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

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

One thing that's inverse since the early on days of social media is that many platforms used to focus on one function, such as social networking or image sharing. Now, near established social media platforms take expanded to comprise alive streaming, augmented reality, shopping, social audio, and more.

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

Bonus: Read the step-by-footstep social media strategy guide with pro tips on how to grow your social media presence.

With the ever-growing number of social media platforms, it tin 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, allow your social media marketing strategy guide your decisions, and merely join the networks that support your goals.

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

Know your audition

The first question yous should enquire earlier joining a new social media platform is: where is your audience?

It makes more than sense to go where your audience is already hanging out than to bring together a new platform and attract your audience to information technology.

The second thing to understand is how your audition is using that platform. What type of content are they looking for? Which types of accounts practise 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 study.

Facebook leads on use of social platforms as news source

Source: Digital 2021 report

Go on up to engagement with social media statistics

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

Although no one tin tell the future, ane 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:

  • Instagram Statistics
  • Facebook Statistics
  • Twitter Statistics
  • YouTube Statistics
  • Pinterest Statistics
  • TikTok Statistics

Align to your central business goals

Inquire yourself: which platforms match my business goals all-time?

For instance, if ane 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 (similar YouTube and Vimeo) or video formats bachelor on the sites yous're already agile on (like Instagram Stories and Reels, Facebook Live, etc.).

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 tin use them: New social audio platforms (like Clubhouse) and formats (like Twitter Spaces) have thrived during COVID-xix lockdowns while people accept been at home with more than time to bring together live conversations.

The most significant advantage of audio social media platforms and formats is the high attention and date you lot're probable to go from opt-in listeners.

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

Here are some idea starters for using sound social media platforms:

  • Host manufacture panels.
  • Circulate news and big announcements.
  • Host interactive sessions (such as AMAs) with your audience.
  • Tape interviews during a live Clubhouse/Twitter Spaces chat and upload them as a podcast (case: The Social Media Geekout prove).
  • Build your concern' thought leadership through a 30-60 infinitesimal show.

Matt Navarra does a not bad task of combining Twitter Spaces AND podcasts:

2. Video social media platforms and formats

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

Used for: Watching videos in brusk and long formats.

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

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

Some of the all-time examples of businesses using video social media platforms are:

  • Ryanair on TikTok — highly entertaining, bear witness a good understanding of the humor and nuances of TikTok users.
  • Notion on YouTube — creates educational content that's both helpful and inspiring for its users.
  • Beautiful Destinations on Instagram Reels — provides travel inspiration through curt, professionally shot clips.

3. Disappearing content formats

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

Used for: Sending ephemeral letters 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 similar Stories are well-suited for posting timely content, such every bit announcements, express edition items, or live events.

Near Stories and Snapchat content besides feels more than genuine and less polished due to the 24-hour shelf life. As such, it allows businesses to prove a more human side.

Hither are some ideas for how your business tin utilize disappearing content:

  • Polls, voting (using interactive Stories stickers)
  • Teasers/countdowns to production launches
  • Backside-the-scenes content
  • Time-sensitive announcements

A neat example is from 1 of my favorite local bakers, who posts their weekly specials on their Instagram Stories.

Instagram Story screenshots showcasing bakery's daily menu

Source: Instagram

4. Discussion forums

Examples: Reddit, Quora

Used for: Request and answering questions, networking, forming communities effectually niche- and involvement-based topics.

How your business can apply them: Be genuinely helpful to your customers past lending your business' subject thing expertise and answering questions related to your industry. Bonus points if you can share information about your brand and products in your answers, simply that shouldn't exist your main goal of participating in give-and-take forums.

Ane matter to note: On Reddit, it'southward highly frowned upon to insert any self-promotion into answers. If you're posting every bit a business organisation, make sure to answer the original question and only add together links to your products if they're genuinely helpful. Before posting in a subreddit, check the rules to verify if including links to your ain concern 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.

/r/XboxOne subreddit

Source: Reddit

five. 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 tin use them: Take advantage of born mobile-friendly features to allow your audition to purchase from you without having to go out a social media app.

Features similar Pinterest Production Pins, Instagram Shops, and TikTok's in-app shopping allow y'all to connect your product catalog directly to your profile on each app.

Fifty-fifty if your followers don't similar to brand purchases on social media platforms or take longer heir-apparent journeys, shopping features can allow you to tag products, add additional product info and drive traffic to your website.

Some keen ways to use shopping social media platforms:

  • Limited edition drops, east.grand., announcing an sectional product launch on social media and linking or tagging the product via your production catalog
  • Social selling
  • Eastward-commerce (many social media platforms have e-commerce integrations, such as Shopify, which y'all can access directly from your Hootsuite dashboard)
  • Retargeting, e.g., creating custom audiences based on who has engaged with your Facebook/Instagram Shops

You lot can too host alive shopping events on social media. Livestream shopping has get a huge market in People's republic of china, encouraging platforms like Instagram to introduce Alive Shopping.

Instagram Live shopping

Source: Instagram

6. Social media alive streams

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

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

How your business organisation can use them: Livestreaming'due south popularity exploded during the pandemic when people were stuck at home during lockdowns with zero to practice.

Yet, you don't demand a global pandemic to go viewers to watch your live streams. There are many means to make melody-in-worthy streams, from interviewing well-known guests through doing sectional product reveals to hosting AMA sessions with your concern executives.

Livestreams also offer the opportunity for users to interact alive with the hosts, so information technology's vital to monitor and appoint with comments during the stream. Read more tips in our guide to social media alive 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.

seven. 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 concern 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 become to network and practise business organisation.

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

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

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

8. Closed/private community social media platforms

Examples: Soapbox, 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 customs together to bond over shared challenges, help answer each other'southward 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 (specially on Facebook) require members to answer a few questions before joining to screen out spammers, simply you can also use these fields to ask members to opt-in to your email marketing list.

A bang-up instance is the Instant Pot Facebook Group, started by the brand in 2015 and has grown to over 3 million members who dear sharing recipes and product tips.

Instant Pot Facebook Group

Source: Facebook

nine. 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 utilize 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 grouping your content and create themes that lucifer your audition'southward interests.

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

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

Hungry Passport YouTube travel guide

Source: Hungry Passport on YouTube

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

Whatever your needs and goals, it's a rubber bet yous'll discover a way to employ social media to do good your business.

Hands manage all your social media profiles using Hootsuite. From a single dashboard, y'all can schedule and publish posts, engage your followers, monitor relevant conversations, measure results, manage your ads, and much more.

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