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How to choose the right social media platform for your business?

 In light of the proliferation of different social media platforms and their fierce competition in offering features that are specific to one and not the other, emerging entrepreneurs may fall into hesitation when choosing one of these platforms to start their business activities, and this has resulted in the need to answer this type of question: What is the importance of choosing a suitable social media platform for my business, and how can I know the right platform for my business?

Why is it important to choose a social media platform for your business?

Social media platforms occupy a large amount of people's time today, making them an inseparable marketing tool for businesses, for example, the number of active users on Instagram alone reaches 1 billion users per month, and the number of active users on it daily exceeds 500 million users, allowing startups to reach millions of users around the world.

Moreover, the financial cost you spend in marketing on these platforms is very small, if it is balanced with the financial cost that you will put into your marketing campaigns outside of social media platforms, and this forces startups to choose a social media platform that suits their project, so the multiplicity of these platforms and the difference of the segment of users in them is a puzzling obstacle to them, which may push them to waste their efforts in the wrong places, and here are foundations that help you determine the right platform for your business.

Basics of choosing the right social media platform for your project

How to choose the right social media platform for your business?

Social media platforms differ in the segment of the audience used, for example, females may tend to use the Pinterest platform a lot, and the platforms differ among themselves in content, for example, the Twitter platform focuses on text content, while the visual content is abundant in the Instagram platform, which makes social platforms different in the fields and marketing campaigns, and here is a full explanation of the social platforms and commercial projects that suit them.

First: Facebook Platform

The Facebook platform occupies great marketing importance, as it is one of the first platforms to launch a marketing feature, and according to the latest statistics, the number of active users on the Facebook platform has reached 1.9 billion users per day, thus leading the social media platforms in terms of the number of users.

Facebook's user base includes all ages, teens, and adults who use the Facebook platform alike, and it is spread in almost every country of the world, so you'll often be able to reach your target audience, whatever your business is.

What distinguishes Facebook from other platforms is that you can determine the target audience in Facebook ads, based on age, gender, or geographical region, which helps you target the audience that suits your business, thus increasing the rate of viewers interested in the content, including increasing your sales and profits.

Facebook's platform is suitable for local businesses, particularly those with a geographical location where they offer their services, for example:

• If you own a restaurant or café.

• If you have a flower shop.

• If you have a company or laboratory for the manufacture of home furniture.

• If you have a shop selling electrical parts, such as washing machines, refrigerators, fireplaces, and so on.

• If you are a doctor and have a clinic, or if you own a beauty center, for example.

If you own any of the previous business ventures, or something parallel to them, Facebook's platform is your best choice, especially with the advantage of defining the geographic area, gender, and age of the target audience.

Second: Instagram Platform

Instagram is suitable for businesses that rely on visual content, as you can not publish any content through the Instagram platform without attaching it with photos or with videos, and this may have a positive impact on the success of your project and marketing plan, people usually remember the things they see with their own eyes many times as much as they remember the content they read or heard, so Instagram will be suitable for your business if it depends on what the viewer sees in particular, examples of this:

• If you own an athletic club, athletics, and bodybuilding club, it applies to you if you are a sports coach or bodybuilding coach.

• If you are a photographer, or if you work in the field of video editing and photo editing.

• If you are an artist in the use of cosmetics.

• If you are a travel enthusiast and work to document your travels to followers, or if you like to share your visits to tourist places, football fields, archaeological museums, and so on.

If your business is similar to, or at least similar to, any of the previous projects, Instagram is your best choice, especially since it has all the paid benefits that Facebook has, as they belong to the same owner.

Third: Twitter Platform

Twitter is more of a professional platform than an entertainment platform, in one survey 69% of Twitter users voted that they use the platform to follow the latest news and information about world events, and Twitter is also suitable for influential personalities, such as entrepreneurs and celebrities in different fields, so if your business project depends on your personality and your words, or depends on a certain personality that people follow, the Twitter platform is your way to lead the scene and achieve successes, here are some examples:

• If you are an entrepreneur or an industry leader.

• If you are a social counselor.

• If you're a psychiatrist, or you're talking about how to raise children and deal with teenagers.

• If you are a political expert, you can analyze global events and realities.

If your business is similar to any of the previous projects, or it depends on a famous or influential figure that people follow, you should choose the Twitter platform, but remember that the timing factor is very important on the Twitter platform, especially if you are analyzing or talking about world events.

Fourth: YouTube Platform

How to choose the right social media platform for your business?

YouTube occupies the second place in Alexa's list of the most visited sites, after the search engine Google, and from this point of view we can count the YouTube platform as one of the most important platforms through which you can market your business, as you can design videos and promote your brand visually and attractively, so the YouTube platform will be suitable for your business in case it relies on visual videos, examples of which are:

• If you're analyzing soccer matches, or if you're creating clips of match goals, or something similar.

• If you're designing documentaries or cultural videos.

• If you're designing animated cartoon videos.

Previous examples show that any business that relies primarily on video design is YouTube's first choice. Moreover, you can use the YouTube platform even if your project does not rely on videos as a primary industry, for example, a home foundation seller can film some creative videos about the products he owns, but here you should not take YouTube as the first option, it may be a secondary option after strengthening your presence on another platform that suits your business in the first place.

Fifth: Snapchat Platform

Snapchat is one of the fastest growing social platforms, if not the first in this aspect, its popularity has increased a lot recently until its number of users reached 319 million daily active users in late 2021.

What distinguishes Snapchat from other platforms is that its user base is full of young people, as the number of Snapchat users between the ages of 15 to 25 years reaches 48% of the total users, which is a large number in balance with other social platforms, so if your business is suitable for young people and depends mainly on photos and videos, then Snapchat is the best choice for your business.

Sixth: Pinterest Platform

Pinterest is the closest platform to the female heart: in October 2021, women accounted for 77% of all users on Pinterest, while male users were limited to approximately 15%, with 8% of users not knowing their gender.

We conclude from the above figures, that Pinterest is suitable for businesses that target women in the first place, so you should choose Pinterest Platform if your business is one of the following cases:

• If you sell make-up for cosmetics.

• If your content relates to clothing in general, and to women's clothing in particular.

• If you are a chef or a professional cook.

• If you are a dietary expert or offer products or services related to thinness.

4 tips for choosing a social media platform

How to choose the right social media platform for your business?

Now that we've learned about the right social platforms and business ventures for them, we're now going to talk about some tips to help you choose a social media platform that suits your business:

First: Identify your target audience

You must know the characteristics of your target audience to be able to choose the right platform, as we mentioned above, some platforms suit the category of youth and adolescents, such as Snapchat, while women tend to use the Pinterest platform for example, so you must know the age group of the target audience, as well as gender whether male or female, as well as determine the country of the target audience or its geographical area.

Second: Determine the nature of the content you provide

It is necessary to determine the nature of the content you provide, some social platforms are suitable for text content, such as Facebook, while Instagram is limited to visual content from videos and photos for example, while YouTube has a monopoly on the first number in the submission of video content, so the second question you should keep in mind: What is the nature of the content I provide?

Third: Start with one platform

One of the common mistakes that startup owners make is that they start their business on all or several social media platforms, as the enthusiasm of the beginning takes them to create accounts on any social media platform on which they have their eyes, which wastes their efforts on many platforms, and inflicts losses and damage on their companies that have not yet seen the light of success.

We can liken it to trying to dig a well in the ground, is it better to start drilling in 10 different areas? Or would you quench your thirst faster if you directed all your efforts toward one area? The same goes for choosing a social media platform, so start focusing your efforts on one social platform, after you choose it based on the foundations we mentioned, and when you see that the water has flowed, and you see that you have achieved the goal that you were pursuing, move to another platform that suits your target audience and the content you offer.

Fourth: Look at the popularity of the platform and the extent of its development

The last tip is that you should choose a very popular social platform, and the most important thing is that its escalation is large, that is, the number of its users increases at great rates because you want to build a sophisticated and successful business, so your foundation and principle must be solid, to be able to achieve successes.