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Updated Oct 31, 2024
Social Media for Business: Marketing, Customer Service and More
Learn social media strategies to gain more customers and engage more effectively with your current customers.
Written By: Tom AnzianoSenior Writer
Editor Reviewed:
Editor Reviewed
This guide was reviewed by a Business News Daily editor to ensure it provides comprehensive and accurate information to aid your buying decision.
Sandra Mardenfeld
Senior Editor
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Table of Contents
Social media is a daily meeting place for billions of people. So, if your business doesn’t have a social media presence, you’re missing out on some serious face time with potential customers. Thanks to its digital-gathering reputation, social media can be a highly cost-effective and personalized way of reaching your audience and driving new business.
In this guide, we’ll explore social media’s most effective business uses and go over best practices for developing a social media marketing strategy. We’ll also touch upon how to measure social media ROI and how to select the best social platform for your brand.
How to use social media for business
Below, we’ll cover the ways social media can be used for a range of business purposes, including:
When you incorporate an effective social media presence into your small business marketing plan, you can reach customers and prospects where they are. Here are some tips and best practices for creating a successful presence on social media to market your brand:
Craft a social media marketing strategy: The best way to ensure success on social media is to go in with a plan. This means devising a social media marketing strategy that includes each platform you plan to use. Be sure to understand your customer and where they spend their time online. “Don’t try to be on every platform at once,” advised Robert Catalano, a digital marketing specialist at Toshiba America Business Solutions. “Instead, focus on where your audience is most active and create content that adds value to them.”
Create a content calendar: Your followers value a steady presence, so adhere to a consistent posting schedule. While being consistent, avoid posting too much, which can be off-putting for your followers. Veronica Clerkin, managing partner and founder of AMZG Agency, recommended using insights from social media platforms to inform your timing. “Take into consideration where your followers live, their age, gender, job title, etc. Look at the days and times your followers are most active and schedule your content for those times,” she said.
Develop a clear voice: Create a consistent voice and tone in your social media presence — one that resonates with your audience and influences how they see your brand. Listen to your audience and find ways to relate to them without looking like you’re trying too hard. Most importantly, don’t be afraid to show a little personality. This helps present your business as adaptive, friendly and relevant.
Be authentic: While you want to create a voice and social media presence that grabs attention, you don’t want to come off as inauthentic or ingenuine. Make sure your posts realistically reflect your company. “Similarly, be authentic to your audience,” said Rachael Amato, content manager at Synaptic. “It’s not necessary to jump on every trend or observance. Share content that is genuine and feels relevant to your business.”
Have fun with social media: Use social media to increase customer engagement in a fun way. This can include running social media contests, hosting live videos with exciting updates or news, and linking to your website or special offers in your profile bio. Interactive, fun experiences on social media also help with lead generation.
Know your audience: Use CRM analytics to understand demographic information, customer behavior and social media trends to inform your content. Knowing what your audience wants to see from you and responding accordingly can go a long way toward boosting your engagement rates.
Editor’s note: Looking for the right social media management solution for your business? Fill out the below questionnaire to have our vendor partners contact you about your needs.
2. Use social media for customer service.
Because so many customers already communicate through social media, using it for customer service is a no-brainer. Through social media communication, you can address customer problems quickly and efficiently — helping you create a loyal customer base.
Respond to customer issues quickly: Many businesses approach social media as another channel for self-promotion; they don’t always respond when customers comment on their posts or tweet at them. According to research from Convince & Convert, 42 percent of consumers expect a response to a complaint on social media within 60 minutes, and nearly one-third expect a response within a half hour. Monitoring social media channels and responding to concerns promptly can help you build strong relationships with customers.
Use hashtags strategically: How hashtags operate within a social media platform’s algorithm is likely to change frequently. So, stay updated on your social platforms’ hashtag recommendations and best practices. Hashtags help keep topics organized and easy to navigate, especially on platforms like X (formerly Twitter). You can also add more information and curate content to your hashtags.
Take public conversations private: Many angry or frustrated customers leave public comments on a brand’s Instagram and Facebook accounts or tweet at a business. While you shouldn’t ignore these messages, it’s not always wise to handle the entire encounter publicly. Show other customers that you value their input and time by sending an initial response requesting to continue the conversation privately.
3. Use social media for sales.
One of the most direct and lucrative ways to experience the power of social media is through increased sales. You can boost sales on social media in various ways:
Advertise on social media: The major social platforms, including Facebook, Instagram and X, have advertising platforms that help you reach your target audience and monitor your ad campaigns.
Sell on social media: Facebook and Instagram offer sales platforms and shoppable posts that make it easy for businesses to start selling online.
Work with brand ambassadors: Finding social media influencers or enthusiastic customers to act as brand ambassadors is an effective way to boost word-of-mouth buzz about your business. This, in turn, can boost sales.
Improve your business with social listening: Social listening is a process in which organizations take a macro view of what customers are saying online about the brand and use the information to improve the business. Social listening provides a broader view of industry trends and customer sentiment that may directly or indirectly impact a brand and its sales.
Respond quickly to inquiries: Social media isn’t just about posting messages and ads. It’s also about communicating. “You can answer questions, provide tours or demo your products/services, or share behind-the-scenes looks of your company,” said Kamel Ben Yacoub, co-founder and CEO at Getuplead, a B2B social ads agency. “This kind of interaction can accelerate the buying process and close deals more quickly.”
Build relationships with your followers: When your followers feel that they have a relationship with you, they’re more likely to engage with your content and follow through with a purchase or commitment to your business.
Tip
The best CRM software can help you leverage customer insights across multiple channels to help craft a winning social media strategy.
4. Use social media for recruiting and hiring.
In the modern hiring process, social media platforms provide an excellent way to recruit potential talent. Recruiting through sites like LinkedIn, Facebook and X lets employers access a broad candidate pool and efficiently sort through viable recruits. Here are some tips on how to use social media as an effective recruitment tool:
Develop a recruitment strategy: Just like any other business operation, using social media for recruitment requires thoughtful planning. “Candidates are just as much your stakeholders as consumers,” said Amato. “You should approach a talent campaign with the same level of intentionality and planning as you would any other campaign.”
Meet candidates where they are: Whether seeking out potential customers or employees, understanding your target is vital. Depending on the profile of your ideal candidate, you might want to concentrate your recruitment efforts on a specific platform. It’s also a good idea to see what kind of content drives interest — whether that be testimonials, videos, graphics, short texts or a combination of tactics.
Show your company culture:Company culture matters to workers and your unique culture sets you apart from other players in the industry. “Give candidates a real look into what working for you will be like,” recommended Clerkin. “Share a day in the life of an employee, show behind the scenes footage of events your team was involved in, capitalize on a viral trend and let your businesses’ personality shine through.” While workplace videos don’t need to be perfectly polished, there are many top video apps that can help you create and edit engaging content.
Demonstrate your values: Beyond showing potential recruits your company’s culture, you should also communicate what you stand for. People want to work for a company they believe in. When recruits see that you share similar values — whether that be through your own initiatives or efforts you support — they will be motivated to join your team.
Push your openings: Social media feeds are saturated with a constantly refreshing array of pictures and videos. If you want to be seen, you need to push your job ads. “Post frequently and post often about open positions,” said bread & Butter’s chief digital officer Samantha Markiewicz. “If we want to promote a position, we need to talk about it frequently to ensure people in that market see, share and act upon our posts.”
Be ready to respond: Markiewicz also noted that a key part of the social media recruitment process is responding to potential candidates. “It’s also important to have one-to-one conversations about the role with your followers,” she said. “Our agency will get 20-30 direct messages with follow-up questions from interested candidates. Dedicating time to community management and real engagement following a hiring post going live allows us to have those conversations and move great, engaged candidates into the hiring funnel.”
Give your current employees a voice: One of the most effective ways to let people know about what it’s like working for your company is by letting the people who actually work for you already do the talking. “I would recommend sharing employee-driven content, testimonials, achievements and the perks of working with your company,” said Catalano. “On Toshiba’s pages, we’ve noticed these posts resonate the most and tend to get the highest engagement.”
FYI
If you're a job candidate seeking employment, understand that social media screening is a common practice. Ensure your social media presence reflects the person you want potential employers to see.
5. Use social media for crisis management.
When senseless tragedies affect the communities you do business in — whether that be on the local or national level — finding the right way to respond can be challenging. Should you choose to send a heartfelt message to your business’s social media followers or is it better to keep quiet?
Unfortunately, there’s no etiquette book on handling social media marketing when the headlines turn horrific. There are, however, several schools of thought on how businesses should use social media to react to tragic events.
Here are some tips for using social media during a crisis:
Silence is rarely the correct response in a tragic situation.
Negative or inflammatory comments are even worse than saying nothing.
Have a social media strategy ready so you’re less likely to be caught off guard by a tragedy or other crisis.
Choose your words carefully, and always speak from the heart.
As soon as you hear of a tragic event, check your calendar and pause any nonessential posts.
Look for ways your business can meaningfully help.
How does social media benefit your business?
Using social media for business has many advantages. Here are nine business benefits that social media provides.
Boost brand awareness: Social media is an invaluable tool for building a brand and boosting brand awareness. “Social media provides targeting capability, as well as reach and scale, at a lower cost than almost all other marketing channels,” said Abdul Muhammad II, marketing and branding expert and chief growth officer at MDM Ventures. “People are on social media all day, every day. Brands must go where the people are.”
Communicate your brand personality: It’s becoming more crucial than ever for businesses to have a distinct voice and engage with customers on a human level. Social media provides an easy avenue for creating a visual brand — allowing you to develop an identity and a voice to showcase your brand values and engage with followers.
Position your brand as a leader: Social media allows businesses to become thought leaders and stand out from their competitors — establishing themselves as industry leaders through engaging and relevant content. You can do this by sharing creative content on Instagram, writing thoughtful blog posts for LinkedIn or showing a fresh perspective in tweets. “Share your insights and people start to see you as the expert,” said Ben Yacoub.
Increase website traffic: If your followers like your social media content, they become interested in you. Then, they’ll go to your business website to learn more about your company. This means higher website traffic and potentially more sales for you.
Facilitate reputation management: Reputation is everything — social media gives you the perfect opportunity to communicate with customers and solve issues quickly. You can even create a unique hashtag your followers can use if they have a question or complaint to ensure the right people see it. You can also use social media to highlight positive reviews or comments.
Provide analytics and insights: Most social media platforms have analytics tools; these allow you to monitor follower counts, engagement rates and CTRs. These numbers can help you determine the kinds of content your followers respond to best and tweak your marketing strategy accordingly.
Allow targeted advertisements: It’s easy to create ads on social platforms, and the benefit is that you can specifically target them to suit your audience. Research has shown that users respond better when ads are tailored to them, which often increases engagement.
Help monitor the competition: Aside from engaging with customers, social media helps you monitor your competitors. Follow your competitors and note what works well for them and what doesn’t. Work those insights into your social media marketing strategy.
Promote your customers’s voices: Studies show that word of mouth advertising is more effective, and social media lets you highlight your actual customers. Not only can you promote customer testimonials and reviews, you can inspire them to create original content that will show up organically on a user’s feed.
Key Takeaway
Social media benefits your business in many ways. It does so mainly by allowing you to communicate your unique selling point and company values in a creative way to a targeted audience in the platforms they prefer to use. You’ll also be able to keep an eye on the competition and get useful analytics, all of which should boost your bottom line.
How to track social media ROI
You’ll need to consider several factors when formulating, setting up and tracking your business’s social media ROI.
Determine your immediate goals: Many organizations that have difficulty measuring social media ROI haven’t defined specific, tangible goals. The key to successfully measuring ROI is setting achievable business goals and building your strategy to accomplish them.
Understand your long-term goals: Ensure you understand your ultimate goal: what all your smaller, more immediate goals will build to. This end-goal vision will unify your social media efforts. Your ultimate goal should align with your business’s branding and communications guidelines.
Pinpoint metrics to track: Once you know your goals and how to achieve them, pinpoint the metrics you want to track, e.g., engagement, audience, reach and sentiment. “Social platforms provide built-in analytics that can track performance metrics, but to go deeper, consider using tools like Google Analytics,” said Chris Marine, founder and CEO of Campfire Consulting. Understand how you’ll apply that information to your strategy. “Attribution is critical,” added Marine. “Tagging campaigns properly and using UTM codes ensures you can map each action back to its source.”
Ignore “vanity metrics”: You’ll track several metrics once your social media marketing campaign gets underway. Some of these metrics are called “vanity metrics”; this is because they’re visible to the naked eye but don’t necessarily tell the whole story of a campaign’s success. Consider tracking more in-depth metrics — such as conversions from the traffic generated by a campaign — to tell the whole story and properly measure ROI. [Learn more about tracking your conversions.]
Focus on quality, not quantity: Be thoughtful with your social media posts — provide carefully considered content. Your social media is there to serve your business and achieve a goal, not just to exist. Spend time considering your photos, captions, and hashtags appropriately for each platform, and try to understand how each post is meeting your goals.
Analyze spending against your success rates: Spending is one of the most straightforward metrics to measure. As you analyze the success of your campaign, be sure to consider all the money spent and how it was utilized. “With paid campaigns, it’s crucial to monitor metrics like cost per lead and cost per client,” said Sophie Musumeci, founder of Real Entrepreneur Women. “This helps us understand not just the volume of leads but also the quality, so we’re always clear on our return on investment.”
Social media platforms for businesses
Here’s an overview of the most popular social media platforms and their business tools.
Facebook
Facebook, a part of the social media umbrella company Meta, is an extremely popular social media network. It boasts a varied audience of over 3 billion active monthly users as of 2024, according to Statista. It’s worthwhile for any business of any size to use Facebook for business.
Use Facebook to share everything from photos to essential company updates. With a business account, you have access to powerful advertising tools and in-depth analytics. Business pages also have many customization options: highlighting your contact information, hours of operation, the products and services you offer, and much more.
Also under the Meta umbrella, Instagram is another incredibly popular platform. It has more than 2 billion active monthly users in 2024, according to Statista. From Instagram Live to Instagram Stories, there are multiple ways to use Instagram for your business. Instagram is a visual platform focused on photo and video posts, so it’s an excellent tool for businesses with strong visual content to share. It’s also almost entirely mobile, with tools and services optimized for mobile.
More artistic niches tend to excel on Instagram, but most businesses can benefit from the platform and its broad user base if you target your audience. Your Instagram account manager should have a good eye for detail and some photography skills — ensuring the photos and videos posted to your account are high quality.
X (Formerly Twitter)
X is great for short updates, engaging with followers and sharing links to your business blog. However, the platform isn’t ideal for all businesses.
On X, you can share short tweets (240 characters or fewer), videos, images, links, polls and more. It’s also easy to interact with your audience on this platform by mentioning users in your posts along with liking and retweeting tweets.
If you’re a highly visual business or you don’t have a strong brand voice, you may want to skip this social media network. However, many companies excel on X because they have a unique, on-brand voice they use to their advantage.
Other companies use X for business functions like handling customer service. Active, X-using customers will seek out companies to express concerns or share praise.
If you have interesting content and can engagingly voice that content, X is an excellent tool for quickly spreading the word. Hashtags help boost posts, and if a user with many followers retweets you, your content could go viral.
It’s essential to find balance with X. Don’t just share your links or media; ensure you’re also sharing interesting, relevant content from other X users.
Pinterest
This visually oriented platform allows users to save and display content by “pinning” digital bulletin boards, which can be organized by category. For example, a personal user might have a food board dedicated to pinning recipes, another board dedicated to photography and so on.
Pinterest uses for business include a series of special pins called Rich Pins; brands can use these to add specific information to their pins, including product details and location maps. Every pin on Pinterest includes an image or video, making it a purely visual platform. As such, Pinterest is not the place for you to share information like your business hours.
Pinterest is great for niche businesses, but it may not be for every company. Popular categories on the site are DIY projects, fashion, exercise, beauty, photography and food. That’s not to say that businesses outside these categories can’t succeed on the platform, but it makes Pinterest an especially good marketing tool for such businesses.
Snapchat
Snapchat is a mobile-only, visual social media network known for its disappearing content. Users can send videos and photos to each other or post content to their public Stories, which disappear after 24 hours. The app has expanded to include chat, messaging, image storage, events and media content. Now, content posted on Snapchat can easily be saved and uploaded elsewhere.
Because posts are temporary, there is less pressure to create super-polished content. You can also see how many and which specific users viewed your story. When it comes to Snapchat for business, a small business will most likely utilize the platform’s Stories feature. However, keep in mind that only users who have added you can view your Stories content. Once you have an audience, Stories allows you to easily create story-driven and interactive content.
YouTube
Google-owned YouTube is a video-sharing platform where people can view, upload, rate, share and comment on content. The site is a massive hub for news and entertainment.
If your company has a creative, visual or educational component you should consider using YouTube for business. The platform is heavily creative, so it’s essential to have a dedicated video editor producing content. However, your business doesn’t need a channel to market on the platform; there’s a subculture of YouTube influencers who publish frequent videos and often maintain large audiences.
Often, businesses partner with YouTubers for product placement because these users already have engaged audiences. Using YouTube influencers can be an easier way of marketing your business on the platform; you don’t have to put in the time and effort to create content and build a following, which can take years.
LinkedIn
LinkedIn has over 1 billion users and is the best platform for professional networking. As far as LinkedIn business uses, it’s an excellent place to find top talent, position yourself as an industry leader and promote your business.
LinkedIn is designed to be more professional than other social media platforms; it’s geared toward businesses and professionals. Users create profiles similar to resumes, and companies can create pages that showcase their business. Because LinkedIn is a professional platform, it’s the best place to post job openings and information about your company culture.
You can join industry-specific LinkedIn Groups to ask and answer questions; these groups can help you establish brand recognition and bring users to your company page and website. As on X, it is best to have a mix of original and shared content on your page. So, commit to creating polished, professional content related to your business.
TikTok
TikTok — the platform where users create and share short videos, is becoming increasingly popular — with over 1.5 billion users in 2024, according to Stastia. It can be an immensely effective option for businesses, but only if used properly. Because TikTok is primarily popular with the infamously discerning Generation Z, it can be challenging to strike the right tone for business success on the platform.
To use TikTok for business, you need a keen understanding of your brand and how that translates to TikTok specifically. Examine how other businesses are tackling TikTok before trying it yourself.
Did You Know?
TikTok is an example of a platform optimized for experiential marketing, which directly engages followers and encourages them to participate in a brand experience.
Social media for business FAQs
This largely depends on the type of business and its social media goals. Facebook has the largest audience and the most room to customize your social media marketing. X is the best for receiving feedback from and directly engaging with customers. Pinterest is ideal for small and niche businesses that can market directly on the site. YouTube is arguably the best social media platform for driving traffic to other websites, such as a company landing page where customers can make purchases.
The best social media site is one you can leverage for your business’s specific goals. With that in mind, though, a combination of social media usage on multiple sites will typically yield the best results.
The disadvantages of social media largely depend on the platforms you use, but there are some universal drawbacks, including:
Time investment: It takes a lot of time to manage a social media account. And, if you are outsourcing the work, it will take a lot of money to pay for that time. While the initial outreach generated from those investments is usually worthwhile, social media investments generate smaller returns over time.
Bad publicity: Another major drawback is the potential for bad publicity. Something as simple as a typo can send the wrong message — and, even after you correct it, the consequences of bad publicity will persist. It is practically inevitable that a social media account will encounter political or otherwise controversial topics, and someone is guaranteed to dislike your business’s discourse.
Undue influence: One of the most challenging risks to manage is the influence of your social media followers. They will always represent a small portion of your total customers, but they will be the most vocal. Plus, they could lead you to misread what most of your customers really want or think. Putting too much stock in social media can send a business down a bad path.
There is no magic number for social media marketing. While you should probably spend at least a little money on it, how much you get out of your spending will depend on the efficiency of your campaign.
According to Statista, U.S. companies spent around 17 percent of their total marketing budget on social media in 2023. That marks a nice place to start, but you can and should adjust your spending according to your ROI statistics once those numbers are available.
Managing a social media strategy for your business requires the same steps as any other marketing or communications plan. You need to understand your customer, develop a plan, carefully execute it, analyze the results and adjust accordingly.
Depending on the size of your company, it could be a good idea to bring in a social media manager to handle your accounts. In general, using CRM will help you make the most of your social media campaigns. Most solutions incorporate tools — like Salesforce’s social media integration — to make managing multiple platforms and accounts painless.
There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to business. If you run a small business that solely depends on support from the local community, you might be able to get by without social media.
However, no matter the size of your business, online posts, comments and reviews are prolific. It seems like almost everyone is posting from almost anywhere. Which means, even if you don’t have an account, your business might pop up in someone else’s post. Maintaining social media accounts lets you set the narrative and quickly respond to any problematic mentions.
Kiely Kuligowski and Saige Driver contributed to this article. Source interviews were conducted for previous versions of this article.
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Written By: Tom AnzianoSenior Writer
Thomas Anziano is an advertising and marketing professional who has worked in the U.S. and Germany. He has also taught Business Writing in English to university students in Madrid, Spain. He holds a degree in Marketing and Spanish.
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Social media platforms for businesses
Here’s an overview of the most popular social media platforms and their business tools.
Facebook
Facebook, a part of the social media umbrella company Meta, is an extremely popular social media network. It boasts a varied audience of over 3 billion active monthly users as of 2024, according to Statista. It’s worthwhile for any business of any size to use Facebook for business.
Use Facebook to share everything from photos to essential company updates. With a business account, you have access to powerful advertising tools and in-depth analytics. Business pages also have many customization options: highlighting your contact information, hours of operation, the products and services you offer, and much more.
Instagram
Also under the Meta umbrella, Instagram is another incredibly popular platform. It has more than 2 billion active monthly users in 2024, according to Statista. From Instagram Live to Instagram Stories, there are multiple ways to use Instagram for your business. Instagram is a visual platform focused on photo and video posts, so it’s an excellent tool for businesses with strong visual content to share. It’s also almost entirely mobile, with tools and services optimized for mobile.
More artistic niches tend to excel on Instagram, but most businesses can benefit from the platform and its broad user base if you target your audience. Your Instagram account manager should have a good eye for detail and some photography skills — ensuring the photos and videos posted to your account are high quality.
X (Formerly Twitter)
X is great for short updates, engaging with followers and sharing links to your business blog. However, the platform isn’t ideal for all businesses.
On X, you can share short tweets (240 characters or fewer), videos, images, links, polls and more. It’s also easy to interact with your audience on this platform by mentioning users in your posts along with liking and retweeting tweets.
If you’re a highly visual business or you don’t have a strong brand voice, you may want to skip this social media network. However, many companies excel on X because they have a unique, on-brand voice they use to their advantage.
Other companies use X for business functions like handling customer service. Active, X-using customers will seek out companies to express concerns or share praise.
If you have interesting content and can engagingly voice that content, X is an excellent tool for quickly spreading the word. Hashtags help boost posts, and if a user with many followers retweets you, your content could go viral.
It’s essential to find balance with X. Don’t just share your links or media; ensure you’re also sharing interesting, relevant content from other X users.
Pinterest
This visually oriented platform allows users to save and display content by “pinning” digital bulletin boards, which can be organized by category. For example, a personal user might have a food board dedicated to pinning recipes, another board dedicated to photography and so on.
Pinterest uses for business include a series of special pins called Rich Pins; brands can use these to add specific information to their pins, including product details and location maps. Every pin on Pinterest includes an image or video, making it a purely visual platform. As such, Pinterest is not the place for you to share information like your business hours.
Pinterest is great for niche businesses, but it may not be for every company. Popular categories on the site are DIY projects, fashion, exercise, beauty, photography and food. That’s not to say that businesses outside these categories can’t succeed on the platform, but it makes Pinterest an especially good marketing tool for such businesses.
Snapchat
Snapchat is a mobile-only, visual social media network known for its disappearing content. Users can send videos and photos to each other or post content to their public Stories, which disappear after 24 hours. The app has expanded to include chat, messaging, image storage, events and media content. Now, content posted on Snapchat can easily be saved and uploaded elsewhere.
Because posts are temporary, there is less pressure to create super-polished content. You can also see how many and which specific users viewed your story. When it comes to Snapchat for business, a small business will most likely utilize the platform’s Stories feature. However, keep in mind that only users who have added you can view your Stories content. Once you have an audience, Stories allows you to easily create story-driven and interactive content.
YouTube
Google-owned YouTube is a video-sharing platform where people can view, upload, rate, share and comment on content. The site is a massive hub for news and entertainment.
If your company has a creative, visual or educational component you should consider using YouTube for business. The platform is heavily creative, so it’s essential to have a dedicated video editor producing content. However, your business doesn’t need a channel to market on the platform; there’s a subculture of YouTube influencers who publish frequent videos and often maintain large audiences.
Often, businesses partner with YouTubers for product placement because these users already have engaged audiences. Using YouTube influencers can be an easier way of marketing your business on the platform; you don’t have to put in the time and effort to create content and build a following, which can take years.
LinkedIn
LinkedIn has over 1 billion users and is the best platform for professional networking. As far as LinkedIn business uses, it’s an excellent place to find top talent, position yourself as an industry leader and promote your business.
LinkedIn is designed to be more professional than other social media platforms; it’s geared toward businesses and professionals. Users create profiles similar to resumes, and companies can create pages that showcase their business. Because LinkedIn is a professional platform, it’s the best place to post job openings and information about your company culture.
You can join industry-specific LinkedIn Groups to ask and answer questions; these groups can help you establish brand recognition and bring users to your company page and website. As on X, it is best to have a mix of original and shared content on your page. So, commit to creating polished, professional content related to your business.
TikTok
TikTok — the platform where users create and share short videos, is becoming increasingly popular — with over 1.5 billion users in 2024, according to Stastia. It can be an immensely effective option for businesses, but only if used properly. Because TikTok is primarily popular with the infamously discerning Generation Z, it can be challenging to strike the right tone for business success on the platform.
To use TikTok for business, you need a keen understanding of your brand and how that translates to TikTok specifically. Examine how other businesses are tackling TikTok before trying it yourself.
Social media for business FAQs
Kiely Kuligowski and Saige Driver contributed to this article. Source interviews were conducted for previous versions of this article.