Story Time

This week at Honeypot we had an inquiry from a lady who wanted to boost her business with Instagram. She was 60 years old and had been spending the last few months tediously studying the platform.

This was admirable! However, I don’t think it was the best use of her time.

Instagram is a young platform full of young users. Considering she sold paintings ranging from $1,000-$10,000 a piece, she could have spent her time on creating more paintings (her area of specialty).

This encounter got me thinking, and I’ve decided to bring attention to user demographics on social media sites so that you cna avoid the same mistake.

What's the "Best" Social Media Platform?

There isn't one.

Notice how the title reads: “Which social media is best for your business." There is no one-size-fits-all solution when it comes to social media marketing, and there is no universal ‘best’ platform to build your following.

What matters most are the demographic groups present on each platform and how they compare to your ideal customers.

This blog post is going to give you an idea of the user demographics on a few relevant social media platforms for 2018, and then will go into detail on how you can apply this to your business.

Facebook

Let’s start with the biggest network out there—Facebook. Here are some stats:

• Facebook's user base is 53% female and 47% male
• 82% of people aged 18-29 (US) are on Facebook
• 79% of people aged 30-49 (US) are on Facebook
• 56% of those aged 65+ (US) are on Facebook
• More than 83% of daily active users are outside of the US and Canada, which has grown from 75% in the previous year.

All sourced from Omnicore, 2018.

Instagram

Although not as old as the others on this list, Instagram is the second biggest social media platform today, with 800 million active users (Instagram, 2017). Having said that, it’s not as popular among adults over 30 compared to Facebook (not that Facebook cares, since it owns Instagram).

Here are the stats:

• 59% of people aged 18-29 use Instagram
• 33% of people aged 30-49 use Instagram
• 18% of people aged 50-64 use Instagram
• 8% of people aged 65+ use Instagram
• 68% of Instagram users are female (Omnicore, 2017)
• Americans make up nearly 20% of users (Louisem, 2017)

Stats from SmartInsight.com, 2017

Twitter

Although not as popular as Instagram anymore, Twitter is still a noteworthy platform with over 330 million monthly active users. Here are the stats:

• Twitter states that 80% of its users are “affluent millennials.”
• 30% of Americans who earn $75,000+ use Twitter (more than any other wage tier of wage earners). (Hootsuite, 2017)
• Twitter says 93% of people who follow small and medium-sized businesses plan to purchase, while 69% say they’ve purchased because of something they saw on Twitter.
• Cost per engagement dropped over 50% YOY (Q3 of 2017) while engagement increased 99% YOY at the same time. (Hootsuite, 2017)

How Can You Use Social Demographics to Your Advantage?

Now that I’ve given you some social media stats, we need to figure out how to put them to use. After successfully identifying your target market, you should match it with the platform that most closely matches your ideal customer. Remember to consider age, gender, location, income, and education.

For example, those targeting young American females should focus on Instagram over Facebook, because there’s a relatively higher concentration of them on Instagram.

Meanwhile, those targeting adults and seniors who are interested in buying expensive art (like the lady from the intro), should primarily (or even exclusively) focus on Facebook.

Moving Forward

You should already know your ideal customers before choosing a social platform to promote your business.

Step 1: If you haven’t already, outline your target customer based on age, location, income, gender, education levels, and buying habits.

Step 2: Research, research, research. Find out which social media sites align the closest with who you’re targeting.

Step 3: Engage and analyze. Go out and engage with your target customers. Reference this blog post on Facebook Insights to see what types of content are working the best, and adjust accordingly.

Moral of the Story

It takes a long time (and lots of tedious work) to reap the rewards from a good social media presence. Make sure you aren’t wasting time on platforms with mismatched audiences for your business.

See you next week!