By Laura Newcomer
While the social media landscape continues to change, the use of social platforms isn’t halting any time soon. Approximately 59 percent of the world’s population (or 4.76 billion people) actively uses social media at home, out and about, and even on the job.
High rates of social media adoption are reason enough for businesses to invest in social media marketing. After all, it’s important to meet your audience where they are. But these days, an effective social media strategy isn’t as simple as making a branded Facebook account and tossing up the occasional post. Popularity among platforms changes over time, new apps trend, and different demographics gravitate toward different options. So where should you direct your marketing efforts?
Below, we’ll uncover how social media users interact with businesses via different platforms, identify social media trends businesses should keep in mind over the coming months, and pinpoint which platforms offer the most ROI for businesses.
Social media trends for businesses
Not surprisingly, generational lines often dictate social media trends. According to Sprout Social’s State of Social Media Report, 55 percent of consumers learn about new brands on social. That breaks down to 78 percent of Gen Z, 61 percent of Millennials, 56 percent of Gen X, and 35 percent of Baby Boomers discovering brands via their favorite social platforms. Just as people have grown more comfortable using webcams and computer accessories over the years for a growing number of purposes—a trend that accelerated thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic—more of us turn to social media for more than just connecting with friends.
Consumers often learn about companies and their products via their favorite social platforms. In fact, HubSpot’s Top 10 Social Media Trends of 2023 Report found a growing number of consumers search for brands on social media more frequently than through a search engine. Nearly one-quarter (24 percent) of consumers aged 18 to 54 use social to search for brands. This number is even higher—36 percent—for Gen Z users.
Meanwhile, according to the Social Media Use By Generation report from market research company GWI, social media ads resonate differently across generations and platforms. For instance:
- Gen Z is most influenced by social media ads on Pinterest, followed closely by TikTok and Reddit.
- Millennials are most influenced by ads on Pinterest.
- Gen X is most influenced by ads on TikTok, followed by Snapchat.
- Boomers are most influenced by ads on Reddit.
Beyond generational patterns, there are several other social media trends businesses should be aware of. Specifically, HubSpot’s Top 10 Social Media Trends report identified three major trends to watch out for:
- Engaging with your social media community is vital for building and sustaining a loyal audience.
- E-commerce brands increasingly depend on social media.
- Consumers expect to direct message brands for customer service, so brands need to invest in the appropriate resources to meet these expectations.
The same HubSpot report found an increase in sales that take place directly within social media apps, with 47 percent of social media marketers reporting their brand takes advantage of this sales strategy. The most popular social media selling features include Instagram Shops, Facebook Shops, and Instagram Live Shopping. Keep this option in mind if your brand relies on e-commerce.
Last, but certainly not least, inclusivity remains highly important both in terms of products and user experiences. Per GWI’s 2023 Consumer Trend Report, an emphasis on inclusivity should enable social media users to engage with brands in ways that allow them to “be creative, express their digital identity, and discover their unique style.”
The best social media platforms for businesses
Once you’re aware of current social media trends, it’s important to strategize where to focus your efforts. One plan most definitely does not fit all businesses. Just because another brand has excelled on YouTube doesn’t mean the platform is essential for your business. And there’s no need to have a presence on every major platform, which will spread your resources too thin.
In fact, you may see the best returns and get all the reach you’re looking for by focusing on just one or two of the top platforms. Why? Most social media users are present on multiple platforms and fewer than 1 percent of users on a particular platform use that platform exclusively. An engaged audience on Instagram, for example, is likely to include many of the same people your brand would reach if it applied the same resources to Facebook. Cultivating a presence on both Facebook and YouTube would reach more than 9 in 10 working-age internet users residing outside of China, meaning a presence on other platforms could be irrelevant.
Bottom line? Stick to one or two of the major platforms. Then, if you have the resources, add in a more niche platform that’s specific to your audience’s interests or the type of creative content you want to produce.
Armed with this general strategy, it’s time to pick the best social media platform(s) for your business. Here’s an overview of eight major players.
With almost 3 billion monthly active users (MAUs), Facebook captures the attention of 37 percent of the global population, and its audience continues to grow. This means Facebook ticks the reach box—big time. Millions of businesses and advertisers promote their companies on the platform. Facebook supports most types of content, including text, images, videos, and “Stories” (photo and video posts that expire after 24 hours). It also has some of the best search capabilities, according to HubSpot’s 2023 Social Media Marketing Report, which polled more than 1,000 social media marketers from around the world. The report also found that social media marketers rank Facebook as the social platform with the second-highest ROI for marketing efforts (after Instagram). Be warned, however, that the Facebook algorithm is a multi-headed dragon that can be hard to tame. It’s not uncommon for algorithm updates to shrink a brand’s reach or otherwise make it harder to obtain the same ROI they enjoyed previously.
YouTube
Collectively, YouTube’s viewers watch more than 1 billion hours of video content every day. The platform attracts more than 2.5 billion MAUs, and it has the highest number of active users of any mobile app. It’s not only the second largest social media site; it’s also the second largest search engine after Google. This helps explain why HubSpot’s report says YouTube will continue to grow as a major platform for social media marketers. Per that report, in 2023, 14 percent of polled social media marketers plan to invest more in YouTube than any other platform, while 15 percent of respondents are planning to try the platform for the first time this year.
Instagram
Instagram has been gobbling up social media users for a while now. The highly visual platform attracts 2 billion active users each month. It’s a great place for brands with visual flair to showcase products or services via photos, videos, lives, reels (edited multi-clip videos), Stories, and IGTV (which allows for the sharing of longer-form videos). Per HubSpot’s report, the platform offers the highest ROI on social media marketing. It’s also a favorite among social media marketers because of its strong search capabilities. Instagram features solid analytics and scheduling tools for businesses, and brands use the platform as a rich source of user-generated content.
WhatsApp
While many people think of WhatsApp strictly as an international text-messaging service, it’s one of the world’s most trafficked social media platforms, with 2 billion MAUs. It’s the most popular text-messaging app worldwide, which explains why brands are experimenting with marketing techniques on the platform, often with the help of WhatsApp for Business. The business-focused app allows companies to create and share product catalogs, link to e-commerce sites, chat with prospects, offer customer support, and more.
In terms of active users, WeChat ranks fifth on the list of social media platforms. The popular messaging service has 1.3 billion MAUs, most of whom are based in China. While it might not make sense to have a WeChat presence if your brand is localized to the U.S., it’s a great avenue for global brands to explore. The service ranks as the fourth favorite social media platform among global internet users (noting that for this particular ranking, YouTube was considered a video platform—not a social media one). It supports video, voice, and text chat, making it an especially useful tool for customer service. The app also offers localized translation, which can come in handy for brands with an international reach.
TikTok
This won’t surprise anyone who spends time online: TikTok is rapidly becoming one of the world’s most popular social media apps with 1.05 billion MAUs. In 2022, the short-form video app became the most downloaded app with 672 million global downloads. Posts tagged with #FYP (for you page)—which don’t account for all posts on the platform—have been viewed an astonishing 35 trillion times. TikTok is a great choice for brands that serve younger demographics, since nearly 48 percent of U.S. users are between the ages of 10 and 29. HubSpot’s report found that TikTok boasts significant potential for audience growth. Take note, however, that at the time of this writing the U.S. government is considering bans on the platform.
Twitter’s popularity has waxed and waned since the text-driven social media platform first launched, but user growth has ticked back upward of late, with 556 million MAUs. While the algorithm can drown out some brands’ voices, those that excel on Twitter will enjoy the ability to share interactive content in the form of images, polls, links, videos, and short messages. The platform is especially useful for brands with an engaged audience and the desire to offer personalized customer service via social media.
Pinterest enjoyed its heyday around a decade ago, but the photo-based platform is still going strong. It attracts approximately 445 million MAUs, and it’s especially popular among people with visually driven interests including fashion, beauty, home, garden, luxury goods, and DIY projects. Because pinned photos link out to websites, they can help drive traffic to e-commerce pages, blog posts, and more. Additionally, research suggests users are seven times more likely to purchase products they’ve pinned to their boards. To add location and product detail information to pins, brands can tap into the platform’s Rich Pins tools.
Conclusion
It’s important to think strategically when choosing which social platforms to use for your business. Equally critical is what you do on those platforms. Worldwide, the number of social media users continues to steadily increase, and people are spending more time on social platforms than ever. Social media users desire and expect authentic, purposeful connection wherever they spend time online. No matter the platform, brands that navigate social media in ways that add real value to people’s lives will be most likely to succeed.