The Big Three Social Channels: Stats and Tips to Help You Get The Most Out of Them!
By Bruce Klaic Friday, October 29, 2021
With so many Social Media channels rising and falling over the years (Myspace, anyone?) And the meteoric rise of others, it seems Marketers have had to learn and abandon platforms at the drop of a hat if they want to stay at the cutting edge.
But above this wasteland of all the living and the dead towers the big three!
With over 3 billion active users collectively, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube hold the keys to this kingdom, and they don’t seem to be rolling over any time soon.
Why this can be a good thing:
From a practical perspective, one of the major benefits of a long-standing platform- as opposed to one like Tik Tok, who are still in their relatively early days- is that over time marketers can develop certain practices that inform many of the decisions they make.
But when each channel has their own strengths, weaknesses, formats and audience it helps to know a bit about each of them.
Without further ado, let’s dive into some stats and the best practices to help you with your next campaign, whichever of the Big 3 you choose to use!
😐+📘In case you didn’t know, Facebook is the largest social networking platform in the world.
With 16 million Aussies currently active on the platform, it seems like a magical haven for advertisers where anything is possible! (Queue the willy Wonka music.)
But did you know that Facebook's audience is typically comprised of Mid-to-older millennials?
Even though Facebook has seamless mobile web app integration that allows the reaching customers throughout any time of the day, and includes one of the most advanced advertisement targeting platforms in the world, if your target market does not fit within this demographic then all those bells and whistles won’t necessarily help you.
We are not saying that if this is the case, you have to Abandon your page completely! One of the benefits of having a Facebook page is the positive effect on your site’s SEO, and increased discoverability on the SERP.
Facebook has many formats to choose from and it’s important to both understand these and use the ones your customers are most likely to respond to, or which best suit your products and services.
Some of the best Practice Tips:
- Make use of Dynamic Creative: Stuck between two headlines? Use them both. It’s recommended to use 4 versions of a creative element to show your audience. Facebook will then learn which produces the most results depending on your campaign goal and adjust accordingly.
- It’s an Iterative process: You learn more from doing than planning. You may think you have your buyers’ personas dialled in to know the best your copy, images, formats, but your results could surprise you! Be ready to abandon what you think you know about your customers and follow what is working because what works… well, works!
- Maintain your community: Facebook can be a great community management tool to answer questions and post updates. Don’t leave your people hanging and always address commenters directly; people appreciate being heard and responded to.
- Find your Sweet Spot: Don’t narrow down your Audience too much! Facebook is great at finding those who are likely to convert, including those that might not be in your exact target market. If you narrow down too much you will not allow Facebook the opportunity to find those who would still click and maybe buy from you.
INSTAGRAM:
Instagram is the second-largest social media platform in the world in terms of Active Users, with over 1 billion worldwide.
According To Napoleoncat.com over 50% of users lie within the age range 18-34, so it’s important to keep this is in mind when choosing your channels. Instagram is a great supplement to Facebook for reaching a comparatively younger audience.
Since 81% of people use it to research products and services. it could be a valuable marketing opportunity for your business.
Instagram offers many formats to choose from and has many in-app editing tools, so that all you need to make your content is a phone with a camera. (Yes, they were once separate).
The benefit of Instagram over Facebook is that it offers a higher level of engagement. The median engagement rate for an Instagram post is 1.60%, compared to that of Facebook sitting currently at 0.09%.
Because of this, if you want to take full advantage of what Instagram has to offer, get ready to be in front of the camera. This can take some getting used to, but you or your staff will likely need to participate in the content. Remember social media is about creating a conversation between you and an audience, not just blasting them with impersonal content.
Some of the best practice tips:
- Emojis are your friend: It has been proven that the use of emojis increases engagement on Instagram. But don’t overdo it – choose them wisely and use them when appropriate.
- What do you want to stand out? When posting an image, ask yourself “Where does my eye go? If you are selling a product, make sure it’s just that!
- Have fun: Most successful Instagram pages post almost daily if not more, and make heavy use of the Stories feature which allows businesses to share ephemeral moments throughout their day. Instagram is a channel where people like to engage, and it has many formats that allow creativity and opportunity to make things fun for your audience. Play around with different features such as boomerangs and filters to make your content POP.
YOUTUBE:
Yes, YouTube is not just a place to watch cat videos, but a possible avenue for you to reach customers.
The options vary: you can create your own Brand Channel, on which you can post content- for example tutorials and recorded webinars- or you can use YouTube Ads.
What makes YouTube ads great is its mass audience reach and its ability to target your customers at any stage of the Buyer’s Journey. You can build brand awareness and get people to discover your brand.
Or,
Use your Google Analytics Tracking code to target past website visitors who, maybe, viewed one of your products on-site and then left: Give yourself another shot at closing that sale! These are just a couple of things to consider.
One of the drawbacks is video production can be an expensive and timely format to adopt- but with viewers saying that they were two times more likely to buy something they saw on YouTube, it may be a format you choose to adopt.
Some of the best practice tips:
- For your Channel: Spend time on your thumbnail – the thumbnail image is the first impression a viewer is going to have and one of the biggest determining factors, along with the title, to whether or not someone will click and watch your video. Some content creators swear a video lives or dies on the quality of the thumbnail image.
- Match your ad to the Format: If choosing to advertise on YouTube, you will have several formats to choose from:
- Bumper Ads: Up to 6-seconds long these are unskippable (It’s a word now.) and must be watched before content can be viewed
- TrueView Video Discovery: Place your videos where an interested audience can find them right next to related videos, as part of the search results or even directly on the YouTube Homepage.
- TrueView In-Stream: Video plays before, after or even during other content. The viewer will have to watch the first 5 seconds before being given the option to Skip so make those 5 seconds count!
Contrary to popular belief, you do not need to be on every social media channel to succeed in today’s world.
But if you had to choose one, which should it be?
The answer is:
IT DEPENDS!
This can be an annoying answer.
For example, if I asked someone what colour is the sky, and they responded with, “It depends!” they would not technically be wrong, but it would be easier if they just said “Blue.”
To narrow it down; you go where your customers are. If they are on Facebook, great! If not, go somewhere else- in the beginning, we recommend focusing on one Social Media channel anyway.
If you don’t have a dedicated Social Media Manager or Marketing Manager, it’s going to be difficult for you to run your business and maintain the same consistency of quality and effort across multiple channels without outside help. If you are looking for someone to strategize, execute and measure campaigns on your channels, contact us for a free no strings attached consultation. Leave your details below or give us a call!