A 2023 survey with 2,133 respondents revealed that global marketers believe the leading benefits of social media marketing are increased exposure, traffic, leads, loyalty, and sales.
These advantages underscore the impact of social media platforms in amplifying your marketing campaigns, brand awareness, and online reach.
However, this doesn’t mean you can use whichever social media channel you prefer, particularly when expanding your social media reach.
You must determine which social media networks suit your business best: are these the most popular channels or emerging platforms with less competition? Can you reach your target audience on these platforms?
This guide will outline the top and emerging social media networks worth considering for your business expansion. But first, you must know the best practices for choosing the appropriate platforms.
What To Do When Choosing Platforms for Your Social Media Channel Expansion
To ensure compelling and successful social media marketing campaigns, follow these practices when choosing channels:
Define and outline your social media marketing objectives
Objectives are crucial in every marketing campaign. Otherwise, you jump to action without concrete plans, resulting in ineffective sales tactics.
For this reason, defining and outlining your objectives is requisite to ensure you stay on track with the trajectory of your social media marketing projects.
Good marketing objectives are SMART: specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound.
- Specific – The goals are straightforward and encourage your team to focus on the work
- Measurable – Specific metrics ensuring objective assessments of successes and failures (e.g., key performance indicators (KPIs)
- Attainable – The goals are realistic. They should align with your budget, resources, and deadlines
- Relevant – The goals align with your company’s mission and clearly define the key benefits to the organization
- Time-bound – Established deadlines where campaign performance evaluations occur to measure success, identify failures, and set new goals
Examples:
- Acquire more social media impressions and engagement
- Get new followers
- Strengthen social media brand awareness
For efficient goal-setting, consider working with a marketing agency for tailored marketing solutions that can adapt to the diverse dynamics of social media platforms.
Scrutinize customer data to identify their preferred platforms
The next step involves reviewing customer data to determine which platforms your target audience primarily uses. It will help you scale down your options to the most relevant social media channels and avoid wasting resources.
For instance, if your audience spends most of their time on LinkedIn, it would be counterproductive to use TikTok.
You can check your Facebook Page Insights, Instagram Analytics, TikTok Analytics, and other data analytics insights on channels you’re already using. You can also employ social media analytics tools for real-time reports and comprehensive analysis.
However, if you’re a social media marketing rookie, you can browse the latest statistics and reports on consumers’ social media use.
Perform competitor analysis on their preferred social media platforms
Competitor analysis delivers insights into your competitors’ niche, content, and top-performing social media channels, enabling you to assess how their strengths and weaknesses compare to yours.
This process involves the following:
- Identify social media competitors
- Understand how competitors use their top-performing platforms
- Examine competitors’ social media content strategies
- Find opportunities to re-engineer and gaps to leverage
- Determine channels with the potential to drive the most engagement
- Categorize the types of content driving the most engagement on each channel
Consider the number of required social media channels
Using more social media channels doesn’t mean more engagement. Similarly, a single platform doesn’t guarantee brand awareness growth.
This is why it’s essential to consider the number of your required social media networks based on your resources.
Answering the following questions will be helpful:
- How many platforms can you manage within your budget?
- Does your team have sufficient expertise and skill set to create and manage content for these channels?
If you have a tight budget, targeting one or two channels might be ideal. Trying multiple channels may lead to low-performing content and interactions.
If you have limited resources, you may lack the staff required to develop the appropriate type of content. For example, if you focus on a visual discovery platform like Pinterest, you’ll need graphic designers.
Determine the types of high-performing content
Social media platforms are not alike. They have diverse characteristics, functions, and audiences. Their content predominantly differs from each other, too.
As such, classifying the types of high-performing content on each social media network will help you focus on content strategies that will yield your desired outcomes.
Auditing your existing social media posts can help at this stage. This evaluation reviews which posts performed well based on reach, engagement, and conversions. It also lets you identify which content types (images, videos, text, infographics) and themes (testimonials, tutorials, behind-the-scenes) resonate most with your audience.
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Top and Emerging Platforms To Consider for Your Social Media Expansion
Most social platforms are popular, making them ideal for targeting global audiences. In contrast, other channels are new entrants and emerging in the market.
The best platforms for your business depend on your objectives. They can either be the popular ones, emerging networks, or both.
Here are the top and emerging channels worth considering for your social media expansion:
Facebook is the top social media network worldwide. Most small and medium businesses use this channel to market their companies.
Building communities is more important than chasing followers on this platform. You must create content that can position your page on users’ news feeds. At the same time, you can create groups to encourage discussions and connect with like-minded consumers.
However, Facebook is often more popular among adults than teenagers. Over the last decade, teen usage has dropped sharply in this channel. If your target audiences are youngsters, this might not be the platform for your social media goals.
YouTube
YouTube is the second most used social media channel worldwide. This platform is best for short- and long-form video content.
Long-form video content on this platform focuses more on comprehensive step-by-step guides, tutorials, reviews, and unboxing videos.
Meanwhile, short-form videos on YouTube Shorts mirror TikTok’s format.
Mastering YouTube search engine optimization (SEO) is also helpful because Google pushes YouTube videos on its search engine over rival video hosts.
YouTube SEO optimizes your YouTube channel, videos, metadata, playlists, and descriptions to rank high on Google and other search engines.
However, the disadvantages of YouTube include:
- High levels of competition
- Strict monetization requirements
- Copyright infringement and strikes
Instagram is considered substantial for marketers. This visual app is ideal for influencer marketing and user-generated content.
Influencer marketing is a tactic where you partner with influencers to advertise your products. This strategy is prevalent because it introduces users to your brand through trusted personalities on casual platforms like Instagram.
Meanwhile, the types of user-generated content that typically perform well on Instagram include:
- Contests and giveaways
- Tips, tutorials, and how-tos
- Memes
- Quotes
- Screenshots of viral posts from other social media channels
- Videos (Reels and Stories)
A notable pitfall of Instagram is decreased visibility. Users’ feeds may be saturated with businesses and influencers selling and promoting products. This saturation may frustrate users due to the lack of organic content, resulting in unfollowing sprees.
X (formerly Twitter)
Twitter, rebranded as X in July 2023, is a straightforward, text-based social media channel. Content on this platform has to be direct because each post (previously called tweets) is limited to 280 characters only.
You can attach images, videos, links, and GIFs to your X posts to capture users’ attention on this platform’s fast-paced feed.
X is best for asking questions, creating polls, sharing thoughts, and promoting events and website content. However, here are the challenges of marketing on this social network:
- Maintaining presence is complex and requires commitment
- Users can publicly post criticisms, which can go viral quickly
- Users can easily miss your posts when you don’t post at the right time
- Spam accounts can pester your account through mentions and replies
While LinkedIn began as a job search channel, it has now progressed into a social media platform for professionals.
Here’s how to market your company on LinkedIn:
- Publish opportunities encouraging prospects to learn more about your brand
- Use rich media (images, videos, live streams, and documents)
- Run message ads, sponsored content, text ads, or dynamic ads
Notable disadvantages of LinkedIn marketing include:
- Since the platform is designed for professionals, it’s not commonly used by the general public
- High levels of competition among professionals
- Performance results may take longer, unlike other social networks
TikTok
TikTok is a video-based channel for creating and sharing short-form videos. It is a platform primarily used for publishing thumb-stopping user-generated content.
Thumb-stopping content includes attention-grabbing videos, enticing images, and visually appealing infographics. These pieces of content are concise and cohesive and are designed for users with limited attention spans.
To maximize TikTok’s marketing potential, follow these practices:
- Host contests and giveaways
- Create a branded hashtag
- Encourage interactions through challenges (e.g., dance challenges)
- Work with TikTok influencers
- Leverage the duet and stitch features to promote your content alongside a popular video
However, TikTok’s user base is often younger. If you aim to target older generations, it may be challenging on this platform. Because of short attention spans, content creation can also be demanding.
Snapchat
Snapchat is another app that concentrates on photo- and video-sharing. This channel also has messaging features and is more intimate than other social networks.
Brands and marketers use Snapchat to establish more personal connections with their customers. Like Instagram and TikTok, it’s ideal for user-generated posts and content like behind-the-scene glimpses into your daily operations, tips, and product showcases.
Although Snapchat has many users, it may not be the best network for companies seeking to reach wider audiences. Most of its users are younger, so targeting older demographics may not produce successful campaigns.
Image by Julian Christ on Unsplash
WhatsApp began as a messaging platform. However, this channel now has a business app for small and medium businesses.
You can use WhatsApp for Business to connect directly with your customers, provide customer support, and publish product updates.
However, the drawbacks of WhatsApp marketing include:
- Limited features
- Some automation features may require WhatsApp Business API
- Customer management may become demanding once your audience grows
Pinterest is a visual discovery channel for finding recipes, interior design, fashion inspirations, and other ideas for various visual-related projects. You can leverage this platform by creating graphics and mood boards and designing visual mock-ups to amplify your brand exposure.
Other methods to maximize Pinterest marketing include:
- Create engaging content (e.g., graphic boards of gift guides, music playlists, or reading lists)
- Leverage rich pins (e.g., article, product, or recipe pins)
- Optimize your pins for search engine results (most Pinterest pins appear on search engines when the queries are visual or design-related)
Meanwhile, this platform’s pitfalls include:
- Limited demographics because its user base is primarily women
- Competition for visibility and engagement can be challenging
Facebook Messenger
Messenger is Facebook’s standalone messaging app. This channel lets users connect with businesses, get real-time customer support, and make inquiries or reservations.
Messenger also has integration features that connect to various platforms. If you have an e-commerce platform, you can connect to this network to provide direct chat support and order tracking.
You can also use Messenger through the following methods:
- As a more flexible and accessible online form
- Create ads that point to Messenger
- Run Messenger Inbox ads
While these instant messaging features help make your business more reachable, users may experience the following inconveniences:
- Messenger Inbox ads are displayed directly on the interface, which can be confusing for users
- The user interface can be cluttered
Reddit is a platform where users discuss various topics in different “subreddits.” Search engines like Google also index this channel.
The best marketing approaches to Reddit include:
- Keeping tabs on conversations, feedback, and suggestions about your brand
- Providing support, updates, and recommendations to your audience through your brand’s subreddit
- Publishing “Ask Us Anything” posts to accommodate inquiries in one thread
But the drawbacks include:
- Reddit users are often highly critical, resulting in negative backlash
- While subreddits are specific, audience targeting is more limited compared to channels like Facebook
Threads
Threads is a platform developed by Instagram to rival X. It’s an emerging app for more personal, intimate, and exclusive communication.
Developers are still refining this channel’s algorithms, and ads are unavailable as of this writing. Regardless, testing this platform might be worthwhile to identify which features can amplify your brand awareness and reach.
Twitch
Twitch is a live-streaming channel primarily used by gamers. However, it has expanded to other live content forms, letting you advertise various pieces of content, sponsor influencers, and host streams.
Although Twitch has been around since 2011, its expansion is relatively recent. This digital community also boasts Gen Z demographics, so it’s best for targeting younger audiences.
Maximize Your Reach Online With the Right Social Media Channels
Social media channel expansion is multifaceted. Since each platform offers unique opportunities, you must select ones that align with your brand’s objectives.
As such, strategic and forward-thinking approaches can help you carefully explore the social networks that will generate the best results, ultimately ensuring efficient efforts and an impactful online presence.
