Why should a company be on social media?
Social media is good for several reasons. Being on social media not only gives you a place to promote your services or products, but also a place to communicate with your customers and build trust.
A study by the Swedish Internet Foundation (2022) found that just over 4 in 10 internet users follow brands or companies on social media. It also found that 90-somethings are the most likely to follow brands and companies on social media, with 7 out of 10 users doing so. But it was also found that it is common among other generations, among people born between the 70s and the 00s, at least half follow companies or brands on social media. The Internet Foundation (2022) found that the two most common platforms for following brands or companies are Facebook and Instagram. These are also the platforms that 90-somethings use the most.
But social media is time-consuming and can also be complicated. Should you be on all platforms? Or is Facebook enough? And how often do you have to post, is it enough to post when you have time?
So here are 3 tips on how to think about social media.
1. Choose the right platform for your target audience
Which platform(s) you should be on depends on the target audience you want to reach. That's why we've gathered information on which generations use the different platforms according to the Internet Foundation (2022).
Facebook is used by more than half of all internet users, even in the oldest generations. Facebook use has a clear peak among the 90s, then drops sharply among the youngest 00s and 10s. When it comes to the 00s, half have used Facebook for a year and only 2 in 10 of the 00s use Facebook daily.
25% of internet users follow brands or companies on Facebook. People in their 70s, 80s and 90s are most likely to follow brands or companies on Facebook. Nearly 4 in 10 people born in the 70s, 80s and 90s follow brands or companies on Facebook.
Instagram is most popular among people born in the 80s, 90s or 00s. As many as 7 in 10 of those born in the 90s use Instagram on a daily basis. Instagram use is also relatively high among people born in the 50s, 60s and 70s. Among people born in the 60s and 70s, just under half use Instagram daily.
30% of internet users follow businesses or brands on Instagram. In addition, nearly 6 in 10 people born in the 90s follow brands or businesses on Instagram. Just over 4 in 10 people born in the 80s and 00s follow brands or businesses on Instagram.
Linkedin and other social media
In contrast, less than 1 in 10 internet users follow brands or companies on LinkedIn and YouTube. Only a few per cent follow companies or brands on Tiktok, Twitter and Snapchat. However, people born in the 2000s are more likely to follow brands or companies on YouTube or Tiktok, compared to other generations.
People using LinkedIn are almost exclusively between the ages of 18 and 65. People aged 32-62 are the main users of LinkedIn. Linkedin is particularly popular among white-collar workers, with almost 6 out of 10 white-collar workers using Linkedin in the past year.
Which platforms should you focus on?
When comparing who uses Instagram and Facebook, it can be seen that among people born before or in the 80s, Facebook is the platform most used on a daily basis. While among people born in the 90s, Facebook and Instagram are evenly matched. And finally, few of the 00s use Facebook daily, but among them it is much more common to use Instagram daily (Internetstiftelsen, 2022).
Therefore, the platform you should use varies depending on the audience you want to reach, for example, if you want to reach people born in the 00s, Facebook is not the platform you should spend the most time on, while if you want to reach people born in the 80s, Facebook is perfect for that.
2. Be consistent
Don't leave too much time between posts, you don't want your followers to forget about you. But you should not spam your followers. Instead of posting all the time, take the time to post good and valuable content at regular intervals. If you are consistent with what you post on social media and how often, your followers will know what to expect from you and when to expect it.
3. Customise your content
Customise your social media content according to your target audience, format and platform. When posting, keep in mind who your target audience is. Just as you adapt your language when talking to different people in real life, you should do so on your social media. If your audience is from the older generation, it is very possible that they will not understand if you use slang words that young people often use to express themselves.
You should also adapt the content to the platform, a long text like this works well on a blog but on Instagram for example, which is an image platform, it would be too much text. You can reuse the same content on multiple platforms but be sure to adapt your content to the platform. For example, if the content of this post was adapted to Instagram, a few pictures with a tip and some text on each would probably be better than trying to fit all this information into the description.
We hope you've enjoyed these social media tips
I hope this post has been helpful for how you can think when using social media. If you want to know more about how we at Digitalpartner can help you with your social media, take a look at the this page or contact us!
Source:
The Swedish Internet Foundation (2022). Swedes and the internet. An annual study of the internet habits of the Swedish people. https://svenskarnaochinternet.se/rapporter/svenskarna-och-internet-2022/
