3 Social Media Sites You Shouldn’t Ignore in your Marketing Strategy

Ian Campbell — Wed, 24 Aug 2022 18:22:17 +0000

With so many social media sites available, it’s easy to get into the routine of engaging on only one or two platforms, if even that. Unless you have team members devoted purely to social media, this is usually the case. But different social media sites have varied pros and cons that could markedly affect your social media success.

Let’s look at three social media sites with unique characteristics that deserve consideration.

Before we get into it, though, it’s worth noting that factors like number of followers, reputation, momentum, and more, have a huge impact on your social media success. So don’t abandon your accumulated efforts on your current favorite platform. But if another platform is hosting a higher percentage of your target audience, there’s only one answer: carpe diem.

So here they are, the 3 promised platforms:

What makes these sites so special?

Why should you create and engage on these platforms?

They have a significant user base.

The bigger the user base, the more likely you are to reach your target audience.

In 2022, these sites have users in the hundreds of millions. They’re not quite at the level of Facebook, the most popular, which boasts 2.91 billion users, but they’re on the level of Twitter (436 million) and above.

TikTok: 1 billion
Pinterest: 433 million
Reddit: 430 million

Sources:

Their popularity is reflected in their net worth:

TikTok: ~$50-75 billion
Pinterest: ~$15 billion
Reddit: ~$10 billion

That puts them on the level of LinkedIn (~$10 billion) and higher, with TikTok estimated at higher than Twitter (~$34 billion).

Sources:

They are growing.

Strategy is future-focused. Why would you invest your effort in a dying medium? Fortunately, the future looks promising for these sites.

Since its inception, TikTok has outperformed Twitter, Reddit, Pinterest, and Snapchat in terms of monthly active users. TikTok is predicted to hit 1.8 billion by the end of 2022 (compared to 1 billion at the end of 2021).

Besides dropping off a bit in the past year or so, Pinterest has seen a steady growth rate since 2016.

Find more statistics at Statista

Reddit has experienced a growth of 30.3% in monthly active users since 2020.

Sources:

They likely have communities devoted to your niche.

While this is true of all social media, niche communities vary in size and scope depending on the platform.

Do your research. Find out where the bulk of the talk about your niche is happening, and get in on it. Your company should be a serious contributor to these conversations. TikTok, Pinterest, and Reddit are great opportunities for this.

They are skewed toward high or low age groups.

This is great news if you’re trying to reach these age demographics.

TikTok, as we all know, reaches a disproportionate amount of young people. One-fourth of its users are ages 10-19.

Reddit is similar, with 36% of its users being young adults ages 18-29.

Pinterest has the greatest percentage of older users. 38% fall into the 50-64 age group.

Sources:

They are skewed toward one gender.

If your target audience is primarily of one gender, these are the social media platforms to market on.

TikTok: 57% female
Pinterest: 76.7% female
Reddit: 63.8% male

Sources:

They appear in the SERPs.

You’ve probably seen a link to a Tweet or a Facebook profile in Google search results every once in a while. TikTok, Pinterest, and Reddit appear in the SERPs as well. In fact, according to a study that looked at 2.4 million searches, Facebook, Pinterest, and Reddit show up the most often out of the common social media sites. TikTok appears the least, but it still appears.

Reddit is the highest ranking, however. You’ll see Reddit results in position 1 in Google over 3 times more than you’ll see Facebook results, which is the next most common.

Reddit is still the leading social media site in the SERPs when you look at all of page 1.

Sources:

https://nozzle.io/blog/social-media-serp-statistics

Now that you’ve seen why these social media sites are worth looking into, let’s examine them individually.

When to Use TikTok

Here’s the TikTok breakdown.

Engaging on TikTok has a lot of promise if your target audience is on the younger side of life. It’s still possible to reach older users, but the pool is a lot bigger for the young ‘uns.

Other demographics that have a notable presence on TikTok (in the U.S.): women, Black and Hispanic Americans, and urban dwellers.

More pros of TikTok include its high growth rate—it continues to gain popularity—and a high time spent on the app. In fact, the average monthly time users spend on TikTok rivals that of Facebook.

Despite its benefits, TikTok doesn’t rank high in the SERPs very often. It’s not impossible to see a TikTok link in the top 3 positions, but it is uncommon.

However, TikTok can be useful for audience research. Check out this Tweet for more info.

When to Use Pinterest

Let’s dive into Pinterest.

A surprising amount of older people use Pinterest. Looking at the highest percentage age groups of users of common social media platforms, Pinterest has the oldest. If you’re seeking to reach ages 50-64 on social media, this is the place to do it.

The female to male ratio is also the largest out of common social sites. That’s a vast majority of women on Pinterest.

Pinterest results are relatively common in the SERPs compared to other social media platforms, and they rank on page one about 1/8th of the time they appear.

When to Use Reddit

Now for Reddit.

Reddit’s majorities are men and young adults. Demographics with a sizable presence on Reddit (in the U.S.) also include adults with higher education and higher income.

Reddit posts have by far the most #1 results in Google out of any social platform. They are still in the lead when it comes to the most top 3 and even top 10 results. When they appear, it’s in the top 10 25% of the time, which is twice as often as Pinterest.

Reddit is a great platform for starting or contributing to a conversation about your industry or products. If people want to talk about what your product solves, engaging on Reddit is a great way to get exposure. However, self-promoters are weeded out, so providing value is the name of the game.

Conclusion

TikTok, Pinterest, and Reddit have some unique benefits. If your goals line up with these benefits, they can be great channels to get exposure for your brand. So what are you waiting for?

The post 3 Social Media Sites You Shouldn’t Ignore in your Marketing Strategy appeared first on Social Media Explorer.

Why You Need Contingency Plans in Case TikTok Gets Shut Down

Ian Campbell — Tue, 08 Dec 2020 15:35:55 +0000

Right as TikTok became the biggest thing to hit social media, it also became the center of controversy. The platform’s bumpy relationship with the Trump administration keeps unfolding, and it’s unclear how this battle will resolve. Meanwhile, brands and their agency partners are left worrying about the marketing dollars they’ve funneled into the platform and what this means for their futures.

The administration initially took issue with the viral video app, which is owned by Chinese company ByteDance, as part of a larger effort to combat Chinese government influence. ByteDance attempted to make a deal with U.S. company Oracle in response, and the administration reacted by delaying the executive order to ban the app. A federal judge has since ruled to prevent the ban, and the federal government is in the process of appealing that ruling.

TLDR: Essentially, we’re seeing an ugly stalemate between the incredibly popular app and the federal government.

Brands are understandably concerned. The notion that they’ve wasted time and marketing resources pursuing a potentially banned platform is a major concern, but even more disconcerting are the implications of the government’s involvement. If the government can shut down social media platforms, then businesses need to have contingency plans in place and experienced, trustworthy teams to point them in the right direction.

How Should Brands Deal With This Uncertainty?

When agencies bring a media threat like this to their clients’ attention, they should assess and propose alternatives by asking questions about their brand needs. Does this new platform allow for similar scalability and reach? Does it align with their target demographic’s consumption behaviors? Are costs comparable? And do their existing creative assets translate to this new landscape? Based on the answers to these questions, agencies can learn how much time and budgetary investment the brand will need to meet its goals using this platform.

Brands aren’t only looking at ad performance when using and deciding how to use these platforms; they’re also seeking security. When the Facebook data breach leaked in 2018, one of my agency’s largest clients in higher education threatened to remove all media spends — totaling a significant amount of both media budget and an extremely healthy lead-generating medium. It was the first time in my career that a privacy violation of this magnitude directly resulted in such severe concerns, and it likely won’t be the last.

If the TikTok controversy has shown us anything, it’s that the environment in which we conduct business can change overnight … quite literally. Brands have to be ready to adapt if they want to survive. Being nimble and ready to shift ad investments strategically and quickly will define which brands continue and which do not.

Whether we’re talking about a brand’s overall business model, ad creative, offers and promotional strategies, or even the platforms it uses, developing advertising contingency plans shouldn’t just be a dusty earthquake kit stowed away in the attic. These plans should be a built-in part of the business.

The post Why You Need Contingency Plans in Case TikTok Gets Shut Down appeared first on Social Media Explorer.

Ian Campbell, Author at Social Media Explorer

3 Social Media Sites You Shouldn’t Ignore in your Marketing Strategy

What makes these sites so special?

When to Use TikTok

When to Use Pinterest

When to Use Reddit

Conclusion

Why You Need Contingency Plans in Case TikTok Gets Shut Down