The 5 Best Social Media Platforms For Your Business in 2021

Some of the best social media platforms for business, like Facebook and Instagram, have become essential tools in the modern marketer’s toolbox. 

More and more consumers are using these channels to find new companies and engage with their favorite brands. However, most companies can’t be everywhere at once, especially small businesses with tight marketing budgets. That’s why it’s vital for businesses to be strategic about which social media platforms they work to build a presence on.

The key to successful social media marketing will be choosing the best social media platform for your business. This is based on a number of factors, including the type of business you have, what audience you are trying to reach, your specific goals, and much more.

Below, we’ve put together a quick and simple guide to choosing the best social media for business in the new year.

How to Choose the Best Social Media Platforms for Your Business

Before we start listing the best social media platforms, it is important that you understand how the criteria to choosing the best platforms for your business. 

Here are the 3 biggest things you need to keep in mind.

#1 Choose Social Media Platforms Where Your Audience is Located

In order to choose the best social media platforms for your business, you need to understand your customers. Specifically, you need to understand who they are and how they spend their time online.

Ask yourself:

• What social media platforms are they using? 
• Why are they using those social media platforms? 
• How do they prefer to receive information about your type of products and services? 

#2 Choose Social Media Platforms That are Specific to Your Content Type

Macro-content is BIG-picture, long-form content. The 3 different types of macro content consists of Video, Audio, and Written content.

Therefore, if you have macro content, the best social media platforms to publish that content would be YouTube for video content, Apple Podcasts for Audio, and any major website host for long-form blog content.

Micro-content, on the other hand, is short-form, easy to digest content. Think of micro-content like the pictures you find on your Instagram feeds while you’re scrolling, or short witty tweets on Twitter.

Now, there are several different types of micro-content social media channels, like Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, and so on.

So, in order to choose the best social media platforms for your business, you need to pick the ones where your audience is located.

Also, when it comes to Macro vs Micro content, you should keep in mind that Macro content has a much longer shelf-life than Micro content.

So keep this in mind as your choose which social media platforms you want to specialize in.

#3 Limit the Number of Social Media Platforms You Choose to be On

Don’t spread yourself too thin by trying to be on every single social media platform that exists.

Each social media platform is like an art. You should master the art of 1-2 social media platforms before you consider adding more to your strategy.

It’s not necessary to be on every platform in the world. Facebook has 2 billion users. Instagram has 1 billion users. If you can do just one of these platforms very well, then you can have astronomical business results.

 It takes a lot of work and money to develop a successful presence on these social media platforms. It’s not as simple as setting up a profile and pressing “publish” on a post.

No, in most cases, you will need to set aside some money to promote your content. In addition, you’ll need to review the analytics to determine if your content is effective or not. 

So in short, as a small business with a limited budget, put all of your eggs in 1 or 2 baskets max to start. Then, consider expanding into other channels.

Alright, so that’s the criteria you need to keep in mind as you select the best social media platforms for your business.

Now, let’s go over some specific platforms to help you choose the best platforms for your business.

Here are the Best Social Media Platforms for Business

Platform #1: Facebook

Facebook is not the newest and coolest social media platform.

But the fact is that it is still the largest social media platform by far in terms of users.

It has over 2 billion monthly active users! 

3/4 of Facebook users visit the site on a daily basis. Half of Facebook users visit the site several times per day.

Here’s a counterargument we hear a lot from our clients.

“I am targeting a high-income, highly educated, professional affluent audience. I don’t want to advertise on Facebook. How about LinkedIn?”

Well here’s the truth – According to Pew Research, 74% of people who have college degrees and are making above $75,000 per year have Facebook accounts. Only 49% of people making over $75,000 per year have LinkedIn accounts.  

It doesn’t matter what you’re selling, Facebook is a worthwhile investment for your company.

Best Features for Your Business

In addition to providing you the ability to connect with a great number of people from diverse backgrounds, there are a few unique features that Facebook can offer your business. What makes Facebook one of the best social media platforms for business is its targeted digital advertising platform. With Facebook ads, you are able to target those who are most likely willing and ready to purchase your products or services. This ensures that your business gets your ad content in front of the right users at the right time.

Platform #2: Instagram

Instagram is another platform that feels like it’s non-negotiable.

Maybe it’s because it’s owned by Facebook, or maybe it’s because it also has another 1 billion users.

To determine if Instagram will be one of the best social media platforms for your business, let’s look at the demographics. 

If you’re targeting a younger demographic, Instagram will be great for you.

72% of all teenagers use Instagram and 67% of all young adults under the age of 30 use Instagram.

You will also find about half of the people under the age of 50 years old on Instagram, and even a quarter of people between the ages of 50-65 on Instagram.

Because of the younger demographic of Instagram users, there are fewer users with college education and high income compared to Facebook.

Only 43% of people with college degrees use Instagram, and only 42% of high-income earners use Instagram on a daily basis.

Because of the younger demographic of Instagram users, there are fewer users with college education and high income compared to Facebook.

Only 43% of people with college degrees use Instagram, and only 42% of high-income earners use Instagram on a daily basis.

Because of this, some professionals believe that while Instagram is an exciting platform, you will often find yourself competing for “cheap attention”.

Basically, people are mindlessly scrolling on Instagram and in order to be successful, you’re going to have to be very engaging to capture people’s attention.

Ultimately, Instagram is a great platform to reach consumers at large, but it may not contain the most sophisticated audience for specific industries, like engineering or information technology, for example.

Best Features for Your Business

Instagram’s unique social media platform can provide some powerful benefits for your business. One of the best benefits of Instagram is that it allows you to tell your brand’s story with unique and engaging visual content. Unlike other social media platforms, Instagram is heavily focused on visuals, both images and video. No matter what industry your company is in, you can use Instagram to showcase your products and tell your brand story in a way that’s visually appealing.

One interesting feature that can be useful is Instagram stories. With Instagram stories, you can take live video and share it with all of your followers. With this feature, you can easily provide behind-the-scenes footage of your business and share important news and updates with your followers.

Like Facebook, Instagram also allows you to message users directly. This can be a great tool for customer service. For instance, if a consumer finds you on Instagram and has a question about your products or services, they no longer have to navigate to your website or pick up the phone to ask. Instead, they can direct message you through Instagram, which allows you to answer questions and address concerns instantly. If this excites you, Instagram may be your best social media platform for business.

Platform #3: LinkedIn

LinkedIn got its start as a business and employment-based social media platform.

It’s full of professionals across a wide-spectrum of industries, especially B2B companies.

LinkedIn currently boasts just over 300 million users are active on a monthly basis.

So, in terms of audience size, it’s 4x smaller than Facebook, and 2x smaller than Instagram.

However, this fact is actually correlated with a major strength behind LinkedIn – it’s news feed.

Because LinkedIn’s newsfeed is not as competitive as other giants like Facebook and Instagram, businesses are able to reach more of their connections and followers without paying for advertisements.

For context here, because Facebook and Instagram news feeds are so crowded, they rely on specific algorithms and rules to determine if they will actually show your content to your followers.

I know, crazy right? I mean, you’d think that people who chose to follow you would automatically see your content. But no, it simply increases their chances of seeing your content on those platforms.

Anyway, the cool thing about LinkedIn is that it is not as stingy with its news feed. Not yet anyway. Which provides businesses and professionals an opportunity to build massive awareness and engagement on their platform.

Now regarding LinkedIn’s demographics, here are some noteworthy things.

LinkedIn is mostly used by professionals between the ages of 30-49 years of age. However, about a quarter of professionals above the age of 18-29, which I’d really say 22-29 use LinkedIn. As well as another quarter of people between the ages of 50-64 that use LinkedIn on a daily basis.

As mentioned earlier, LinkedIn does have a high-income audience. About half of people making over $75,000/year use LinkedIn on a regular basis. 

In addition, about half of people with college degrees use LinkedIn on a regular basis, probably searching for their next job opportunity or seeking to consume professional content.

Best Features for Your Business

One of the best qualities of LinkedIn is that audiences on this social media platform are business-minded. This means that they are often open to networking opportunities and hearing about ways to improve the way they work or make their job easier. This provides an excellent opportunity for B2B brands that would like to connect with business decision-makers across different industries.

Another feature that makes LinkedIn one of the best social media platforms are their digital advertising opportunities. Though digital ads on LinkedIn may be more expensive than ads on Facebook, this ad opportunity allows B2B brands to reach individuals from the specific industries that they are targeting. Similarly, LinkedIn allows you to deliver ad content to those with the job roles that are involved with making purchasing decisions related to a company’s B2B offering.

LinkedIn also has groups that users can join and participate in based on their industry, job function, or career interests. This provides an excellent opportunity for brands to drive real engagement with influencers and decision makers across different industries.

Ultimately, if you serve businesses or professionals, then LinkedIn Marketing should definitely be in the running as a top-contender for social media platforms to choose for your business.

Platform #4: Twitter

With an average of about 330 million active Twitter users worldwide, this channel is yet another one of the best social media platforms. 

Twitter is a real-time social media platform. It’s like sending text messages to the whole world.

And it’s one of the only social media platforms where you don’t necessarily have to a bunch of videos or photos to stand-out.

Tweets can be up to 280 characters, which allows you the ability to craft a short, sharp, and concise message.

And because it’s limited in characters, it forces you to be creative with what you have to actually say.

So what are the hard stats on Twitter? Here they are:

Twitter has over 330 million active users, so about the same as LinkedIn and once again nowhere near Facebook and Instagram.

In terms of age, Twitter’s biggest demographic consists of people between the ages of 18-29. 38% of people in their category actively use Twitter, and surprisingly 32% of all teenagers use Twitter as well. You can also find about 26% of its users between the ages of 30-49. 

In terms of income and education, Twitter is not the highest on our list here. Only 32% of high-earners use Twitter regularly, and likewise, only 32% of people with college degrees use Twitter regularly.

Best Features for Your Business

When it comes to Twitter, there are a few valuable features that may help it qualify to be one of the best social media platforms for business. Brands can use Twitter to reach and engage their audience. Hashtags allow you to follow and participate in conversations about trending topics in your industry. You can use hashtags to reach new audiences who might be interested in your content. Your brand can also take advantage of topics that are trending to expand your reach.

Twitter also offers advertising opportunities for companies that want to deliver digital ads to their target customers on the social media platform. They have multiple options for ad formats, depending on your unique digital advertising goals. You can promote your account, which will show up in the left column or promote a tweet from your brand, which will appear in the user’s Twitter feed. There is also the option to promote a certain trend that your company may be using to start a conversation among target users.

It’s also worth noting that Twitter is well-known for its search engine. Twitter’s search engine gets over 2 billion search queries per day, which may also help your demographic find your business while it’s searching for specific keywords and content.

Platform #5: YouTube

Last but not least, YouTube.

YouTube is arguably the best social media platform that exists.

For one, over 1.9 billion people use YouTube on a regular basis. This puts YouTube above Instagram and almost eye-to-eye with Facebook in terms of usage.

But not only is YouTube widely used, but it is also the 2nd largest search engine behind no other than Google.

So not only do you have the ability to reach a broad audience, but you are also able to reach people searching for you.

If we add all of this to the simple fact that video is the most preferred type of media amongst consumers, then YouTube becomes even harder to avoid.

So we have…

1. Roughly 2 billion people use YouTube
2. You can reach people searching for your content
3. Video is the most preferred media format today

Then, what could possibly be wrong with YouTube?

Well, nothing is fundamentally wrong with it. But it takes a ton of work to get it work.

Not only do you need content, but you need an entire video setup with a camera, lighting, microphones and video editing.

YouTube is very effective, but production can be quite expensive if you want to stand out.

With that said, let’s look at some YouTube stats.

In terms of age, people of all ages use YouTube. 85% of teenagers and even 38% of people over the age of 65. 

In terms of income, YouTube is heavily used by high-income individuals. 83% of people earning over $75K a year use YouTube regularly.

The same is true for education. 80% of people with college degrees use YouTube.

So in terms of the benefits of YouTube, is arguably the best social media platform for businesses. However, again, there is an astronomical amount of work involved to produce video after to video in order to be successful.

Best Features for Your Business

Perhaps the greatest perk of YouTube is that it allows brands to access an unlimited amount of video hosting. This makes it an affordable way for businesses to publish video content that can drive more engagement and influence conversions. YouTube content can also be easily integrated onto your website or shared on other social media platforms for greater reach.

Not only does YouTube allow you to reach a wide audience of viewers across the globe, but it can also help with your search engine optimization (SEO). The content that you post on your brand’s YouTube channel is searchable in both YouTube and Google. 

That means that Google may just serve your YouTube video content in its search engine results page for keywords that you are trying to target. Remember, it’s important to make sure that your YouTube videos are optimized for search if you want to get the most out of this helpful feature.

Need Help with Your Social Media Marketing?

Still not sure which channels are the best social media platforms for your business? That’s where we come in. Our social media agency knows just what it takes to help you grow your brand online. Through our social media marketing services, we will help you plan and implement a social media management strategy that allows you to develop your brand awareness, build relationships, and increase website exposure through the social media channels that are right for your business.

If you are interested in our services, contact us to get started on your social media marketing needs.

Still have questions about the best social media platforms that we didn’t answer in this post? Feel free to leave your questions in the comments, and we’d be happy to answer them.