Gone are the days when social media was used just for entertainment! It is a must to include in the business strategy of any brand. As you would be familiar with, social media channels can gather a huge audience worldwide, giving better chances of finding target audiences for businesses. Due to this factor, creating accounts on different social media platforms has become necessary for companies to reap the benefits!
Do you know more than half of the world’s population uses social media, and the average daily usage is 2 hours and 31 minutes?
Additionally, social media usage gained a monumental increase during the COVID-19 pandemic. Users spend a huge chunk of their day watching videos online on channels such as YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, etc.
Look at the trends of usage of different apps as shown below.
Benefits of Social Media Platforms
Why is social media booming at such a fast pace? What are its uses? These questions have some impressive answers!
Social media is an excellent source of entertainment, information, and business. Yes! This is the reason for its growing immensely.
Here are some of the top benefits of social media apart from entertainment:
- Easy and fast communication: social media platforms help customers to connect with businesses easily and vice versa. On the other hand, businesses can review customers’ queries and reply instantly.
- Promote content: Promoting your brand’s content is vital to gain more audiences. Social media makes reaching many users and selling your products or services easy.
- Generate leads: easily generate more leads through such channels and boost your business.
- Build relationships: build and maintain relationships with other businesses, organizations, and customers. As evident, business is all about creating connections, and social media helps you with that.
- Helps with organic visibility: your brand gets organic visibility with social media.
- More website traffic: The more traffic on your website, the more the probability of customers. Hence, increase your traffic with social media platforms by promoting your brand.
Problems With Social Media
Every coin has two sides. On the one hand, social media has immense benefits. On the other hand, there are some cons too. Take a look at the list below to know more:
- Social media hampers your productivity and daily routine.
- It is a time waste when used without any time constraints.
- There is a lot of triggering and inappropriate content on the channels that can negatively impact people.
- There is a lot of negativity and trolling on social media channels.
- It can make you more anxious and depressed.
- People can feel isolated and cut off from the real world.
- The usage results in self-absorption.
10 Top Used Social Media Channels!
Various social media platforms are available, but here are the top-used channels by the users.
1. Facebook
Facebook is now known as meta. It has become one of the best business platforms to boost engagement and invest in advertisements. Further, it is highly beneficial for companies that work in e-commerce, financial services, telecom, gaming, technology, retail, entertainment, and many more.
According to Statista, Facebook has 2.9 billion monthly active users.
Benefits of Facebook
- The widest pool of audience and comprehensive business tools to boost your business growth.
- It helps you build an online brand and reach potential customers.
- Facebook also helps to find the best job candidates/potential employees.
- Boosts lead generation.
- Offers conversion rate optimization and digital marketing at its best.
2. YouTube
YouTube is another widely used social media channel across the globe. Initially, YouTube was launched as a dating site for people but later switched to being the largest video streaming platform in the world. Presently, If your business aims to reach a wider audience with the medium of videos, this is the best choice. Further, most people prefer to consume content visually rather than textually.
According to statistics, approximately 2.5 billion people use YouTube once a month. With a staggering number of 457 million users, India tops the list of countries based on YouTube audience size (as of January 2023).
Benefits of YouTube
- Marketing strategies here will help you rank on Google as Google acquired YouTube in 2006. Hence, your content will also show up in Google searches, and you will increase your brand’s online presence.
- Get high traffic, more impressions, and engagements from users.
- Google AdWords and AdSense run YouTube ads. This increases your reach.
- Embed your videos into your websites and posts.
3. WhatsApp
WhatsApp is clearly the most used messaging app in the world. Since its launch, it has gained immense popularity in every age group. Further, it is an excellent choice for businesses. How? Well, you can integrate WhatsApp campaigns into existing marketing and customer support tools. It is flexible and one of the most effective market channels. As you know, what’s up helps you to send and create a personalized connection with users that has more chances of converting into your customers.
According to statistics, over 2 billion people use WhatsApp worldwide.
Benefits of WhatsApp
- Connect with people and time anywhere. Users read 80% of the messages in the first five minutes.
- Help you send private and personalized messages directly to the customers.
- WhatsApp is highly secure and trustworthy, as all the messages are encrypted.
- Availability of sending different types of content, such as links, videos, attachments, lists, and CTAs, so users can also participate in the campaign.
4. Instagram
Meta owns Instagram. The social media platform was launched as a photo-sharing app but now has become one of the most important channels for marketing strategy. Additionally, it launches new products and services every other day for a better user experience. You can run social media ads and post your business connections worldwide. Moreover, you can directly contact the customers, sponsor your posts, create posts, stories, reels, and videos, and engage users.
According to statistics, approximately 2 billion people use Instagram once a month. The largest pool audience is in India, with active users of over 300 million.
Benefits of Instagram
- Easy to segment your audience based on different targeting features, such as location, interests, demographics, behaviors, etc.
- Offers multiple visual marketing features, such as stories where you can create engaging content.
- Businesses can perform influencer marketing on Instagram. As per research, influencer marketing is lucrative, and the market will expand to a total of $16.4 billion in 2022.
5. WeChat
WeChat is another instant messaging application. It has the potential to reach billions of users worldwide. As good as it is for personal uses, it also fulfills business requirements. Interestingly, you can add filters, such as gender, location, age, and more, to target your audience specifically.
According to Statista, there are approximately 1.2 billion users of WeChat worldwide.
Benefits of WeChat
- It helps you in integration with third-party applications.
- Directly engage with customers or potential customers.
- Option to start an e-commerce business on WeChat.
- You can also make online payments by using this app.
- It is useful in messaging, video calls, advertising, operating official company accounts, etc.
6. TikTok
TikTok witnessed rapid growth in 2021. It became the world’s sixth most used social media platform, and so is the case. It is a great opportunity for businesses as there is a massive audience poll of different age groups that can be your potential customers.
Tick-tock follows the approach of creating entertaining content and delivering the brand message. Many big giants, such as Zara and BMW, use this platform in their marketing strategies.
According to statistics, there are approximately 1 billion monthly active users on TikTok.
Benefits of TikTok
- Increases brand awareness.
- An excellent medium for roping in influencers and creating content to promote your brand.
- Reap benefits of user-generated content.
- Potential to reach your target audience faster as this platform’s engagement rate is higher than others.
- User-friendly interface.
7. FB Messenger
FB Messenger is the texting application of Facebook. It is on the top social media channels worldwide due to its easy accessibility. You can easily collaborate on this app and send files and links quickly. Moreover, it also provides a feature to call specific phone numbers.
According to statistics, there are around 1.3 billion users on this channel.
Benefits of FB Messenger
- Get more leads for your business.
- Fast communication tools where you can directly talk to the users.
- Absolutely free of cost.
- Use it as your personal assistant.
8. Telegram
Telegram is an excellent pick that fulfills your business needs. It has multiple features that help boost your brand, such as creating channels to share data with users, storing files, sending text messages, etc. Interestingly, Telegram also offers you to create super groups consisting of more than 20,000 members. Yes! You can work in big organizations and touch with a large audience.
According to studies, this social media platform has around 700 million monthly active users.
Benefits of Telegram
- Businesses have the freedom to create larger groups.
- Offers unquestionable privacy.
- Constantly updates the latest features for a better user experience.
- It supports large file sizes and also offers cloud storage.
- Compatible with multiple devices, such as smartphones, tablets, and most browsers on desktops.
- Fast and easy to use.
9. Snapchat
Snapchat is one of the most widely used social media platforms worldwide. It is an excellent marketing tool for marketers targeting the younger generation. Additionally, it comes packed with impressive benefits that I will enlist below.
According to studies, the total number of daily active users on Snapchat as of March 2023 is 375 million.
Benefits of Snapchat
- It helps businesses drive more traffic and engagement.
- Boost your engagement with Snapchat. Use geofilters, and make custom filters to make your brand popular.
- It helps gain brand awareness.
- Attract new followers and connect with the younger demographics.
- Users spend much time on the Discover section and make impulsive purchases. You can reap its benefits and list your products or services.
10. Twitter
Twitter is one of the best social media platforms for conversing with people. You can take part in discussions and debate with anyone online. Further, you can gain valuable customer insights for your business. It helps fetch the perspective of your users so you can make necessary changes to your brands.
According to statistics, there are approximately 450 million active monthly users on Twitter.
Benefits of Twitter
- Companies can directly communicate with consumers.
- The length of content is short and attracts users. You can provide information about your brand to enroll more audience.
- Know more about real-time trends daily.
- Build a community and form a connection to sell your products or services.
Final Words
Social media is here to stay. The future is undoubtedly bright and holds many opportunities for businesses.
Social media platforms have plenty of benefits. It can help you boost your brand and gain more customers.
You are lagging if your business is inactive on top social media channels! Create your online presence and stay on par with the competition.
Which social media platform do you use the most? Tell us in the comment section below!
I hope the information mentioned above helps you to understand the topic well.
Adios!
Frequently Asked Questions
1. What are the benefits of deleting social media?
Social media usage can be time-consuming. It can affect your daily life and hamper productivity. Be sure to spend a designated amount of time on different social media platforms to maintain efficiency.
2. How social media helps in education?
Social media channels are excellent for learning new courses. Many of them are available free of cost, and some are paid. Further, the most used e-learning platforms are Udemy, Coursera, eDX, etc.
3. Is social media good for students?
Social media is an ocean of knowledge. But, students must not overuse it. Otherwise, it can waste time and energy.
4. Is social media good for society?
There are pros and cons of social media. On the one hand, it is highly beneficial for people but can also lead to uneventful activities.
5. How social media affects daily life?
We often check our phones daily to access social media channels such as Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest, Twitter, and Facebook. This leads to time wastage and even strains your eyes. If used for a limited time, social media can be highly beneficial.