Types Of Social Media: How Each Can Affect Your Business

These days, social media is fundamental to the inner workings of society. 

At the start of the 21st century, no one would’ve known what social media is, let alone the different types of social media. After all, its conception didn’t properly materialize until the emergence of host platforms such as Friendster and Myspace, which were the original popular types of social media platforms. 

Of course, over the years, Friendster closed down and Myspace has fallen drastically in popularity due to rising quality competitors, bad management and poor adaptability. In their place, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter and TikTok have emerged as the dominant types of social media platforms used by everyday people.

So, you might wonder, what makes social media particularly relevant for brands? 

Well, a lot. 

These days, if you’re aiming to launch a successful business-to-consumer brand, social media is an essential tool. Social media is used by billions of people worldwide. As of 2023, 4.89 billion people use different forms of social media, which amounts to 61% of the population.

As a result, this demonstrates not only the huge ratio of general population users to social users, but also the growing popularity of social media. 

It’s safe to say social media is not going anywhere, any time soon. Thus, businesses need to take advantage of the fact that many people use it. 

Establishing brand presence on social media increases the visibility of your brand – which can generate more sales leads if used correctly – and promotes your products and/or services. There are different types of social media platforms that businesses can use to their advantage which also involve different types of social media marketing strategies.

So, what types of social media platforms are there? Let’s get into it.

TYPES OF SOCIAL MEDIA TO BE AWARE OF

1. X, LinkedIn and Facebook/Meta

These are social media platforms that allow you to directly communicate with other people, as well as brands, predominantly through messaging. These platforms also offer the options to distribute audio-visual content as well.

For businesses, these platforms positively help brands to build social awareness, promote their image, foster relationships with other businesses and provide customer service capabilities, all of which can facilitate the process of generating sales leads and ultimately conversion. These can help engender mutually productive relationships across the board for all parties involved. 

In particular, it’s worth noting there are different categories of social media platforms which have their own specific user base characteristics that should be explored before building a brand. 

LinkedIn is a professional platform with more sophisticated users and those looking for or working in jobs. 

X is more so for general folk, particularly Gen Z, who gossip and look for quick conversation and answers.

For example, Wendy’s uses X for comedic purposes by using funny punchlines, taglines and headers to capture people’s attention when promoting content to help build its brand image.

2. Media Sharing Networks: Instagram, YouTube, TikTok and Snapchat

Media sharing social media platforms are types of social media that allow users to distribute audio-visual content for other users to access. This includes photographs, videos and live videos. 

Distributing this type of content can allow businesses to quickly build their brand through representative aesthetics that are visible to the masses and can prompt specific targeting to help generate leads. 

For example, Soma Intimates’ Instagram page visualizes that the brand is an inclusive underwear brand looking to promote comfortability for women of all body shapes. This helps generate leads from millennial women, as they resonate most with the conceptual posts.

Bookmarking and Content Curation Networks: Pinterest, Flipboard

Bookmarking platforms are types of social media that allow users to discover, share, save and discuss a wide variety of content types, particularly ones that are trending. 

Bookmarking platforms are very useful when it comes to channelling brand awareness for businesses and their products. 

For example, “door room decor” is a popular topic on Pinterest. Pinterest allows businesses to advertise their dorm room products on the platform by giving them a visible price on the thumbnail and a link to the product page which can drive leads and thus sales. We can see Zara promoting a lamp on Pinterest (although this is not paid promotion).

Consumer Review Networks: TrustPilot, Yelp, Zomato, TripAdvisor

Customer Review networks are the types of social media platforms that will help users find reviews about various products, services or brands. 

These platforms are helpful to businesses, as a business with positive reviews on these networks will improve their credibility and convince other users to consume the brand. 

For example, ScS Sofas has overwhelmingly positive reviews on Trustpilot, meaning that it’s more likely people will visit the site and shop for their furniture, driving leads and sales. 

It’s highly important that companies monitor their brand perception on customer review networks, as negative reviews can inhibit new consumers. 

Yelp and Zomato specifically are types of social media platforms that provide location-based review services that allow companies to run location-based social campaigns.

Resolving issues that customers may be posting on these platforms is also fundamental to the positive and productive outcomes for a business.

Blogging & Publishing Networks: WordPress, Tumblr, Medium

These are types of social media networks that publish written articles, blogs and other content on the web that can be discovered by users. 

Content marketing is one of the most useful tools for targeting and converting a target audience. 

WordPress and Blogger are the traditional blogging platforms, and its content can be embedded on other social media platforms such as Twitter or LinkedIn to provide more visibility to its articles. Tailored content on these platforms can help create a niche for your brand.

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@ Socially Powerful