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Advantages And Disadvantages of Social Media

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Advantages And Disadvantages of Social Media

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Social networks—Connect with people

Media sharing networks—Share photos, videos, and other media

Discussion forums—Share news and ideas

Bookmarking and content curation networks—Discover, save, and share new content

Consumer review networks—Find and review businesses

Blogging and publishing networks—Publish content online

Interest-based networks—Share interests and hobbies

Social shopping networks—Shop online

Sharing economy networks—Trade goods and services

Anonymous social networks—Communicate anonymously

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Social Media Marketing & Management Dashboard

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When you're thinking about creating a social media strategy for your business, a few leading platforms probably come to mind right away: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and maybe YouTube or Pinterest, depending on your industry.

However, there are many types of social media sites out there, with new platforms and formats popping up on the regular. Some of them are pretty niche, while others have the potential to become the next Instagram or TikTok.

One thing that's changed since the early days of social media is that many platforms used to focus on one function, such as social networking or image sharing. Now, most established social media platforms have expanded to incorporate live streaming, augmented reality, shopping, social audio, and more.

So, instead of giving you high level descriptions of Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn (you can find that anywhere!), we grouped a wide variety of platforms into nine general categories that focus on specific use cases and what businesses can accomplish by using them.

How to choose the best types of social media for your business

With the ever-growing number of social media platforms, it can be overwhelming to constantly wonder whether each of them is worth your time.

To avoid spending too much of your time learning the ropes of every new platform, let your social media marketing strategy guide your decisions, and only join the networks that support your goals.

Follow these three tips to build your own criteria that will help you evaluate any new social media platform, no matter what it is or how it works.

Social media managers hopping on to a short call to hear about a new platform we should be on pic.twitter.com/sagFLxpuiM

- WorkInSocialTheySaid (@WorkInSociaI) April 27, 2021

Know your audience

The first question you should ask before joining a new social media platform is: where is your audience?

It makes more sense to go where your audience is already hanging out than to join a new platform and attract your audience to it.

The second thing to understand is how your audience is using that platform. What type of content are they looking for? Which types of accounts do they follow? Are they passive consumers or content creators?

For detailed insights into how people use different social media platforms, dive into our State of Digital 2021 report.

Keep up to date with social media statistics

Whenever a new social media platform emerges, it's essential to know the difference between a shiny new object and a fast-growing platform that has the potential to stick.

Although no one can tell the future, one way to know if a platform has staying power is to compare its statistics to established social media platforms.

If you're not sure where to find recent stats, we've got you covered:

Align to your key business goals

Ask yourself: which platforms match my business goals best?

For example, if one of your goals is to increase awareness about a new product or service that could benefit from video tutorials, you should focus on video-only platforms (like YouTube and Vimeo) or video formats available on the sites you're already active on (like Instagram Stories and Reels, Facebook Live, etc.).

Social media prediction:

The 2020s will see an explosion of new platforms. Impossible for brands to have an active presence on all, they'll fully commit to just 2 or 3. The necessary marketing skills will be communication and creativity, as you can learn new platforms on the go.

- Matthew Kobach (@mkobach) February 18, 2021

Types of social media platforms and formats you should know in 2021

1. Social audio platforms and formats

Examples: Clubhouse, Twitter Spaces, Spotify

Used for: Listening to live conversations on specific topics.

How your business can use them: New social audio platforms (like Clubhouse) and formats (like Twitter Spaces) have thrived during COVID-19 lockdowns while people have been at home with more time to join live conversations.

The most significant advantage of audio social media platforms and formats is the high attention and engagement you're likely to get from opt-in listeners.

Lively, engaging conversations can help you build your image as a leader in your niche and introduce your business or products to valuable audiences already interested in topics related to your niche (otherwise, they wouldn't be tuning in).

Here are some thought starters for using audio social media platforms:

Host industry panels.

Broadcast news and big announcements.

Host interactive sessions (such as AMAs) with your audience.

Record interviews during a live Clubhouse/Twitter Spaces chat and upload them as a podcast (example: The Social Media Geekout show).

Build your business' thought leadership through a 30-60 minute show.

Matt Navarra does a great job of combining Twitter Spaces AND podcasts:

We got you covered. Checkout: @SpaceCastsPod

We record and upload our twitter spaces sessions to this podcast feed each week.

Todays edition will be up in the next day or so

- Matt Navarra (@MattNavarra) July 16, 2021

2. Video social media platforms and formats

Examples: YouTube, TikTok, Instagram Stories and Reels, Facebook Watch

Used for: Watching videos in short and long formats.

How your business can use them: Video social media platforms are great for capturing attention, driving brand awareness, and bringing products to life in a way that still photos can't.

Any video content that you publish should be designed to entertain, educate, and/or inspire your audience. Videos made purely to sell aren't going to engage viewers.

Some of the best examples of businesses using video social media platforms are:

3. Disappearing content formats

Examples: Snapchat, Instagram Stories, Facebook Stories, LinkedIn Stories

Used for: Sending ephemeral messages privately and publishing timely, in-the-moment content for all of your followers to view for up to 24 hours.

How your business can use them: Ephemeral formats like Stories are well-suited for posting timely content, such as announcements, limited edition items, or live events.

Most Stories and Snapchat content also feels more genuine and less polished due to the 24-hour shelf life. As such, it allows businesses to show a more human side.

Here are some ideas for how your business can use disappearing content:

Polls, voting (using interactive Stories stickers)

Teasers/countdowns to product launches

Behind-the-scenes content

Time-sensitive announcements

A great example is from one of my favorite local bakers, who posts their weekly specials on their Instagram Stories.

4. Discussion forums

Examples: Reddit, Quora

Used for: Asking and answering questions, networking, forming communities around niche- and interest-based topics.

How your business can use them: Be genuinely helpful to your customers by lending your business' subject matter expertise and answering questions related to your industry. Bonus points if you can share information about your brand and products in your answers, but that shouldn't be your primary goal of participating in discussion forums.

One thing to note: On Reddit, it's highly frowned upon to insert any self-promotion into answers. If you're posting as a business, make sure to answer the original question and only add links to your products if they're genuinely helpful. Before posting in a subreddit, check the rules to verify if including links to your own business is allowed.

While Microsoft didn't create the /r/XboxOne subreddit, once they saw how popular it was, they started engaging with Redditors by hosting AMA sessions with game developers.

5. Shoppable social media platforms and features

Examples: Pinterest Product Pins, Facebook Shops, Instagram Shops, TikTok, Shopify, Douyin, Taobao

Used for: Researching and purchasing products from brands directly through social media platforms.

How your business can use them: Take advantage of built-in mobile-friendly features to allow your audience to purchase from you without having to leave a social media app.

Features like Pinterest Product Pins, Instagram Shops, and TikTok's in-app shopping allow you to connect your product catalog directly to your profile on each app.

Even if your followers don't like to make purchases on social media platforms or have longer buyer journeys, shopping features can allow you to tag products, add additional product info and drive traffic to your website.

Some great ways to use shopping social media platforms:

You can also host live shopping events on social media. Livestream shopping has become a huge market in China, encouraging platforms like Instagram to introduce Live Shopping.

6. Social media live streams

Examples: Twitch, YouTube, Instagram Live Rooms, Facebook Live, TikTok

Used for: Broadcasting live video to many viewers. Live video streams can range from one person showing themselves and what they're doing on their screen to professionally organized panels with multiple speakers.

How your business can use them: Livestreaming's popularity exploded during the pandemic when people were stuck at home during lockdowns with nothing to do.

However, you don't need a global pandemic to get viewers to watch your live streams. There are many ways to make tune-in-worthy streams, from interviewing well-known guests through doing exclusive product reveals to hosting AMA sessions with your business executives.

Livestreams also offer the opportunity for users to interact live with the hosts, so it's vital to monitor and engage with comments during the stream. Read more tips in our guide to social media live streaming.

When COVID-19 put Formula 1 races on hold during 2020, several drivers started streaming themselves playing driving simulators on Twitch, which became hugely popular with fans.

7. Business social media platforms

Examples: LinkedIn, Twitter

Used for: Connecting with professionals in your industry or potential clients.

How your business can use them: Business social media platforms offer many potential uses: recruiting and hiring talent, building B2B relationships, and connecting with professionals in your niche.

Platforms like LinkedIn are ideal for B2B purposes, because they allow brands to connect with new audiences, meeting them where they go to network and do business.

But LinkedIn is not the only business-forward social media site out there. Twitter offers businesses the chance to find relevant conversations, and add to them in meaningful ways. A great example of this is Adweek, which hosts a weekly chat for digital marketers called #AdweekChat.

There are also communities built around industry-specific hashtags on Twitter, like #MarketingTwitter and #FreelanceTwitter.

Pro tip: Set up a keyword-based column using your industry's hashtag in Hootsuite to monitor for appropriate conversations to participate in.

8. Closed/private community social media platforms

Examples: Discourse, Slack, Facebook Groups

Used for: Creating communities, with the possibility of requiring registration or other screening measures for new members.

How your business can use them: Businesses can use private groups to bring members of their community together to bond over shared challenges, help answer each other's questions, and feel a sense of professional belonging.

As the group admin, your business has the right to set rules about things like self-promotion. Many groups (especially on Facebook) require members to answer a few questions before joining to screen out spammers, but you can also use these fields to ask members to opt-in to your email marketing list.

A great example is the Instant Pot Facebook Group, started by the brand in 2015 and has grown to over 3 million members who love sharing recipes and product tips.

9. Inspirational social media platforms

Examples: Pinterest, YouTube, Instagram, blogs

Used for: Searching for information and finding inspiration for anything from cooking to travel to decorating to shopping and more.

How your business can use them: Curate visuals and inspire your target audience with content tailored to their preferences, and weave in your own products where relevant. Use collections, playlists, tags, and guides to group your content and create themes that match your audience's interests.

Inspirational social media platforms like Pinterest and YouTube are well-optimized for search, which means your posts should include keywords, hashtags, and images that align with what your audience usually searches for.

Travel bloggers often do a great job of optimizing their blog posts and YouTube videos for searches like "What to do in [Destination]" and "[Destination] Travel Guide."

Whether you're building a community or evaluating new platforms for your business to join, there are many types of social media you can use. Some are pretty much mandatory for any business, while others only make sense if they align with your specific niches or use cases.

Whatever your needs and goals, it's a safe bet you'll find a way to use social media to benefit your business.
Easily manage all your social media profiles using Hootsuite. From a single dashboard, you can schedule and publish posts, engage your followers, monitor relevant conversations, measure results, manage your ads, and much more. Get Started

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9 Types of Social Media and How Each Can Benefit Your Business

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When you're thinking about creating a social media strategy for your business, a few leading platforms probably come to mind right away: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and maybe YouTube or Pinterest, depending on your industry. However, there are many types of social media sites out there, with new platforms and formats popping up on the regular.

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Social media originated as a way to interact with friends and family but was later adopted by businesses which wanted to take advantage of a popular new communication method to reach out to customers. The power of social media is the ability to connect and share information with anyone on Earth, or with many people simultaneously.

Globally, there are more than 3 billion social media users. Social media is an ever-changing and ever-evolving web-based platform.

According to the Pew Research Center, social media users tend to be younger. Nearly 90 percent of people between the ages of 18 and 29 used at least one form of social media. Further, these users tend to be better educated and relatively wealthy, or earning over $75,000 per year.

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What Is Social Media?

Social media refers to a variety of technologies that facilitate the sharing of ideas and information among their users. From Facebook and Instagram to X platform (formerly Twitter) and YouTube, more than 4.7 billion people use social media, equal to roughly 60% of the world's population. In early 2023, 94.8% of users accessed chat and messaging apps and websites, followed closely by social platforms, with 94.6% of users.

Key Takeaways

How Social Media Originated and Evolved

Social media started out as a way for people to interact with friends and family but soon expanded to serve many different purposes. In 2004, MySpace was the first network to reach 1 million monthly active users.

Social media participation exploded in the years that followed with the entry of Facebook and Twitter (now X platform). Businesses gravitated toward these platforms in order to reach an audience instantly on a global scale.

According to Global Web Index, 46% of internet users worldwide get their news through social media. That compares to 40% of users who view news on news websites. Gen Z and Millennials were most likely to view news on social sites versus other generations.

Social media plays a key role in many businesses' marketing strategies, not surprising given the sheer number of hours people spend each day on social websites and apps. At the same time, social media is an ever-changing field, with relatively recent apps such as TikTok, Signal, and Clubhouse joining the ranks of established social networks like Facebook, YouTube, X platform, and Instagram.

What Social Media Is Used for Today

Social media platforms are often divided into six categories: social networking, social bookmarking, social news, media sharing, microblogging, and online forums.

These diverse platforms serve a vast range of purposes and user interests. Some appeal to hobbyists, others to people in their work lives. People use them to find others across the globe who share their political or other views. Entertainers use social media to engage with fans, politicians with voters, charities with donors. Governments often turn to social media to convey vital information during emergencies.

For businesses, social media has become a key marketing tool. Companies use it to find and engage with customers, drive sales through advertising and promotion, identify fast-moving consumer trends, provide customer service or support, and collect data on users, sometimes surreptitiously.

94.6%

Pros and Cons of Social Media

Social media platforms allow people to access information in real time, to connect with others, and to find niche communities. At its best, it makes the world more interconnected.

On the other hand, social media is also very good at spreading disinformation, creating polarization, and even causing harmful psychological effects.

Still, according to a 2019 survey by Pew Research Center, people's use of social media is correlated with having more friends and more diverse personal networks, especially within emerging economies. Some 80% of teenagers say social media allows them to feel more connected to their peers, according to a 2022 Pew Research Center survey of U.S. teens ages 13 to 17. Overall, one in three said that social media has had a mostly positive effect on them, while 59% said it had neither a positive nor a negative effect.

At the same time, many teens' use, and overuse, of social media has raised questions about its effect on their physical and mental health by "distracting them, disrupting their sleep, and exposing them to bullying, rumor spreading, unrealistic views of other people's lives, and peer pressure," as the Mayo Clinic notes.

Businesses, meanwhile, have found social media to be an often effective and relatively inexpensive way to reach consumers and build an image for their brands. According to Facebook, more than 200 million small businesses use its service for various purposes. Separately, close to 90% of marketers say they use Facebook for promotion.

In 2022, social media and search advertising spending made up roughly 55% of overall ad spending globally. It is also the fastest-growing category across advertising channels.

The Top 10 Social Media Platforms Worldwide

These were the most widely used social media providers as of January 2023, according to DataReportal:

1. Facebook (2.96 billion users)

2. YouTube (2.51 billion users)

3. WhatsApp (2 billion users)

4. Instagram (2 billion users)

5. WeChat (1.31 billion users)

6. TikTok (1.05 billion users)

7. Facebook Messenger (931 million users)

8. Douyin (715 million users)

9. Telegram (700 million users)

10. Snapchat (635 million users)

Interestingly, two that are especially well-known in the U.S.-X platform and Pinterest-didn't make the top 10 list globally. X platform was 14th, with 556 million users worldwide, while Pinterest was 15th with 445 million.

What Is the Most Popular Social Media?

Globally, the most popular social media site is Facebook, with close to 3 billion users, according to one recent estimate.

How Much Time Do People Spend on Social Media?

Internet users age 16 to 64 worldwide spent a daily average of 2 hours and 31 minutes on social media as of late 2022, according to DataReportal, which adds that "social media now accounts for its greatest ever share of total online time, with almost four in every 10 minutes spent online now attributable to social media activities."

What Is Social Media Marketing?

Social media marketing is the use of social networks as a sales and marketing tool. Companies with products or services to promote can go beyond traditional advertising to build an online presence and engage directly with their customers.

In particular, social media marketing has opened up opportunities for local businesses to reach out to potential customers without spending a fortune on ad placement.

The Bottom Line

For better or worse, social media has reshaped our lives, capturing more than 4.7 billion users worldwide and counting. From a business perspective, it has also revolutionized commerce and seems likely to continue to do so.

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Social Media: Definition, Importance, Top Websites & Apps

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Social media websites and apps have dramatically changed how people spend their leisure time and how companies do business.

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What is Social Media ?

Websites and applications that enable users to create and share content or to participate in social networking

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so·cial me·di·a

websites and applications that enable users to create and share content or to participate in social networking.

Social media are interactive computer-mediated technologies that facilitate the creation or sharing of information, ideas, career interests and other forms of expression via virtual communities and networks. Wikipedia

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Please click here if you are not redirected within a few seconds. so·cial me·di·a websites and applications that enable users to create and share content or to participate in social networking. Social media are interactive computer-mediated technologies that facilitate the creation or sharing of information, ideas, career interests and other forms of expression via virtual communities and networks.