71% of consumers who have had a positive experience with a brand on social networks then recommend it to their loved one (source: Forbes, 2018). When we know that these social networks are now used on average 3 hours a day, in other words they represent an essential growth lever for companies. But not all platform are created equal.
When we think of “social networks”, we naturally think of Facebook, which is by far the leader in the field. In France, three out of four people use it. It is undoubtedly “the place to be”, the universal meeting point between brands and consumers.
However, not all companies necessarily find their best opportunities there. Depending on the marketing objectives defined upstream, the sector of activity, the position occupied in relation to the competition, the characteristics of the commercial target, the preferred Content Moderation or the available budget, it may be more profitable to turn to another platform. Among the most widespread in the general public, each has its characteristics and can meet different business objectives.
We therefore thought that an inventory of the current Social Media landscape might be useful for you to determine which social networks to choose for your activity. You will also note that we have chosen to speak of “social networks” in the plural. Because we are convinced that in the era of omnichannel marketing, it is becoming more and more inevitable to position yourself on at least two or three platforms to deploy an effective strategy.
So, from the sacrosanct Facebook to the exotic TikTok, how to understand the different fields of Social Selling for companies?
Summary
- Facebook: to naturally penetrate the daily lives of consumers
- Instagram: to put visuals and influence at the heart of your brand strategy
- LinkedIn: to switch your B2B prospecting to Social Selling mode
- Pinterest: to join the ranks of the new pioneers of social media
- TikTok: to generate maximum traction with short videos
- What else?
- Frequently Asked Questions
- How to determine the most suitable social networks for your activity?
- What are the pros and cons of different social networks for businesses?
- How to effectively integrate social networks into your marketing strategy?
Facebook: to naturally penetrate the daily lives of consumers
If we exclude YouTube and its 50 million French users, considering that it is not strictly speaking a social network, the 33 million French people who use Facebook make it the most widespread platform among consumers. 'Hexagon. Facebook is the social network par excellence, the model of its kind.
Whether through personal publications in all formats, “fan” pages, groups, events, private messaging, etc., everything is thought out to create maximum social interaction. And, it is clear that for the ¾ of French consumers who regularly use the number 1 social network, the latter occupies an increasingly important place in their daily lives. Today, Facebook has become central to most of us. We exchange, we get informed, we have fun and we consume!
No wonder, then, that we can also deploy marketing strategies there. Whether through organic posts or sponsored posts through Facebook Ads, Facebook, with its powerful Business Manager, is a benchmark in terms of lead acquisition tools on social networks.
The consequence of Facebook's omnipresence in our daily lives is that all companies can create a qualified audience there. That said, certain age groups are less represented there (even if this is less and less true) and, above all, certain sectors of activity are very competitive there. So, depending on your budget, it is sometimes more appropriate to turn to a platform that will offer you better prospects for short-term return on investment. Pierre-Loïc detailed this issue of channel choice in one of our webinars.
Either way, for most strategies that are at least ambitious, and especially those that involve big brand awareness goals, Facebook is a hard channel to avoid in the long run.
Instagram: to put visuals and influence at the heart of your brand strategy
As long as you are on the Business Manager, you surely know that it allows you to manage both the communication actions carried out on Facebook and those carried out on Instagram. On the Ads side, it is also quite possible to include them in the same campaigns.
But, then, on what criteria should Instagram be favored over Facebook as part of a Social Media strategy?
Several advantages of Instagram can be highlighted:
- A reach (range of organic publications) a priori greater
- A slightly more female audience (54%) and a little younger (mostly under 45)
- The favorite network of French influencers (94% rank it among their main networks)
- Particularly valued sectors (beauty, cooking, travel, decoration, etc.)
Concretely, for a company that is at the beginning of its Social Media strategy and has a limited budget, Instagram often offers the potential for faster growth than Facebook. Whether by focusing on the quality of the visuals, on a network of well-targeted influencers and/or on a small publication sponsorship budget, it is possible to generate good results from the first weeks and without breaking the bank. Especially if you apply the tips from our article on how Instagram's algorithm works.
LinkedIn: to switch your B2B prospecting to Social Selling mode
As you may know, in 2019 Ad Premier launched Link Force, a subsidiary dedicated specifically to acquiring leads on LinkedIn. For what? Because we were convinced of one thing: today's B2B salesperson is a Community Manager.
Since then, experience has largely confirmed the opportunities we expected to find on the number 1 social network for professionals. With a good communication and prospecting strategy, we were able to verify that it was possible to generate leads there every week, with actions that are relatively time-consuming compared to traditional business practices.
If you have a B2B sales target, it must be on LinkedIn. Come talk to us about it:
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You will see, you quickly take a liking to exchanging with your peers while developing your business. It's an emulation that has completely reorganized the business development of several of our clients.
Pinterest: to join the ranks of the new pioneers of social media
While the social network with pins is the favorite of 55% of Americans, in France, it is still virgin territory to conquer. From there to see the current Eldorado of social media in France, there is only one step...
We've already given you some advice on how to grow a business using Pinterest.
From the point of view of the audience and the themes valued, Pinterest is a bit like the extreme version of Instagram, with its strongly feminine dimension and its emphasis on sectors focused on aesthetics. But the platform is evolving rapidly and is becoming more and more universal.
During a recent webinar on the potential of Pinterest in a Social Ads strategy, Cécilia Diaz spoke to us in more detail about the growing opportunities that are now accessible to businesses from various backgrounds. One thing is certain, in Ads as in organic, the low level of competition sometimes allows an excellent return on investment, provided you SEO for Furniture Stores a certain number of good practices.
What's more, Pinterest is constantly improving its interface for advertisers and developing marketing trend analysis tools that can feed real strategic thinking for the future, based on concrete data.
TikTok: to generate maximum traction with short videos
In principle, TikTok is supposed to be a humorous social network on which users film themselves in playback with a soundtrack from popular culture. But, since the journalists of the Washington Post decided to take part, it is clear that the prerogatives of the platform have been somewhat expanded...
Of course, humorous content is still legion, but there is more and more diversified content and brands that are more and more present. Inevitably, TikTok's statistics have something to attract them:
- Over 800 million active users
- 52 minutes per day of average use
- Unparalleled reach on the main social networks
- An attractive engagement rates
- A format (short video) that generates exceptional performance
On the other hand, even if the audience tends to widen little by little, we still find essentially users between 14 and 25 years old.
But, if you are one of the companies that target teenagers and young adults and are not afraid to take a few liberties with their traditional branding strategy, it is in your best interest to look into TikTok to increase your visibility and your interactions with your audience.
For once, when a content strategy takes over the platform, the KPIs can quickly panic the counters…
What else?
As you will have understood, as an entrepreneur, you do not lack prospecting grounds on social networks. And, again, we haven't talked to you in this article about Snapchat or Twitter, or even hybrid platforms, such as YouTube, WhatsApp, Telegram, etc.
In fact, each marketing strategy corresponds to more or less suitable platforms. The best thing is to come and discuss it with one of the experts from our Social Media agency, to discuss the opportunities corresponding to your own strategy.
