With such a large per­cent­age of the pub­lic using social media – Pew Research Cen­ter reports 70 per­cent – busi­ness­es can’t afford not to inter­act with cus­tomers via chan­nels like Face­book, Twit­ter and oth­er social plat­forms. But while you should be mar­ket­ing via social media, you should­n’t nec­es­sar­i­ly be on every chan­nel. It’s impor­tant for you to invest in the plat­forms where you’re more like­ly to reach and engage with your audience.

To choose the best social media chan­nels for you to inter­act with your cus­tomers, take some time to famil­iar­ize your­self with each net­work, how it runs and what demo­graph­ics use that plat­form. Here are the basics you need to know about today’s most pop­u­lar social media platforms.

Face­book

Face­book is the biggest social net­work on the web, both in terms of name recog­ni­tion and total num­ber of users. With near­ly 2 bil­lion active users, Face­book is a great medi­um for con­nect­ing peo­ple from all over the world with your business.

In the 13 years since it launched, Face­book has grown from a sim­ple web­site where col­lege stu­dents could keep in touch into a mul­ti­fac­eted web and mobile social plat­form where any­one can con­nect with not just their friends and fam­i­ly, but also celebri­ties, orga­ni­za­tions, busi­ness­es and more, thanks to the Pages feature.

Con­sid­er­ing that Face­book has a wealth of options for any type of orga­ni­za­tion, it’s a great start­ing point for your busi­ness, regard­less of your indus­try. You can use Face­book to share pho­tos, videos, impor­tant com­pa­ny updates and more. Addi­tion­al­ly, the site can be more low-main­te­nance than oth­er social net­works. Whether you post sev­er­al updates a day or only a few a week won’t make much of a dif­fer­ence in what your fans think of you.

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