There are dozens of social media platforms today, and entrepreneurs like you and me can use these sites to grow our following and our businesses.
In order to grow on social media, however, you must use each platform as it was intended. Your Instagram strategy is going to differ from your YouTube strategy, because people go to those platforms for very different reasons.
In this quick guide to social media platforms, I want to give you a basic overview of the most popular platforms used today and what you need to know to grow on each.
The platforms detailed in this article are Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, YouTube, Pinterest, and LinkedIn. These platforms are all set up to keep people on their sites as long as possible. However, they do this by engaging users in completely different ways.
As of 2022, Facebook still remains the most popular social media platform in the world, with over 2.9 billion monthly users. This is why so many marketers focus their advertising dollars on Facebook ads.
But keep in mind, users are not on Facebook to be sold to. People get on the platform to connect with friends and family and to discuss things that are important to them. They join groups of people with similar hobbies and interests and they use Facebook to log in to other platforms.
So, any advertising or promoting you do should focus on enhancing user experiences with their interests and friendships.
Posts that do well:
Facebook set up its algorithms to encourage connection and they reward users who bring more value to the other users on the platform.
So what kind of posts do well on Facebook?
Posts that encourage community and friendly discussion are going to do well on this platform. This goes double for posts that keep people engaged for longer periods of time. That means live videos and longer form content are good options as long as they are interesting and catch the users’ attention.
How often to post:
HubSpot recommends posting on Facebook once per day, twice at the most. Since users on FB are spending more time on individual posts than they are on other platforms, posting too often may frustrate your followers.
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Instagram is the second most popular social media platform as of the beginning of 2022, with almost 1.5 billion users.
Instagram is a visual platform that gives users a quick snapshot of their favorite people’s lives through photos and videos. People get on IG to see what their friends, family, favorite celebrities and preferred brands are up to. They use this platform to be entertained and inspired.
Posts that do well on IG:
Posts that do well on Instagram are visually appealing. Photos and videos should be carefully edited and use the correct hashtags.
Snapshots of product displays and short videos of people using your products are likely to do well, but also posting real-life stills and videos from “behind the scenes” can help your brand feel authentic. Quote posts that represent your brand’s ideals will also help you attract the right kinds of followers.
How often to post:
Instagram experts advise posting on IG 1 to 3 times per day. Because posts rarely take as long to consume on Instagram as on Facebook, more posts can bring you more exposure without getting on your follower’s bad side.
Twitter is a platform for microblogging, or posting in short snippets of written content. At the beginning of 2022, Twitter had over 79 million users, although the numbers seem to have fluctuated because of recent events concerning the platform.
Users get on Twitter to communicate quick messages with their followers and consume short bits of information from the news, celebrities and brands.
Because the maximum post length is 280 characters, users can easily scan their feed and focus in on the things that interest them the most.
Posts that do well on Twitter:
Text posts do better on Twitter, on average, than visual posts. And because Twitter offers a “Latest Tweets” feed, it’s important to post when your audience is the most active.
Hashtags are also an important feature on Twitter, but with the limited space, hashtags need to be used much more purposefully than they do on Instagram.
For the best engagement on your tweets, post quick snippets of information, such as lists, quotes, or ideas, and ask questions that encourage followers to respond and retweet.
How often to post:
Once again, because the information on Twitter is small and easy to consume, you can post more often on this platform. Experts recommend posting on Twitter 3 to 5 times per day or more.
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TikTok
TikTok is a relatively new platform, but it is quickly becoming one of the most important social media places to be. With over a billion users, TikTok has surpassed Twitter in popularity and is slowly creeping up on Instagram.
People get on TikTok to be entertained and to use it as a creative outlet where they can post their own fun videos. Users appreciate the openness of the platform and that there is less regulation than on Facebook and Instagram.
The average age of TikTok users is between 16 and 24. This means the audience on this platform is younger than on many other platforms. However, users between 25 and 44 are quickly closing the age gap.
Posts that do well on TikTok:
TikTok is all about using popular sounds and having a good time. Posts that do well on TikTok are short videos, with the most popular being around 6 to 7 seconds long.
The best ones are entertaining or shocking and often follow the most recent trends. Videos that ask questions or invite discussion often also do well.
How often to post:
TikTok experts advise posting on the platform 1 to 4 times per day to grow. The algorithm on TikTok is more organic than many other social media platforms, so users can see steady growth just by posting good content on a regular schedule.
YouTube
YouTube is the second most visited website in the world after google. Like google, it is a search engine that boasts over 1.8 active users, most of whom are men.
Most people get on YouTube for entertainment or education. YouTube offers great instructional videos on a variety of topics, plus entertaining content from celebrities and media companies.
Unlike TikTok, the average video length on YouTube is almost 12 minutes, which means people are there to consume longer content than on other platforms. That also means that this content should offer greater value to keep the consumer engaged.
Posts that do well:
Entertaining and instructional videos, or a mix of the two, do the best on YouTube. Tutorials, recipes and educational content are popular on this platform because they provide free value in a visually stimulating way.
Experts advise that the best videos on YouTube should be between 7 and 12 minutes long. For the best results, videos should include high-quality lighting and sound, and feature carefully edited clips.
How often to post:
Because posts on YouTube are often longer than posts on other platforms, most people should aim to post once per week. Posting too often could discourage followers from watching your full content and lower your views.
Pinterest is a visual search engine with over 431 million monthly users. Unlike YouTube, the average Pinterest user is female, although this statistic may be slowly evening out to a more equal gender spread on the platform.
People use Pinterest mostly to brainstorm ideas and to get inspired on various projects. Though, many people also get on the platform for online shopping.
Pinterest is organized by visual idea boards and can serve as a personal vision board for whatever the user is working on or interested in at the moment.
Posts that do well:
Posts that do well on Pinterest are visually appealing, fit the ideal “Pin” dimensions, and offer value to the viewer. Common pins feature an answer to a question, a snippet of information, or an inspiring image.
The platform seems to be currently pushing idea pins, pins with several slides of video clips similar to “stories” on IG and Facebook. Regular video pins have also become increasingly popular.
How often to post:
Experts recommend posting on Pinterest at least daily, but as much as 15 times per day to see the best results. Though you do not want to post the same pin, or post pins linked to the same content more than once per week.
LinkedIn is a social media platform for professionals. They have almost 67 million users and most of the people on the platform are interested in business and career development.
People use LinkedIn to network with other professionals and to engage in career-related discussions. They also may use the platform to search for job opportunities.
Posts that do well:
Posts that do well on LinkedIn include industry-specific content, long-form blog content, and tips and tricks type posts. This is a great place to drum up interest in websites focused on helping professionals and to network with other creatives in your niche.
How often to post:
Experts recommend posting on LinkedIn 2 to 5 times per week.
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Conclusion:
Every social media platform has a different purpose and therefore you should post different content planned for that platform if you want to grow your following.
Also, choose only one or two social media platforms to focus on and grow at a time. Put your effort into the platforms that work best with the kind of content you want to produce and stick to a consistent posting schedule.
I gathered my information in this post from the following resources and from my own personal experience with a few of the platforms. For further reading, check out these articles:
https://blog.hootsuite.com/how-often-to-post-on-social-media/
https://blog.hootsuite.com/facebook-statistics/
https://blog.hootsuite.com/instagram-statistics/
https://www.socialpilot.co/blog/twitter-statistics
https://sproutsocial.com/insights/pinterest-statistics/
https://wallaroomedia.com/blog/social-media/tiktok-statistics/
https://blog.hootsuite.com/youtube-stats-marketers/
https://buffer.com/library/what-to-post-on-each-social-media-platform/
https://coschedule.com/blog/how-often-to-post-on-social-media
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