Social media: platforms and demographic profiles (part 2)
- April 5, 2017
- Author: Leah Brown
- Category: Communication, Social Media
Businesses are seeing more and more benefits by being active on social media, including an increase in brand awareness and customer loyalty, customer insights, inexpensive targeted ads, rich customer service, increase in website traffic and search ranking, easy competitor research, and more.
Which social channels are right for your business? Depending on your industry and target audience, you should focus on establishing your brand and building networks only on platforms that will have a significant impact.
To continue from my previous blog post outlining the demographics for Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, here are some stats for LinkedIn, Pinterest and Snapchat:
LinkedIn is a platform for professionals to connect and network. It also provides access to jobs, news, industry updates and insights for professionals across a range of industries. It’s an opportunity for business leaders to share industry and informative insights with their networks. When investing in a paid strategy, target users by industry or job role, so the right audience views your page and content.
LinkedIn is best for the following industries:
- Information technology
- Marketing and advertising
- Human resources
- Computer software
- Financial services
- Staffing and recruiting
- Internet
- Management consulting
- Telecommunications
- Retail
Demographics and Stats (Hootsuite):
- Every month, approximately 106 million users log on and engage with content.
- There are 414 million total users on LinkedIn.
- 44% of users are female, compared to 56% who are male.
- 25% of users are ages 18- 29, 61% of users are ages 30-64, and 21% of users are over age 65.
- 44% of users have incomes over $75,000, and 75% of users have incomes of over $50,000.
- 50% of B2B buyers use LinkedIn when making purchasing decisions.
- LinkedIn sees over 15 million profile views, 1.45 million job views, and 44,000 job applications from over 200 countries every single day on mobile.
Pinterest users engage and interact with content by uploading pins, pinning content from a website, or by re-pinning content posted by other users. Users engage on the platform by discovering, sharing and saving pins of inspirational ideas to mood boards built around a certain theme, including home décor, fashion, recipes, wedding ideas, DIYs, etc. For optimal results, specifically repurpose and optimize content for the platform and Pinterest audiences.
Pinterest is best for the following industries:
- Food
- Travel
- DIY crafts and home décor
- Clothing and fashion
Demographics and Stats (Hootsuite):
- 87% of users have purchased something they’ve seen on Pinterest, while 93% plan to do so.
- Two-thirds of Pins now showcase a brand or product.
- 45% of women use Pinterest compared to only 17% of men (of all adults online in the U.S.).
- 96% of active Pinners use Pinterest for their planning research.
- 47% of millennials on Pinterest have purchased something they’ve pinned— 9% and 14% greater than Facebook and Twitter.
- 80% of millennials say Pinterest helps them find things they want to buy.
- 64% of users live in a city or suburb, while 25% live in rural areas.
Snapchat
On Snapchat, users share photos and videos to their followers in real time, providing a live perspective of what’s happening in their lives. Companies can use the platform to provide a behind-the-scenes perspective of their brand and show transparency by sharing unfiltered and unedited content with followers. Experiment with different types of content, such as personal stories or exclusive promotions, to see what drives the most engagement. There’s also a variety of fun advertising options.
Snapchat is not limited to a particular industry. However, since users are mainly millennials, businesses with target markets of middle-aged to older adults would not see great results from this platform. Some common topics on Snapchat include:
- Retail
- News and events
- Food and drink
Demographics and Stats (Hootsuite):
- 100 million people use snapchat daily (spending about 30 minutes on the app).
- Users watch more than 10 billion videos every day.
- There are 200 million active users worldwide.
- 60% of users are under 25, 23% are in high school, and 2% of users are over 55.
- 38% of smartphone users age 25-34 and 14% of smartphone users over age 35 use Snapchat.
- 42% of females age 18-29 have a Snapchat account, compared to 31% of males.
- 40% of young users identified as white, 25% identified as black, and 34% identified as Hispanic.
On which platforms do you see the most customer engagement?
