This is a blog post by Mark Thomson

Every webmaster, entrepreneur, or small business owner understand the difficulty of the following question: “How do I create a stable source of traffic that will support my business?”

You must be looking not just for traffic, but for targeted traffic. There’s no point in paying your time, attention, and money to reach people that don’t really care about your offer.

That is exactly why every business must choose its own, unique distribution platform. You must choose it yourself, and you must choose it wisely.

If social media networks are so popular at the moment, it would be a shame not to take advantage of their potential.

That’s exactly why I’ve prepared several questions that should help you establish whether you’ll go for LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, or for whatever social network that exists and guests active and targeted prospects. Pay attention to some of the characteristics of each of these social networks and see if the presented information helps you with the choice.

1. What Do You Want to Achieve?

First off, you must ask yourself what you want to achieve with your social media promotion. For example, some brands want to improve their brand’s awareness and reputation by creating a big buzz in the national/international marketplace. Other brands make buzzes around their newly launched products, so their aim is different – not to improve awareness but to sell.

What do you want to achieve with your social media marketing?

Find the answer to that question then start deciding whether it is Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest that you want to approach. Or, it can be all the other networks – it’s up to you.

2. Who is Your Target Audience?

Who are your customers? Can you define them properly? Are they from this country, from another country…or perhaps…are they a global audience?

Males? Females? Both?

What about their lifestyle, knowledge, skills, talents, hobbies, feelings, thoughts, dreams?

What do they want and need? What are their most pressing problems?

When you have a great understanding of your target audience, you’re ready to make a wise decision concerning the social channel you choose. That’s because when you have a good understanding of your future customers, you will know where they spend their time at!

3. What Media Type Does Your Audience Prefer?

How does your target audience consume content online?

Do they prefer articles, videos, or podcasts? Do they love infographics and graphics or they’re not even noticing it?

If you’re selling to a younger demographic, don’t expect them to read long texts. Most millennials crave to be consistently stimulated, so you must take care of their needs if you want them to pay attention.

“Depending on what type of content your audience prefers, you should choose one or more social networks that favor that type of content. For example, if you start promoting on Instagram, you should start preparing your visual content. If you go for Twitter, text content is all you need (but visual is highly appreciated too).” – Bill Johnson, Marketing Manager at Assignment Masters.

Generally, you can use all types of media on almost all the popular social networks. However, you still need to match the network’s style with your media content’s type for the equation to result in positive outcomes.

A Few Characteristics of A Few Social Networks

LinkedIn

• LinkedIn is a social network which was conceived and designed for professionals
• 44% female, 56% male
• The average age of the most active users: 30-64 years ‘old
• This is the perfect channel that helps you approach true professionals
•  Great for B2B marketing, in fact, it’s mostly B2B marketing
• Great for recruiting highly skilled and passionate individuals.

Twitter

• Twitter has proved to be one of the most effective platforms for businesses, agencies and freelancers when it comes to SMM
• 36% of young internet users (from 18 to 29) are regular twitter audience
• Although the majority of Twitter user may be identified as “young”, this social network covers every bit of the persona spectrum, which makes it an extremely versatile tool for promoting you services.
• The greatest pro of of a Twitter is it’s globalism. Twitter’s overwhelming popularity reaches far, far beyond the USA and turns it into the social media platform well worth investing into while developing business in any part of the world.

Facebook

• The average age of the most active users: 25-34
• 53% females, 47% males
• Facebook connects people, and it is the “go-to” place when you want to find people, just like Google is the place to go when you want to find information.
• An amazing advertising platform that allows you to target almost every person in the world.
• Great live streaming opportunity
• eCommerce integrations

Instagram

• Owned by Facebook.
• It is about visual content – beautiful images and short delightful videos.
• It includes Stories (a popular feature), video, and direct messaging.
• 49% female, 51% male.
• Instagram is the best channel to display/illustrate your product in a visual way.

Snapchat

• 60% of all Snapchat’s users are under 25 years of age
•  The average age of the most active users: 18-24 years ‘old
• Lifetime span of 24 hours – makes the network exciting to youth
• You can reach a young demographic with a lot of passion and interest for opportunities
• Awesome advertising platform
• Perfect channel for creating a sense of urgency
• Includes direct messaging, video messaging, and audio messaging

Takeaways

Choosing the best social media channel for your freelance business is easier than you think. Use both your reasoning and intuition and have confidence that it will work. If the social media that you chose is not working well, you should try to make it work. However, if you see that you get better results in other places, then start spending your time wisely!

Bio:

Mark Thomson is a freelance writer and an online entrepreneur with a passion for writing on topics related to internet marketing and online business development. Mark enjoys sharing experience and speculations with wide audience through blogging.

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