As a small business owner, you know how essential it is to effectively reach your target audience. To do that, you need to know exactly where they live online and how they most like to engage with you. If you aren’t sure where to find your core group of people on social media, let’s take a closer look at key demographics across the channels to find the answer.

Selecting The Right Social Media Mix

In her Hootsuite article, “The Top Social Media Sites That Matter to Marketers,” Dara Fontein extensively outlines every possible demographic category for each site. While this can be accessed separately in its entirety, this content is quickly summarized to the very top-line takeaways, included below.

• Monthly Users: 215,690,880 (as of March 2016)
• Largest age demographic of users: 25 to 34 (41,000,000)
• Female-identified users: 46 percent of total users; Male-identified users: 54 percent of total users
• 46 percent of YouTube users have incomes of over $75,000
• 45 percent have some form of higher education
  
  

As video continues to dominate content marketing, brands are flocking to this channel to get their messages out to the masses. It’s incredibly effective to create “how to” videos here, especially since Millennials and other independent buyers rely on YouTube for answers.

• Monthly Users: 129,658,552 (as of March 2016)
• More than 1 billion people use Facebook daily
• Who uses Facebook: 82 percent of online adults ages 18 to 29; 56 percent of online users ages 65 and up; 79 percent of those ages 30 to 49
• 76 percent of all female-identified U.S internet users use Facebook; 66 percent of all male-identified U.S internet users use Facebook
• 72 percent of Facebook users have incomes of over $75,000
• 74 percent of Facebook users have some form of higher education
  
  

With its ads and e-commerce features, Facebook continues to be an integral marketing strategy component (helping increase sales, boosting brand awareness, providing social customer service) for businesses around the world.

• Monthly Users: 80,173,808 (as of March 2016)
• 60 percent of users bought something because of something they saw on Twitter
• Age of users: 37 percent of Twitter users are aged 18 to 29; 25 percent are aged 30 to 49
• 15 percent of all female-identified U.S. internet users use Twitter; 22 percent of all male-identified U.S. internet users use Twitter
• 54 percent of Twitter users have incomes of over $50,000
• 30 percent of users have some form of higher education
  
  

Twitter is the vehicle for showing your customers what is happening with your business right now. With a short handful of characters, you can deliver your most important pieces of content in an engaging and concise way. Not only is it effective for increasing brand awareness, promoting new products, and providing customer service, it’s also an incredibly powerful way to establish yourself as an industry leader and expert in your space, as well as connect to your most important customers, stakeholders, and other influential people.

• Monthly Users: 66,933,192 (as of March 2016)
• Note: Pinterest says it has 100 million monthly active users
• A Pin on Pinterest has a half-life of 151,200 minutes
• More than 14 million articles are Pinned daily
• People referred by Pinterest are 10 percent more likely to make a purchase on e-commerce sites than users of other social networks
• Ages of Pinterest users: 34 percent are aged 18 to 29; 28 percent are aged 30 to 49; 27 percent are aged 50 to 64
• 42 percent of all female-identified U.S. internet users use Pinterest; 13 percent of all male-identified U.S. internet users use Pinterest (the most rapidly growing demographic for the site)
• 34 percent of Pinterest users have incomes of over $75,000; 64 percent of Pinterest users have incomes of over $50,000
• 32 percent of users have some form of higher education
  
  

Pinterest is a powerful tool to drive traffic to your websites. On this platform, you can pin your products, include uses and demos of these products, as well as post lifestyle and industry-relevant content.

• Monthly Users: 400,000,000
• Daily users: 75 million
• Over 40 billion photos have been shared on Instagram
• 80 million photos are shared daily on Instagram
• Instagram’s per-follower engagement rate for brands is 58 times higher than on Facebook and 120 times higher than on Twitter
• Instagram users are “two and a half times more likely to click on ads than on other social media platforms”
• Ages of users: 53 percent are aged 18 to 29; 25 percent are 30 to 49; 11 percent are 50 to 64; 6 percent are over 65
• 49 percent of Instagram users identify as female; 51 percent of Instagram users identify as male
• 26 percent of Instagram users have incomes of over $75,000; 52 percent of Instagram users have incomes of over $50,000
• 24 percent of users have some form of higher education
  
  

If you have great visual content, your brand needs to live and thrive here. With engaging images and quick videos, you can deliver your brand messaging in an entirely new and powerful way to an audience that is hungry and excited for your content.

• Monthly Users: 35,342,648
• Total users: 414 million
• Ages of LinkedIn users: 23 percent are aged 18 to 29; 31 percent are 30 to 49; 30 percent are 50 to 64; 21 percent are over 65
• 44 percent of LinkedIn users identify as female; 56 percent of LinkedIn users identify as male
• 44 percent of LinkedIn users have incomes of over $75,000; 75 percent of LinkedIn users have incomes of over $50,000
• 50 percent of users have some form of higher education
  
  

Beyond the professional networking component of this site, this platform also provides an information-sharing hub for brands, allowing them to find similar people and form niche-specific communities with customers and other thought leaders.

• Daily users: 100 million
• Videos viewed per day: 7 billion
• “Millennials, a demographic marketers are spending 500 percent more to reach than all others combined, account for more than seven out of 10 Snapchat users.”
• 76 percent of Snapchat users purchase things online
• Ages of users: 45 percent are between 13 and 24; 26 percent are 25 to 34; 13 percent are 35 to 44; 10 percent are 45 to 54; 6 percent are 55 to 64; Less than 1 percent of Snapchat users are over 65
• 70 percent of Snapchat users identify as female; 30 percent of Snapchat users identify as male
• 62 percent of Snapchat users have incomes of over $50,000
• 70 percent of post-secondary students use Snapchat
  
  

While this platform may not have been taken seriously by brands when it first came on the scene in 2011, it has become a must-have marketing strategy for many small and large companies in today’s interactive world. If you are trying to reach a young crowd, this is the place to put your best and most engaging content to nab the most lucrative (and extremely engaged) demographic. For example, film your CEO giving some advice, show some awesome behind the scenes footage of something great you’ve just done, or share some other personal snaps that shed light on your personality. Have fun with it! If it’s boring, your young crew will flee the scene.

Where Are You Headed?

Did these demographic stats shed any light on where your elusive target audience is? What specific social media strategies have helped you best connect with your most important customers?

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References:
https://blog.hootsuite.com/top-social-media-sites-matter-to-marketers
http://www.inc.com/salvador-rodriguez/pinterest-monthly-users.html