4 Major Social Media Platforms for Business with Their Statistics

The popularity of social media and its platforms is due to its ability to create and share information, ideas, requirements, interests, feelings and expressions to anyone or everyone around the globe. This quality has attracted billions of people worldwide to have a gist of social media and eventually turn it into a major medium of communication.

Businesses value and give importance to social media because of its user database. Organizations always looks to connect with its target audience to convert them into leads or potential customers. They have used traditional marketing methods for decades now, and still continue to do so. With the inception of social media, businesses can clearly measure their reach. Instead of spending loads of money on TV advertisements or Newspapers, social media advertisements provide a better reach, measurable engagement at cheaper rates. This has been a major factor in company’s decision to create a social media budget for their organizations.

So, let’s check out these social media platforms, and their significance to businesses with stats:

1. Facebook:

Facebook has to be the first name that pops into one’s head when we talk about social media. According to a research conducted, the number of active users on Facebook exceeded 1 billion in 2012. Currently, around 1.79 billion users from all over the world are active on the social media giant. With so many active users consuming content on Facebook, it has opened the doors for businesses to send their message across, generate leads and make their brand popular by creating their presence.

Facebook is undoubtedly the most precise, reliable and efficient social media platform for running ads. It has such a massive database that the ads allow you to reach your target audience in the most accurate manner. The user-friendly approach has encouraged even a layman to run ads on Facebook effectively.

2. LinkedIn:

LinkedIn is mainly used for professional networking as it’s a business and employment oriented social media platform. Nicknamed as an online resume platform, LinkedIn is a great source of information for B2B organizations. Professionals from across the world have uploaded their profiles on LinkedIn to connect with like-minded professionals. Whether it’s an employee, employer, an owner or a Founder, everyone on LinkedIn is looking to widen their horizons.

Launched in 2003, LinkedIn has over 467 million users worldwide. A user can also run ads, connect with people, send and receive messages, create business pages, and like, discuss, share opinions on LinkedIn groups. Presence on LinkedIn is a must for a business and I highly recommend this platform for everyone involved in Sales for lead generation.

3. Twitter:

Twitter is one of the most popular social networking platform all over the world. Twitter is a micro blogging social media platform. Users share their views in the form of a “Tweet”, where a “Tweet” can’t exceed the limit of 140 characters.

Twitter is a trend setter. Its unique ways have attracted millions of users from all over the world. Tagging a keyword with a “Hash” (#) and calling it a “Hashtag”, displaying a “Trends” section based on either your location (city, country) or your interests are some of the popular examples. These practices have been picked up by many social networking sites, including Facebook; and has revolutionized social media in many ways.

A lot of celebrities, politicians, sportspersons, movie stars, teams are actively present on Twitter. They find this as the best platform to express themselves and communicate with their fan.

For Marketers, Twitter becomes a challenging job. Restricted by a 140-character limit, marketers get around 100 characters to spice up a viral message enticing their readers to click on the link and end them on the landing page as the other 40 odd characters are consumed by either the URL, Hashtags (#) or both.

Active users on the micro blogging social networking site is approximately 317 million users according to a recent research.

Twitter recently started offering ads to business and marketing tweeters. Although new in the ads domain, Twitter seems to have a good measuring and displaying methods. Twitter will be judged for its ads overtime, but for now Twitter seems like a good option to promote and get users on your landing pages.

4. Instagram:

Instagram is a photo sharing social media platform accessed via a smartphone through an app. A user can click and share images and videos either privately or publicly after signing up. A user can also share the uploads on other popular social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and Flickr after applying digital filters.

Instagram can be used to share creative infographics, and other form of visual contents innovatively to engage with a particular target audience. Like Twitter, Instagram Ads are new and can’t be judged quickly. However, it has been taken over by Facebook, so it can be taken as a good medium for running advertisements.

As of June 2016, the photo-sharing social media app has reached 500 million active users. With its popularity within the teen-agers and young adults, Instagram is expected to have a massive user base in the next five years.