What Are The Best Social Media Platforms To Reach Your Target Audience?

Over half the global population now uses social media, and they hang out there for an average of two hours and 27 minutes each day.

This probably comes as no big surprise, but there’s often a gap between knowing that your audience is likely on social media and knowing how to connect with them there.

It’s one of the biggest hurdles in digital marketing, but once you know where your target audience is hanging out, it makes a big difference in several areas: brand awareness, social media engagement and lead generation.

There are almost endless demographics you could measure, such as age, gender, education level, marriage and parental status, income, even hobbies like outdoor adventure and knitting. But for your purposes, you get a big jump in effectiveness just by narrowing down platforms by age and gender.

Here’s a breakdown of which platforms you should target based on age and gender:

Facebook

Facebook continues to dominate social media, but age groups use it in varying intensity:

• The biggest users of Facebook fall in the 25-34 age group, with 25.7% of the population using the platform. This is followed by 18.1% of those aged 18-24 and 18.1% of adults between the ages of 35-44.
• More males than females are on Facebook at 56.5% versus 43.5%.

YouTube

This unique mix of search engine (the second largest after Google) and social media site accounts for 25% of global Internet traffic. Here are the demographics of people most likely to utilize it:

• A whopping 77% of those ages 15-25 use YouTube in the United States, followed by 70% of those ages 45-64.
• More males than females utilize YouTube, at 54.2% and 45.8%, respectively.

Twitter

Twitter appears to be the land of the educated, with 42% of users holding a college degree. Here are the age and gender breakdowns:

• Twitter is a hit with those ages 25-34, with 38.5% of them using Twitter. Those ages 35-49 use Twitter at a rate of 20.7%.
• Users of Twitter are overwhelmingly male, with 70.4% of the profiles.

LinkedIn

The social media platform best known for B2B networking now has over 800 million active users across 200 countries. Here’s the breakdown of its users:

• 60% of LinkedIn profiles are for users between the ages of 25 and 34.
• Like many other social media sites, LinkedIn is dominated by males, possessing 56.6% of the profiles.

TikTok

Though it ranks seventh in social media active users, this fast-growing platform is already having an impact on video content, with marketers shortening length to match the TikTok trends.

• The largest demographic using TikTok are between the ages of 18 and 24, with 24.7% of the population in that age group using the site.
• Female users are more prevalent on this site, comprising 56.1% of the profiles.

Editor's note:

Make sure you watch this channel closely. Early adopters might be able to reap the rewards and make a big impact at a low cost with audience size growing and starting to mirror a Facebook/Instagram demographic. 

Instagram

Instagram is a great place for marketers, with 90% of users following at least one business profile. Here are some demographic notes:

• 64% of Instagram users are under the age of 34.
• Gender demographics are pretty equitable, with 51% of users being male and nearly 49% female.

Deciding where to prioritize your social media marketing can be challenging, but knowing where your target market demographic hangs out is a good first step.

A good second step is checking out our all-in-one automated marketing platform. Contact us at DirectMail.io to learn more!