In this new era of internet and technology, it has now rather become mandatory to increase your brand presence with the help of social media platforms. But, do some social media platforms have an extra edge over others? Or, are there some social media platforms that actually are not worth your time and attention?

Some of the factors that need to be considered while investing time on social media platforms for your business growth are:

• Finding the right audience with strong relational links.
• Building brand awareness.
• Both quantity and quality of reach.
• Easy creation, cure and distribution of content.
• Leveraging advertising.

Here the top social media platforms that will help grow your business:

1. Facebook

Facebook consists of about 2 billion plus active users and is considered to be the world’s best social network. About 30% of its users belong to the age group of 25-35 years, with a total of 53% of users, who are women.

Pros:

• Good reach – not only Facebook supports a decent organic reach, but, paid reach are not only cheap, but highly accurate as well.
• Helps connect people, business and brands and self- extracts the right audience.
• Live Streaming
• E- Commerce integrations.

Cons:

• Since everybody is going to be there on Facebook, you would need to make some exceptional posts to stay in the limelight.
• Requires constant monitoring of comments and views to circumvent any negative impact.

2. Instagram

Now if you want to specifically tweak your photos and videos and reach a target audience of 68% females and 37% of users who are aged between 18 and 29, then you should definitely be Instagram friendly.

Pros:

• Faster reach if you are targeting mobile customers.
• Hashtags can make your posts go viral in no time (if they are worth it).
• Instagram can engage 10x times user engagement compared to any other social networking platform.
• Visual representation gives better transparency about your business.

Cons:

• It’s completely useless if your business doesn’t have a room for photos and videos.
• The network specifically targets young users.

3. Twitter

 

Can you imagine that a short 140 characters note can actually make your business a huge hit! With 700 million active users, Twitter is probably the easiest way to reach your customers by making short and precise announcements.

Pros:

• Equal target distribution to both men and woman and other demographic parameters.
• Your tweets are guaranteed to be reached to all your followers.
• Lesser time investment.

Cons:

• It’s one of the largest platforms on the internet; hence, if your tweets are not eye- catching, you are likely to stay unnoticed.
• Not really preferable for image or video based promotions.

4. Pininterest

Though based on just images, Pininterest can still make a huge impact on your business! The channel, works exceptionally well when you are trying to establish a shopping or an e- commerce platform. 80% of users on Pininterest are women who usually tend to have a higher income.

Pros:

• A must pick for e- commerce, online retailers and business establishments.
• Great for getting referral traffic.
• Unlike Facebook and Twitter, the pins don’t vanish from the board, for months to come.

Cons:

• If you can’t really showcase an exquisite range of your collections, you are unlikely to make any impact, as the competition is high.
• Lesser reach.

5. YouTube

Needless to mention, YouTube is probably one of those platforms that users never tend to get bore with. It is the second largest search engine and can engage people at a higher rate than any other platforms.

Pros:

• The videos can be linked and shared to other social media platforms, thus helping you get more reach.
• It’s a growing platform with 100 million new visitors every month.
• If your video goes viral, your business can become an overnight hit.
• Comparison, tutorials, reviews and other information of your product can attract customers much easier than other offline and online modes.

Cons:

• Requires investment and time in making attractive videos.
• Better related video suggestions can divert your customers.

6. Snapchat

Snapchat is no more just a fun messaging app, but, people connect with Snapchat to take their business to higher levels. Whether you want to talk directly to your followers or promote your brand in a fun way, Snapchat is a great tool for visual marketing.

Pros:

• It is one of the fastest growing social networks that have most of its members belonging to the age group of 18-35 years.
• You can share live events and product launches to popularize your brand on the go.
• Snapchat is a treasure for finding angel investors and businesses that target millennial.
• Has a reach of about 150 million+ app users.

Cons:

• Great for small businesses who are trying to target a small group of people.
• Posts are too temporary.
• Story content can only be viewed by added members.

7. Google+

With over 2.5 billion active users, Google+ is an ideal platform for easy sharing of relevant content that can be easily found by businesses and individual users alike. By being on Google+, your consumers can easily find you on the local search results and read reviews to better know about your business.

Pros:

• Features such as Hangouts and Circles and Communities helps promote content marketing to optimized levels.
• Google+ usage is uniformly distributed amongst people of all ages, thus you may find Google+ an easy platform to target people of any age that matters to your brand.
• A great platform for individual users.
• Good for visual marketing.
• Immediately indexed by Google.
• Helps you rank higher on the search results.

Cons:

• Negative reviews can have a bad impact on your business.

8. LinkedIn

If you are a professional, you got to be on LinkedIn! Though you might find LinkedIn to be too boring when compared to other platforms, being on LinkedIn is absolutely indispensable for business growth and career building.

Pros:

• It is a professional social network that helps you find likeminded groups.
• Popular industries that have built a strong network on LinkedIn belong to the fields of digital media, bloggers, designers, business magazines, electronics & IT, accounting and software etc.
• 60% people on LinkedIn belong to 22- 45 years of age group.
• Great for back linking.
• Finding highly qualified professionals who will help you promote your brand or business.

Cons:

• It’s more of a business- business social media platform than directly being a business- consumer platform.
• Not as attractive as compared to other platforms in terms of design, tools, features, media uploads and more.

Always remember to choose an optimum number of channels for your business. One must constantly interact with their followers through regular updates on different social media platforms to remain in the limelight. Choose only those channels which have features that can uniquely showcase your brand in the most efficient manner.