Social Media Platforms: A Cheat Sheet

Below you will find key information on the user bases, cultures, models, functions and features of:

1. Twitter
2. Facebook
3. LinkedIn
4. Instagram
5. Snapchat
6. YouTube
7. Reddit
8. Others: Slack, Pinterest, Google+, WhatsApp, Medium

The data/numbers have been gathered from the platform's statements and Pew Research. The commentary is often my own qualitative observations working on these platforms, so although I have tried to keep it neutral, it is from the perspective of a public/political communicator. It also includes wisdom from sources such as Fleishman Hillard's Guide to Paid Social Media and Sprout Social's blog. I would be delighted for people to share further comments or observations. Thanks to Oana Popescu, Nicola Pisano and Alexandra Ekkelenkamp for their comments to help improve this post.

This glossary of social media terms might be helpful for those approaching the topic for the first time (or who just need a refresher!)

1. Twitter

• 328 million unique monthly users
• Mostly men – 22% male/15% female (share of online audiences)
• Ages 18 – 35

What is it?

A social network and micro-blogging platform that lets people connect to share short text and links, as well as images and video.

Who is on it?

Professionals, policy experts, media junkies, political commentators – anyone who needs immediate information.

What kind of interactions take place?

Anything related to immediacy and analysis. It has a great capacity to get involved in conversations beyond your immediate community by using hashtags to locate particular topics. If you decide to get on Twitter, do research into what your desired audience is hashtagging.

What type of conversations will I have there?

Direct, pithy, catchy – getting attention on Twitter usually requires you to deliver value immediately, but that does not mean you cannot get creative in the way that you do it. Visuals, videos and threading tweets (linking them together into a narrative) allows you to get around character limits.

What are my paid options?

Twitter has a narrow segmentation tool, letting you use keywords to identify up to 350 interests. You can specify the desired outcome of the campaign (follows, clicks, engagements, etc.) and only pay if that outcome is delivered (i.e. if someone follows you from a campaign you ran for engagement, you would not get charged as you are paying for engagements and not followers). They have multiple ad formats – promoted hashtag trends, tweets and account suggestions. A couple of drawbacks are that they are more expensive than Facebook and their analytics are not as thorough as Facebook or Google.

What functions and features should I know about?

Twitter is less algorithmic in its filtering than Facebook, which means it rewards quality, but timing can be your downfall. They have introduced “suggested tweets” that bring users highlights since their last login, which rewards engagement. If the hashtag of a topic becomes particularly popular in a geographical location it will “trend” as a suggestion to users in the area. There is also a feature called Moments which allows you to curate tweets on a single topic/story and pull them together into a collage. Twitter has expanded their live capabilities, which should continue in the future.

2. Facebook

• 2.2 billion unique monthly users
• Mostly women – 83% women/75% men (of those online)
• Ages 18 – 49

What is it?

The world’s largest social network, with almost 2 billion daily users according to their own figures. Users create a personal profile to connect with their friends and follow pages of interest, as well as group, message and multimedia functions.

Who is on it?

Everybody. Although it varies from country to country, it is by far most demographically representative.

What kind of interactions take place?

Emotional and personal-based appeals work well – remember that on Facebook you are competing for attention not only with other organisations and businesses, but also with users’ family, friends and personal network. This is why authenticity is key. People have to believe that you are speaking the truth and need to see humanity in your post.

What type of conversations will I have there?

You can engage in longer and more detailed discussions on Facebook than on Twitter, so be sure that you can invest the time. You will hear people’s personal opinions and emotional reactions, not all of which will be positive. With this in mind, it’s good to remember that you can’t always convince everyone and that it is those observing your conversation that you seek to persuade. It’s also important to remember that, especially with paid campaigns, you are operating in what many people consider personal space so approach it with due respect and composure.

What are my paid options?

There are two main options for advertising: placing ads or boosting. Placing ads delivers your content in your desired format to your audience. Boosting takes a regular Facebook post and pushes it, either to your audience or an audience of your choosing. Boosting has become vital with the decline of organic reach. Facebook has by far the most comprehensive segmentation tools, which helps you sort through their wide audience. They are relatively cheap and easy to use. This makes it a great platform to experiment and learn from in the realm of advertising. However, if you want to do it properly with A/B testing and retargeting, it can become quite time-consuming (especially when you are learning for the first time). They have an extremely useful feature called a pixel, which is a code that you can use for retargeting audiences.

What functions and features should I know about?

You should know that Facebook is heavily algorithmic, rewarding engagement and sustained interaction. You should seek to engage as much as possible with your community and regularly put out posts that you know will get interactions. Apart from Facebook Messenger, wall posts and multimedia opportunities, the platform has a plethora of other options for posts. Facebook Live is among the live streaming tools with the most impact. Other tools worth checking out are Milestones (for marking significant events in your organisation) and notes (a word processing tool a bit lit a blog post which allows you to format, tag and add pictures).

3. LinkedIn

• 250 million unique monthly users
• Mostly men – 31% male/27% female (share of online audiences)
• Professionals in their 20s and 30s

What is it?

A social network for professionals where profiles are laid out like detailed CVs and resumes. It is a place where users seek to promote themselves, network with peers, look for business opportunities, swap professional insights and hire people.

Who is on it?

Anyone who seeks to hire, be hired or make an impact in the professional sphere. The demographics are mostly under 35, but there has been a pickup across all age brackets.

What kind of interactions take place?

A lot of interactions are networking or job search-related (either hiring or job-seeking), but there are much more. There is a platform for publishing articles called LinkedIn Pulse where users share professional insights, and there are networks of people interested in particular sectors in LinkedIn Groups and LinkedIn showcase pages can be followed for updates on brands/topics.

What type of conversations will I have there?

The style on LinkedIn is usually professional and curated. You are less likely to encounter trolls or people trying to disrupt conversation as users are presenting their professional face. You see a lot of posts offering practical tips or motivational content. Your best bet for getting involved in relevant conversations is joining groups related to your topics of expertise.

What are my paid options?

LinkedIn is expensive to advertise on, but offers unique targeting opportunities such as job title, industry, company name, level of seniority and skills (on top of standard options like geographical, age, gender, etc.). You can opt for InMail in which you can address people directly, or you can insert yourself into people’s home pages with sponsored updates and advertisements in the right hand column.

What functions and features should I know about?

One great advantage of LinkedIn is the long half-life of posts and updates. When someone likes a post, it is shared with their network. Therefore, even particularly old posts can sometimes come back to life. That said, it can be difficult to gain traction as an organisation on LinkedIn through updates and posts. If you are looking for interactions and influence on the platform, it is best to try to become an influencer through groups, either by building your own group or joining an established group to go where the community is.

4. Instagram

• 700 million unique monthly users
• Mostly women – 38% female/26% male (share of online audiences)
• 90% of users under 35 years old

What is it?

A photo-sharing social network that allows users to upload photos with digital filters, frames and special effects.

Who is on it?

There is a young user base, with a large number of young professionals and degree holders. People are interested in topics such as fashion and beauty, sports, food, travel, art and architecture.

What kind of interactions take place?

Instagram is less conversational than other social media – its focus is on the visual. However, users can leave comments and likes on photos, and it is possible to reply. People come to Instagram to see beauty and striking images, so you should be using the platform to build an image for your organisation. Let people know what you are about by posting photos that give interesting insights, convey the feelings of your organisation and create positive feelings associated with your brand. To keep up interactions you should post regularly - daily even! Luckily due to Instagram’s interface, you can get away with re-posting particularly successful content every once in awhile.

What type of conversations will I have there?

There is much more of a friendly crowd for content on Instagram. Comments tend to be supportive and related to the image. To get interactions you should be commenting on and liking other people’s posts too. The best way to get meaningful conversations started is to add an element of interaction by getting your followers involved; treasure hunts, photo challenges and competitions with a particular hashtag are good for this.

What are my paid options?

According to Forrester Research, Instagram is the platform where people are most comfortable and likely to interact with promoted content. Targeting options are the same as on Facebook (location, demographics, interest, behaviour, Custom Audiences and Lookalike Audiences) and costs are reasonable. Another option is engaging influencers. This has become particularly popular with brands and products. Instagram has created platform celebrities who have huge followings and businesses recruit them to endorse and promote their brands.

What functions and features should I know about?

After you upload your photos you have the option to apply a range of filters and frames to make it look more attractive. Apart from photos, you can also upload short videos and GIFs. There is also a Story function where you can upload a series of photos or videos that can be viewed as a sort of slideshow only available temporarily. A nice idea is to create a bigger image, with a collection of photos posted over time, that can be seen in the grid view of your homepage (this is called a totem).

5. Snapchat

• 187 million users EVERY DAY
• Mostly female – 42% female/31% male
• 60% of users under 25 years old, 86% are under 35

What is it?

An app that allows users to send pictures, videos and chats to their friends that will disappear after they are viewed or after 24 hours in the case of the story format.

Who is on it?

Snapchat is very popular among teens and young adults. It is thought that this is a pattern of young people moving away from the more overtly public and permanent forms of social media towards a space where they can feel safer and interact with a more select audience.

What kind of interactions take place?

Highly personal. This is a platform where people go to share their lives with their friends and family. It is where they come to escape the publicity of social media and make each other laugh, show off or just have a chat. This is critical to understand if going on Snapchat - it is all about relationships and insights into lives. The interactions are also ephemeral, disappearing instantly.

What type of conversations will I have there?

You should keep it highly personalised. If you are a politician show what your day-to-day life is – show that you are human by messing around with filters and give people a window into your life. Organisations such as the European Parliament aim to do this by giving their Snapchat accounts to their interns. Good advice for all is to elicit emotion and build human relationships, let people feel close to you.

What are my paid options?

Snapchat ads have the benefit of being highly interactive and sharable. You can target to deliver articles, get people to install apps, play longform videos or get them to view a website. You can also get people to spread your advertisements themselves with a promoted filter. The drawback is that it is incredibly expensive and labour intensive; ten seconds of video can be tens of thousands of euros, while a filter can be up to half a million euros.

What functions and features should I know about?

Apart from simply sending pictures and video to users, there are also Snapchat Stories that you can share publicly to everyone following you. Filters allow you to manipulate the images, video or sound in amusing ways. Their most recent feature is Snapmap, which will geotag Snaps so people can see where you are when using the app.

6. YouTube

• 1 billion monthly active users
• Mostly men – 55% male/45% female (of those online)
• Ages 18 – 49

What is it?

The largest video hosting and watching website in the world. After Google, YouTube is the world’s largest search engine.

Who is on it?

With over a billion monthly users, YouTube is used by a broad range of people as with Facebook.

What kind of interactions take place?

The platform allows for video uploads to channels (accounts), which allow users to subscribe and comment. Putting out regular quality content will build you a community of followers. The type of content that work best varies, but personal and emotional-based appeals work well. So do webinars and teaching opportunities. Having a channel that helps people learn and bring added value to their lives will keep people coming back.

What type of conversations will I have there?

This depends on your approach. The comments section can be a good place for gauging reactions from your community, but it is a channel prone to trolls. It is possible to disable comments, but as discussed before the conversational elements of social media are key. Aside from commenting, people can “like” or “dislike” your video to express their feelings. There is also a particular genre of video called a “reaction video” where people give their feedback on content through video format.

What are my paid options?

There are several benefits to YouTube advertising, one being that you can link it to your Google AdWords account to “remarket”. This means that people who have interacted or viewed your videos in the past will be retargeted to those same users. There are several types of ads available within their TrueView format. InStream plays videos before a user’s selected video and the most common selection allows viewers to skip after five seconds. The advantage of this format is that you do not pay unless they complete 30 seconds. There are also InDisplay and InSearch ads (displaying ads in the right hand pane or in the results associated with certain keywords, respectively). InDisplay ads appear as overlays in particular videos.

What functions and features should I know about?

Apart from following, commenting and subscribing to users’ videos, there is also a decent built-in video editor. Within the editor there are options for clipping, attaching, adding effects and editing the sound of your videos. There is also a good amount of video, images and music available within the editor.

7. Reddit

• 85 million unique monthly users
• Mostly men – 67% male/33% female
• 64% users are under 30 years old

What is it?

It is one of the most active community-driven places on the web: a social news, discussion and web content aggregator. Divided into subreddits (for discussion of different topics) and sorted by community votes, people come together to submit, comment on and rate content. This is one of the more complex platforms to operate on due to its community culture.

Who is on it?

There is a slightly younger and American-oriented community on Reddit, but apart from that there are a range of interests and cultures. Find your subreddit through the search function or just by Googling your topic and “subreddit”. There are subreddits for everything from jokes to Europe to hiking. There are people who interact and have accounts to post and vote content up and down, but there is also a large number of people who come simply to view content and not contribute.

What kind of interactions take place?

It depends on the community you are entering, but generally subreddits have moderation and posting rules. The rules are enforced by moderators chosen from among the community. Content is “upvoted” if it is considered good and will be more likely to be seen on the subreddit. If the content is not well received it will be “downvoted” and will not be seen. The comments section works the same way. You should not take this to mean that bad posts disappear. All posts remain searchable (you can even “sort by controversial” to look for content people disagree on).

What type of conversations will I have there?

Reddit is a complicated animal. The platform rewards authenticity and unscripted behaviour and it is not for the faint of heart. One memorable moment was when a particular actor came on to do an AMA (Ask Me Anything - Reddit’s version of a Q&A) and the community brought up various embarrassing stories about their past. However, Barack Obama very successfully carried out an AMA which kept an air of authenticity. It is recommended to monitor and do research into the community you plan to interact with before you engage.

What are my paid options?

Although it should be the marketer’s dream, with passionate audiences segmenting themselves by interest, advertising on Reddit is difficult to do and requires an understanding of the community. The community as a whole is suspicious of monetisation and there is a threat of a backlash. The options for advertising include URL promotion, images and text as a visibly marked “top post”. They offer bundles of subreddits to advertise to, though you should make sure they are active and discussing the issues you want to discuss.

What functions and features should I know about?

Upvotes and downvotes are the mechanism by which posts and comments rise and fall. You can sort by all or by subreddit, and within that sort by top posts of the day, week, month, year and all time. Comments can be sorted. There are also certain set piece cultural interactions. AskReddit is great for crowdsourcing, AMAs are the site’s Q&As and TIL (Today I Learned) is where you can share interesting tidbits. Moderators are generally listed in the right hand column of a subreddit and it is advisable to contact them before trying to do anything official on the site.

8. Other noteworthy platforms

Slack

A wonderful tool for internal communication in teams, Slack allows teams of all sizes to collaborate closely. It is a social network for the workplace, equipped with chat functions, the ability to create groups, configurable notifications and collaborative workspaces. It is very helpful for a team working from multiple locations, and it has over 100 integrations with other tools including Dropbox and Trello.

Pinterest

A platform that combines an attractive and intuitive platform with user-driven sales, Pinterest is the fastest site to ever reach 10 million monthly unique visits. Users collect images and put them on boards. It has integrated “buy” buttons and good business analytics. The user base is overwhelmingly women from a vastly diverse age range.

Google+

Since its foundation Google+ has had several stalled take offs. It is essentially a wasteland, with intermittent attempts to reboot it. Most recently a renewed focus on the Circles function allows you to segment your followers and deliver tailored messages to them.

WhatsApp

An instant message platform that allows you to message one-to-one or to groups. It is encrypted and can only be used with a phone number. Uses for social media managers include sending content to large groups of people, coordinating in emergencies and setting up a number to gather feedback or information privately. There is likely to be more engagement on this platform in future, given the trend toward intimate and tailored messages.

Medium

A platform for readers and writers, Medium is a blogging platform that allows you to tie together multimedia, images and other content on one page. A new project from the guys who brought us Twitter, it is a hub of editors, writers (paid and unpaid), PR hacks and start up promoters.