How to Pick the Best Social Media Platform for Your Coaching and Consulting Business
So, you’ve decided to take your knowledge and experience to help others as an online coach, consultant, or freelance business.
Yasss! I love it when another entrepreneur gets their wings and decides to take flight!
Your first destination as a start-up business owner or a side hustler may be deciding which social media platform is the best to use for marketing your personal brand and services.
Well, you’ve landed here, so I would say you’re off to a great start!
I’ll share what to consider when choosing the best social media platform for your business and the simple point system I use to evaluate each site’s offerings.
Ready to find out which platform is the right one for you? Let’s go!
What to Consider When Choosing a Social Media Platform For Your Business
Time. It’s the most valuable resource you have as a small business owner, and you need to make sure you’re spending it on the best social media platform for an excellent return on investment (ROI).
Think of choosing a platform as if it’s an investment property you’re looking to fix up and make it so attractive that it becomes the most sought-after rental spot that you’re guaranteed a profitable return every month. Every month, because you’ve created fantastic content and built a growing community that sparked a flywheel effect.
So, before choosing which social media channel you plan to spend time growing an audience and marketing your business, you should consider 3 key points:
Target Customer
The biggest waste of time is to be on a platform that your target customer doesn’t spend their time on. Choosing a social media outlet just because it’s the hottest and brightest shiny object out there shouldn’t be the only reason why you’re on it.
Meets the Customer’s Needs
Nowadays, people are on several social media outlets, and each may satisfy different intentions or needs of why and when they’re on them. Choose the platform your target prospects are more likely to engage with your content because it meets their intent to be online.
Ease of Content Creation
You’re going to write posts, take pictures, or shoot videos that should spark engagement, emotions, and actions for your audience. Let’s make sure you’re choosing the right platform with the content format you can create consistently. Social media platforms love consistency, and viewers will be more likely to follow you if they see your content show up on their feeds.
How Do You Pick the Right Social Media Platform For Your Business?
I use a simple 3-point system base on the key points to help my clients prioritize their time and efforts to a social media platform:
- Target Customer
- Meets Customer’s Intent
- Ease of Content Creation
If there’s a platform that only meets 1-2 of the points, save yourself the time and look for the one that meets all three.
The 5 Most Popular Social Media Platforms for Small Businesses
Ready to test which platform hits all 3 points for your business needs?
To help you get to your answer faster, I’ve listed and organized each platform’s key demographic, type of content format, and if they’re small business friendly for online coaches, consultants, or freelance service providers.
Let’s get started!
Instagram for Small Businesses
Instagram’s mission statement is to “To capture and share the world’s moments.” That in a nutshell tells you it’s all about sharing visual content within the community.
Key Demographic and User Info
- 18-34 years olds are the highest age group penetration
- Gen Z (16-24 year olds) prefer Instagram as a social media platform (Yep, even beating out Tik Tok!)
- 47% of Instagram users make 75K+ annually
- Only 1 out of 10 people use Instagram for news Information, only 6% of Americans trust IG for news.
Content Format and Engagement Info
- Images, short videos, real-time videos (lives)
- Business accounts post an average 1.6 Posts a day, 5 IG Stories a day to keep 70% retention
- Business accounts content contribution; Images 62%, Videos 13% Carousels 21%
- Content engagement rate; Short videos 62%, Images 61%; Live video 37%
Small Business Friendly?
Based on a Social media report by Rival IQ, in 2021, Instagram’s engagement rate dropped by 25%, making their engagement rates across all industries at 0.98%. However, 50% of users will visit or make a purchase of a product after viewing a brand’s IG stories- but the platform doesn’t offer ways to purchase digital products; only physical products can be tagged.
Facebook For Small Business Marketing
One of the older platforms on this list with a mission “to give people the power to build community and bring them closer together.” To support its mission, FB focuses on its suite of user services; Facebook groups, messenger, shops, and markets.
Key Demographic and User Info
- 25-34 years olds are the highest age group penetration and have the highest number of users over the age of 65 across all platforms.
- 70% of users make 75K+ annually
- Users spend about 33 minutes on the platform a day
Content Format and Engagement Info
- Images, short videos, real-time videos (lives)
- 1 post a day
- Popular form of content and engagement rates: Images (0.18%), Video (0.13%) and Link posts (0.05%)- FB pages with the highest engagement, fan pages.
- 42.6% of the users watch Facebook Live content and will engage x10 higher than pre-recorded videos
- The average organic reach for a Facebook page post is 5%, dropping from 7% in 2019
- Avg. content engagement rate 0.064% across all industries
Small Business Friendly?
Facebook is known to have the most compiled data points of their users, which enables them to have very powerful and accurate targeting and retargeting capabilities. This allows small business owners to reach their core audience but comes with a price. For Facebook, you have to “pay to play,” and in the past year, Ad costs have increased by 5%.
LinkedIn For Marketing Your Business
LinkedIn’s mission is “to connect the world’s professionals to make them more productive and successful.” If your target prospects are working professionals who are career and business-driven, you may have found your audience.
Key Demographic
- 25-34 years olds are the highest age group penetration and is more popular with men at 58% vs. women at 42%
- 70% of users make 75K+ annually
- 55% of decision makers of an organization use LinkedIn to learn more about the brand or organization.
- In 2020, the most trusted platform across all social media outlets and ranked as the most trusted platform by Business Insider three years in a row.
Content Format and Engagement Info
- Images, videos, long-form content (articles), real-time videos (lives) and audio (podcast)
- 1 post a day (5 x week)
- Post with images get x2 higher engagement; Video x5 and Lives x24
- Visitor to Lead conversion rate 2.73% (higher than Twitter (.69%) and Facebook (.77%)
Small Business Friendly?
According to the CMI annual content marketing survey in 2022, LinkedIn was the #1 social media platform for B2B marketers for organic (non-paid) content. LinkedIn isn’t only a favorite platform for B2B marketers, but 37% of social media traffic to LinkedIn comes from YouTube, followed by Facebook (27%), meaning users from other platforms are willing to continue their buyer’s journey to LinkedIn. Even if LinkedIn isn’t your first platform choice, you should consider adding it to your overall marketing strategy.
📍Don’t think your current LinkedIn Profile best represents who you’re?
Join me [in]side Personal Brand Boss™ – create a follow-worthy personal brand that attracts your ideal clients + Transform your (yawn!) LinkedIn Profile into a highly converting sales page and so much more…
Twitter for Small Businesses
Twitter’s vision and mission is “to give everyone the power to create and share ideas instantly without barriers.” Twitter is better known for creating a space for conversations that interest people.
Key Demographic
- 18-29 years olds are the highest age group penetration and are more popular with men at 70% vs. women at 30%
- 34% of users make 75K+ annually
- Users spend about 6 minutes on the platform a day
- Over half of their users utilize the platform to stay informed with the news.
Content Format and Engagement Info
- Short-form written content (280 characters max) with images or video, Live Audio
- 2-5 average tweets per day
- Tweets with GIFs get 55% more engagement than those without. However, only 2% of Tweets contain GIFs.
- Avg. content engagement rate 0.064% across all industries
Small Business Friendly?
93% of the users welcome brands to join in the conversation for help and customer service support, while 54% of Twitter’s audience is likely to purchase products from brands. This platform is an ideal place to stay connected with customers after the sales conversion has taken place.
TikTok for Small Businesses Marketing
TikTok may be new for the U.S. but has been a social media staple for the global audience for years. Their mission is “to inspire creativity and bring joy.” it’s safe to assume that the TikTok user is looking to be entertained while being inspired.
Key Demographic
- 48% of U.S. adults between 18-29 use TikTok, and 36% of their users are 35-54
- Users spend an average of 89 minutes a day on the app and open it 19 times.
- 20% of users make 75K+ annually
Content Format and User Info
- Short-form videos (up to 10 minutes) with music and real-time video (lives- access is earned)
- 2-4 average video posts per day
- Best performing video length 21-34 seconds or under 1 min.
- 88% of people on TikTok report that the sound on the platform is central to the overall app experience, and 68% say popular songs help them remember a brand.
Small Business Friendly?
The newest kid on the block, TikTok, is known to create the possibility for organic reach with the caveat of consistently posting videos multiple times a day. It’s not just the posting cadence needed to achieve a new audience reach; the video’s length, music selection, and level of entertainment also play into making TikTok work for any business. You can add one link to your profile to help with conversion, but there isn’t a direct way to add links to video posts.
Final Takeaway – Which Social Media Platforms Are Best For Small Businesses?
I hope this list of social media platforms with their key demographics and content formats helped you figure out which one will be your best investment of time. Above all, make sure you are considering your audience and their intent to be on that platform. Serve them the best type of content you can produce that meets their intent.
If LinkedIn is your go-to social media platform to help you market your coaching or consulting business, let’s make sure your LinkedIn profile is crystal clear and laser-focused on your services.
📍Join me [in]side Personal Brand Boss™ – create a follow-worthy personal brand that attracts your ideal clients + Transform your (yawn!) LinkedIn Profile into a highly converting sales page and so much more…
