full of home décor, fashion, food, and most importantly, shopping.

Now, here are the stats.

• Pinterest has over 322 million monthly active users.
• And here’s a new stat we haven’t talked about on gender. Pinterest is mostly used by woman. In fact, there are 3x more women on Pinterest than men.
• This shouldn’t interest you if your business fits.
• When it comes to purchasing decisions around fashion, home décor, and so on, women are the normally the predominant decision makers.
• This is backed by the high-income profile that Pinterest has, 41% of people with high incomes use Pinterest on a regular basis.
• And 38% of people with college degrees use Pinterest as well.
• So if your business primarily targets consumers, especially women, then Pinterest is a hard platform to avoid.

41% of people with high incomes use Pinterest on a regular basis and there are 3 times more women than men.

One of the greatest aspects of Pinterest is that it has a significant reach among women across different demographics, including age, income, education level, and location. This makes it the perfect platform for any brand with products or services that are targeting women.

The image-focus of the platform also makes it ideal for brands in the fashion, home décor, art, food, or fitness industries.

The Pinterest Buy Button makes it easier than ever to sell products directly from your Pinterest page.

Users can now conveniently search and pin products on Pinterest, and then, with the click of a button, they can add their favourite items to their shopping bag. This feature makes Pinterest another way for brands to gain visibility and increase sales.

YouTube is used to share videos globally. Videos can be long or short in length, it just depends on the message you are trying to communicate and the audience you are trying to reach. For example, younger audiences may have a shorter attention span, and skip over a video that is longer than a few minutes, or you might want to make videos about a topic that needs to be much more in-depth. With just a smartphone, it’s easy to share educational content such as how-to videos, as well as product demonstrations.

YouTube is arguably the best social media platform that exists.

1. Roughly 2 billion people use YouTube
2. You can reach people searching for your content
3. Video is the most preferred media format today

Then, what could possibly be wrong with YouTube?

Well, nothing is fundamentally wrong with it. But it takes a ton of work to get it working. YouTube is very effective, but production can be quite expensive if you want to stand out – you may want video setup with a camera, lighting, microphones and video editing software.

With that said, let’s look at some YouTube stats.

• In terms of age, people of all ages use YouTube. 85% of teenagers and even 38% of people over the age of 65.
• In terms of income, YouTube is heavily used by high-income individuals. The same is true for education. 80% of people with degrees use YouTube.

So in terms of the benefits of YouTube, is arguably the best social media platform for businesses. However, again, there is an astronomical amount of work involved to produce video after to video in order to be successful. This puts YouTube above Instagram and almost eye-to-eye with Facebook in terms of usage.

But not only is YouTube widely used, but it is also the 2nd largest search engine behind no other than Google. So not only do you have the ability to reach a broad audience, but you are also able to reach people searching for you.

If we add all of this to the simple fact that video is the most preferred type of media amongst consumers, then YouTube becomes even harder to avoid.

In terms of age, people of all ages use YouTube. 85% of teenagers and even 38% of people over the age of 65.

Perhaps the greatest perk of YouTube is that it allows brands to access an unlimited amount of video hosting. This makes it an affordable way for businesses to publish video content that can drive more engagement and influence conversions. YouTube content can also be easily integrated onto your website or shared on other social media platforms for greater reach.

Not only does YouTube allow you to reach a wide audience of viewers across the globe, but it can also help with your search engine optimization (SEO). The content that you post on your brand’s YouTube channel is searchable in both YouTube and Google. That means that Google may just serve your YouTube video content in its search engine results page for keywords that you are trying to target.

Remember, it’s important to make sure that your YouTube videos are optimised for search if you want to get the most out of this helpful feature.

Instagram is another platform that feels like it’s non-negotiable. Maybe it’s because it’s owned by Facebook, or maybe it’s because it also has another 1 billion users.

To determine if Instagram will be one of the best social media platforms for your business, let’s look at the demographics.

If you’re targeting a younger demographic, Instagram will be great for you.

72% of all teenagers use Instagram and 67% of all young adults under the age of 30 use Instagram.

You will also find about half of the people under the age of 50 years old on Instagram, and even a quarter of people between the ages of 50-65 on Instagram.

Instagram is best for sharing visual content and eye-catching images – it’s a bit like your online gallery. Short videos can also be uploaded daily on Instagram stories to reach your consumers and create a more personal and relatable feel. With more filters and features being added to Instagram Stories every day, there’s always a new way to interact with customers, like question stickers, polls and more.

Just like Twitter, remember to use relevant hashtags to boost your presence in your industry. Adding a location to your post, or a geo-tag to your stories, is helpful for local discoverability.

Although Instagram works best for lifestyle and visual brands who can benefit from showing off their products or services, any business can have a successful Instagram presence.

Ultimately, Instagram is a great platform to reach consumers at large. But, it may not contain the most sophisticated audience for specific industries, like engineering or information technology, for example.

39% of users classify themselves as female and 30% as male.

Instagram’s unique social media platform can provide some powerful benefits for your business.

One of the best benefits of Instagram is that it allows you to tell your brand’s story with unique and engaging visual content. Unlike other social media platforms, Instagram is heavily focused on visuals, both images and video. No matter what industry your company is in, you can use Instagram to showcase your products and tell your brand story in a way that’s visually appealing.

One interesting feature that can be useful is Instagram stories. With Instagram stories, you can take live video and share it with all of your followers. With this feature, you can easily provide behind-the-scenes footage of your business and share important news and updates with your followers.

Like Facebook, Instagram also allows you to message users directly. This can be a great tool for customer service. For instance, if a consumer finds you on Instagram and has a question about your products or services, they no longer have to navigate to your website or pick up the phone to ask. Instead, they can direct message you through Instagram, which allows you to answer questions and address concerns instantly.

If this excites you, Instagram may be your best social media platform for business.

Now you have the necessary information and the demographic stats for all the relevant social media platforms, here are some final pointers to help you pick the best one for your business:

1. Go to where your audience is. Don’t set up a Snapchat account if you’re trying to target 50-year-old professionals and executives.
2. Only pick two or three social media platforms and do them really well. There’s no use in spreading yourself thin across multiple platforms and failing to reach your audience on each one.
3. Check out which platforms your competitors are using to get an extra idea of what content goes where and how your target audience is being reached.

Picking the best social media platforms for your business will benefit you as a business owner, as well as benefiting your customers.

It’s a great tool to use to stay in touch with your consumers, as well as establishing a strong online presence. Both are invaluable in the current digital world we now live in!