Instagram, Snapchat and Facebook aren’t just for posting pretty photos and connecting with friends. Each of these platforms can help businesses strategically market to potential consumers through advertisements and promoted posts. When businesses have multiple social media platforms, they can reach different audiences in different ways.
Instagram is a great tool for businesses because it has many different options through which you can spread your message and gain an audience. Instagram sets itself apart from other social media platforms by having a very visual based platform. Users can create videos, boomerangs (short videos) and add special effects to enhance their posts∑. Each photo is a visual story that can allow a business to tell a particular story or share a message. In addition to visual storytelling, Instagram has a hashtag option, which allows users to find photos or explore a certain topic by clicking on a hashtag. Instagram ads can also give businesses great exposure. According to the Instagram’s blog, over 120 million Instagrammers visited a website, received directions, called, emailed or direct messaged to learn about a business based on an Instagram ad. Instagram is a good tool to use when focusing on targeting millennials as well as the generation between millenials and Gen X those aged 35-44.
Snapchat can help businesses gain exposure through geofilters.These filtered snapchats can be effective when they are posted on a person’s story and shared with friends. Snapchat has over 178 million daily active users, and 86% of those users, according to Social Media Examiner, are between the ages of 13 and 37. Since Snapchat focuses on visual storytelling, advertisers get the opportunity to make cool, illustrated graphics. Snapchat has three different advertising platforms: Snap ads or mobile video ads, sponsored lenses and geofilters. Sponsored lenses are exclusive to Snapchat. The lenses can be used in a photo to either promote an event or a food product. A good example of a Snapchat lense would be Taco Bell’s sponsored Cinco De Mayo lens, which garnered 224 million views. Geofilters are set to only show up when the user is in a certain location so you can share where you are at any given time. This can help businesses increase awareness among people within a certain proximity of the actual store or restaurant.
Facebook is seen as a great advertising platform as well because of its interactive and conversational interface. Facebook allows businesses to schedule posts ahead of time for convenience. Additionally, Facebook has over 2 billion daily active users, the most of all social platforms. Facebook excels at determining a business’s target market, as they use a highly efficient audience expansion tool, Lookalike Audiences. This tool helps businesses find their ideal audience by finding people who fit a similar profile to those who already visit the brand’s website. Facebook also allows businesses to “boost” their posts, which will give them a choice to choose their audience, budget and campaign duration to reach a larger audience.
In conclusion, Instagram, Facebook and Snapchat are not just apps to use to connect with your friends. Each app caters to different audiences of people, which allows advertisers to target different types of users. Instagram is a very visually based social media platform, Snapchat uses photo features as a way for advertisers to gain awareness and Facebook uses data gained on its large network of users to help advertisers find their target audience. All the social media platforms are different, but each has a unique, ever-evolving advertising tactic to help brands continue expanding their reach.
-Josie Sittig