Social media feels like an absolute necessity for businesses in the 21st century, but, unless you’re a mega brand like Taco Bell or Cisco, it’s difficult to invest in all of them. Choosing your social media outlets is an important first step to building a comprehensive social media strategy in line with your brand, so which naturally align with your business’ strengths? Take our quiz to find out!
Grab a sheet of paper and write down the letters that correspond with the answers you feel best fit your business. Then, tally up how many times you wrote down each letter and review your results below.
What are you hoping to achieve with your social media presence?
- Engaging in conversation with customers. (a)
- Sharing the latest news and offerings for your company. (b, d)
- Connecting with a new audience. (a, c, d, g)
- Finding new team members. (b, d, e)
- Showcasing ways to use your product. (c, d, f, g)
- Amplifying the personality of your business. (a, d, f, g)
- Building long-term brand loyalty (a, b, d, f, g)
- Moving potential customers to purchase (a, b, c, d)
Which kinds of content are you prepared to create and share?
- Short videos – check ins, jokes, quick demos, less than a minute (a, c, d, g)
- Long videos – explainer videos, live streams, webinars, showcases (b, f)
- Blogs, ebooks, white papers and other text-heavy information (b, e)
- Podcasts and previews of other auditory content (a, d, g)
- User-generated content (a)
- Jobs and company news (e)
- High-quality images and GIFs (c, d)
- Unscripted glimpses into your business, process, or product (g)
Which audience segments are you trying to connect with?
- Ages 13-25 (d, g)
- Ages 40+ (b, c, e)
- Women (b, c, d, f)
- Men (a, e)
- Industry professionals (a, e)
- Customers (a, c, d, f, g)
- A broad population (b, e, f, g)
- A niche population (a, d)
The Results
Tally up your most-received letters from the questions above. Your top contenders will correspond with the social media outlets below. Though not a perfect system, these platforms are the most likely to reach the audience you want with the content to which your business is most naturally suited.
A: Twitter
Despite its limited character count, Twitter has become a haven of conversation between brands and their customers. It’s a great place to reach a large audience and the still plethoric use of hashtags help cut through the noise to reach small groups that may otherwise be voiceless. But watch out, Twitter is also one of the most enraging corners of the internet. You may run into a lot of anger.
B: Facebook
In the peak of Facebook’s success, it was a home to a huge audience. Though this is still the case, frequent users now tend to skew older as younger generations consider it passé. Still, highly curated content and targeted ads on Facebook have high interaction rates and can reach new customers if you’re willing to pay.
C: Pinterest
Pinterest acts like series of savable Instagram feeds for each user. Interested parties can remember your product over years on their saved pinboards. It’s a great place to share beautiful product photos, infographics, product guides and short demonstration videos, but the platform is almost exclusively used by women.
D: Instagram
Instagram is the ultimate curation space. Videos, ads and beautiful photos come together to create a dream image for your customer. The immersive experience of your curated feed is a great way to build cult-like brand ambassadors. With their “Shop Now” buttons, conversions to sales can be quick, but the perfectionism of the platform means a longer lead time from content creation to curation to posting.
E: LinkedIn
This is the ultimate space for professionals. Post available jobs, refine your company culture, share internal goal reaching for your company, and get to know others in your field. It’s a place to make sure you’re remaining competitive in all aspects of business, but no one is looking to become a patron on LinkedIn.
F: YouTube
Capture attention and hold it on YouTube. The king of longform video (aka more than 60 seconds), YouTube is great at sharing ad revenue from videos, livestreaming events, and building a subscribed following. Both scripted and adlibbed content is popular, but a secondary platform for spreading your message is often necessary at least in the beginning.
G: TikTok
The wild west of social media is alive and well at TikTok. An ever-changing algorithm gives unsuspecting mini videos gain major attention quickly, and the goldfish-length medium makes binging your content easy for fans. TikTok is especially popular with the young crowd, but the 25-40 age group is growing quickly. Though great for building brand loyalty, this medium is not yet ready to transition quick sales conversions.