Using social media for business is a must these days. Even the smallest companies have a social media presence, whether it's a Facebook page, an Instagram profile, or a Google Business profile.

Social media is the quickest and cheapest way to build brand awareness. The fact that almost everyone uses social media means it's fairly easy to get started with a business profile.

The tricky bit comes not in creating your business online, but in using social media platforms correctly to reach your target audience.

After all, using social media for business is about boosting your visibility, engaging with clients and customers, and driving sales as part of a digital marketing strategy.

Do I need social media for my business?

Now, we just mentioned something big there: a digital marketing strategy. Any business seeking to expand their reach and generate leads and sales online needs a digital strategy. Thankfully, it's not hard to create one.

That's because most of us are already accustomed to how social media works, so creating business profiles on these channels is simple. As we mentioned, the hard part is how you use social media sites to your advantage.

This guide will look at how businesses use social media platforms to grow their brand, their customer base, and their sales.

From picking the right platforms to creating a strategy with clear goals, the right approach on social media can help take your business to new heights.

In this guide, we cover the following:

Why social media is essential for business success

Two decades ago, the idea of a business having a Myspace page, or even being listed on Google, was still a rarity. It's taken 20 years for companies to fully catch up with the internet, and now even sole traders and freelancers make use of social media when doing business.

Whether it's being a trend setter on Instagram, a newshound on X, or an industry influencer on LinkedIn, everyone uses social media for business in some form or other.

If you're starting a business or setting up as a freelancer and want to know why you need to be on each social media platform, then here are three points to get you started:

1. You expand your brand's reach

This is a simple one. Social media platforms give you access to billions of potential customers worldwide. Granted, you're not necessarily chasing billions of customers, but social media is your most direct avenue to leads.

You can showcase your products, services, and company culture to a broader audience than ever before, helping to increase brand awareness.

Create engaging content and use targeted ads to reach people interested in what you offer, what you say, or what you do.

2. You can build customer relationships and trust

Social media allows you to interact directly with your customers but also show potential customers what they're missing.

Create a two-way communication channel to build trust and loyalty, and reinforce your brand identity without having to go out and find new audiences. After all, they're already on your platform!

You can also use social media channels to share behind-the-scenes content and give customers a peek into your company culture.

It's this sort of transparency that helps humanize your brand and create emotional connections with your audience.

3. You generate leads and boost sales much easier

Social media is a powerful tool for lead generation when you do it correctly. Big brands will use targeted social media campaigns to reach a wider audience effectively. They'll subscribe to dedicated analytics software, track their competitors, and invest heavily on each social platform.

Smaller brands and freelancers need to be more calculated with their activity. A mixture of organic posts, paid advertising, target demographic research, and smart search engine optimization techniques are required to position small brands correctly on socials.

No matter your business size, the point of social media for business accounts isn't really to 'be social'. It's to generate leads and boost sales, or make an impact or enact change.

Choosing the right social media platforms for your business

There are five main social media platforms that businesses use in high numbers to seek prospective customers. These are:

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • X
  • TikTok

Granted, there are other popular social media platforms like Pinterest and Snapchat, and various blogs and websites where people interact. But it's the Big Five above that most marketing strategies focus on.

So, let’s explore how to match your business goals with the right social networks as part of your social media marketing strategy.

Here's a look at the strengths and weaknesses associated with each social networking site.

Facebook

Facebook remains the most-used social network globally. Its demographic may have shifted away from Millennials and Gen Z, but it's still huge. Why is it good for business? Because it works for both B2B and B2C companies, which means it's a must for all brands.

Key strengths of Facebook:

  • Huge user base across many demographics, used all over the world
  • Detailed ad targeting options and language translation
  • Good for building large- and small-scale communities through groups
  • Supports main content types like text, images, and video posts

What is Facebook best for?

  • Local businesses wanting to connect with nearby customers
  • Companies with diverse audience demographics seeking to expand
  • Brands focused on community building

Facebook's broad reach makes it a natural choice for most businesses. The only problem is that younger users are less active here than on other platforms.

Instagram

Thankfully, Facebook has a little brother where the cooler kids hang out. Instagram successfully straddles multiple demographics far better than Facebook, and so is better for connectivity. What's more, it's part of the Meta Business Suite, so you can upload long and short form videos, photos, and everything else on one platform, and publish at the same time on the other.

Instagram is visual-first, making it great for businesses with strong imagery or video content. Think florists, beauty brands, and lifestyle companies.

Key strengths of Instagram:

  • High engagement rates
  • Popular with younger audiences
  • Great for showcasing products visually
  • Strong for influencer partnerships
  • One-click shop options

What is Instagram best for?

  • Fashion, beauty, food, and travel brands
  • Companies targeting millennials and Gen Z
  • Businesses with photogenic products or services

Instagram's shopping features make it a better choice for e-commerce than Facebook and X. Its Stories and Reels formats also help brands stay fresh and engaging.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is the top platform for B2B marketing, professional networking, and client lead generating. It's often overlooked by freelancers and small businesses for not being 'big' enough for them. After all, how can you carve open a niche on a business-related social media platform?

Well, the answer is 'fairly easily'. LinkedIn thrives on knowledge, so small businesses only need to explain how they do things, what challenges they've come up against, and the success stories they've had so far to make an impact.

You'd be surprised how one social media post on LinkedIn can catapult your brand.

Key strengths on LinkedIn:

  • Targets business professionals and industry leaders
  • Perfect for thought leadership content and showcasing success stories
  • Effective for lead generation
  • Allows detailed job title targeting
  • A more 'honest' place than other social networking sites

What is LinkedIn best for?

  • B2B companies
  • Freelancers seeking clients and work
  • Recruiters and HR professionals
  • Brands offering professional services
  • Thought leaders and industry experts

LinkedIn's focus on career development also makes it ideal for sharing industry insights and connecting with decision-makers.

X

X, formerly Twitter, is known for providing real-time updates and public conversations. It's the world's town hall and operates very differently to Instagram and LinkedIn. For a start, the X algorithm is designed to spark conversation, debate, and arguments. It's a news-first social media site that quickly shifts the focus of conversation to opinion.

This means brands use X to create a strong online presence more than rely on it for sales. In fact, brands that deal with consumables are less likely to succeed on X because it's difficult to sell direct. Instead, companies like news corporations, magazines brands, and cultural influencers are more likely to succeed when 'doing business' on X.

Key strengths of X:

  • Fast-paced, real-time content ideal for news and opinion
  • Good for customer service and crisis management
  • Helps track industry trends
  • Useful for networking and building relationships

What is X best for?

  • News organizations and journalists
  • Brands wanting to join public conversations
  • Companies offering customer support
  • Tech and startup businesses

X's short-form content style suits brands that can create timely, engaging posts regularly. 

TikTok

TikTok has grown rapidly in recent years, especially among younger users. Brands have steadily caught up with the TikTok trend, but users are sometimes suspicious when they encounter direct messaging on the site. TikTok has therefore become the home of product placement and influencer advocacy, where celebrities are created from the success of their quality content.

Key strengths of TikTok:

  • Very high engagement rates
  • Popular with Gen Z and younger millennials
  • Viral potential for creative content
  • Good for showing brand personality
  • Perfect for small brands and freelancers seeking to make an impact

What is TikTok best for?

  • Brands targeting younger audiences
  • Companies with creative video ideas
  • Those wanting to showcase company culture
  • Businesses in entertainment or education

TikTok's format encourages authentic, fun content. It's great for brands willing to be creative and trend-savvy.

Crafting an effective social media strategy for your business

Now we know a little more about the relevant audience behind these social media sites, it's time to look at strategy.

A strong social media strategy helps you connect with customers and grow your brand. Focus on setting clear goals, creating engaging content, and optimizing your posting schedule.

Setting clear goals and KPIs

It's crucial you start by defining what you want to achieve on social media, before you dive in. Otherwise, you'll waste a lot of time and energy creating content that doesn't achieve customer engagement or drive traffic, it merely sits on your profile gathering dust.

Common goals for your content strategy include:

  • Increasing brand awareness
  • Driving website traffic
  • Generating leads and sales
  • Improving customer service

Next, set specific KPIs for each goal to measure success. These could be:

  • Follower growth rate
  • Post engagement (likes, comments, shares)
  • Click-through rate to your website
  • Number of customer service issues resolved

Track these KPIs regularly using social media analytics tools. Adjust your strategy based on what's working well.

Get creative with your content

You're not going to appeal to your existing audience – let alone chase new customers – if you post bland content. So, it's important to be creative. Ask what you would like to see on your own feed, if you were a prospective buyer of your product. From there, you can start to map out a content plan.

Content that resonates with your target audience could include:

  • Share behind-the-scenes glimpses of your business
  • Post customer testimonials and success stories
  • Create how-to videos and tutorials
  • Share industry news and trends
  • Ask questions to spark conversations

Mix up your content types:

  • Photos and graphics
  • Short videos (15–60 seconds)
  • Live streams
  • Polls and quizzes
  • User-generated content

Use a content calendar to plan posts in advance, and content creation tools to increase the quality of your output. This helps to maintain a consistent presence and align content with key dates and events.

Post regularly to the specifications of your platform

Here's how often you should post on the following platforms:

  • Facebook: 1–2 times per day
  • Instagram: 1–3 times per day
  • LinkedIn: 1–2 times per day
  • X: 3–5 times per day
  • TikTok: 1 time per day

Using social media ads to grow your business

Your social media marketing strategy will usually focus on content and audience to begin with, before you then look at investment. Advertising on social media can be costly if you're not strategic. You can throw dollars at Facebook and get 10,000 views for a new product video yet know nothing about your target audience.

Being smart with social ads can greatly improve your brand awareness and overall reach. You'll likely need to use social media marketing platforms to do it properly, but here are a few tips to get you started.

Understand different ad formats

Social platforms offer various ad types to suit different goals. Image ads are great for showcasing products, while video ads can tell your brand story.

Carousel ads let you display multiple images or videos in a single ad. Story ads appear in the platform's stories feature – such as on Instagram – and capture attention as users scroll.

Text ads work well on X and LinkedIn for straightforward messages.

Target the right audience

Effective social ads rely on reaching the right people. Use social media marketing tools to obtain demographic data like age, location, and interests to narrow your audience. Look at your current customer base to create similar audiences, and target people who've interacted with your website or social profiles.

Your marketing software might also give you an insight into your competitors' audiences, so you can see what they're doing.

Measure and optimize your ad performance

It's important to look at the data you gain from social advertising, so you can begin to learn what works and what doesn't. Look at click-through rates, conversion rates, and return on ad spend.

You can use your platform's built-in analytics tools to see how your ads are performing, or third-party social media management software.

From here, you can make data-driven decisions to improve your campaigns and adjust your targeting strategy based on what's working best.

Social media management tools to simplify your efforts

Now it's time to look at the essential tools that make social media a success for businesses.

Social media management tools exist to save you time, improve performance, and give you something that social media sites can't offer.

From being able to schedule posts, track engagement, and create strategies, to analyzing performance across platforms, creating detailed reports, and conducting competitor research. Social media marketing platforms give you far more freedom to shape your content and thrive as a business.

Let's take a look at some of the very best ones.

Best tools for scheduling and analytics

Brandwatch, Hootsuite, and Sprout Social are popular social media marketing tools for managing multiple social accounts. They let you plan and schedule content in advance, saving time on daily posting.

These tools also provide analytics to track your posts’ performance.

Buffer is also great for smaller teams as it has a very nimble interface. It offers a user-friendly design for scheduling and basic analytics that anyone can grasp. For more advanced needs, Brandwatch gives you deeper insights into your audience, competitors, and performance. 

Monitoring brand mentions and engagement

Businesses that choose to do social media marketing need to understand that the shop is always open. Anyone can contact your business on social media. They can criticize it, praise it, share their thoughts with friends, and start positive and negative trends.

Companies therefore need to have an eye on how their brand is perceived beyond their target audience. Tools like Brandwatch and Mention help you stay on top of these online conversations and alert you to brand mentions across social media and the internet.

These tools also measure engagement rates on your posts. You can see which content resonates with your audience.

This data helps you refine your social strategy and create more of what works.

Social listening tools like these give you a bird's-eye view of your brand's online presence. They help you respond quickly to customer feedback and join relevant conversations.

Measuring the success of your social media efforts

Now let's look at the key metrics the above social media marketing tools use to assess your brand's health on platforms like Facebook, X, and Instagram.

Engagement Rate – This measures how much your audience interacts with your social media posts. You calculate it by dividing total engagements by the number of followers. It doesn't have to be big, so start by aiming for 1-5% on most platforms, especially on X.

Reach – This shows how many unique users see your posts. Many social media platforms have algorithms that snowball posts and share popular ones more widely. A higher reach means more brand awareness. Track it over time to spot trends.

Conversions – This tells you how many people take desired actions from your social posts. This could be Facebook users clicking a link, X profiles signing up to your newsletter, or people on Instagram making a direct purchase.

Follower Growth Rate – This indicates how quickly you’re gaining new followers. It's a great thing to focus on when you initially create content because it shows what your target audience wants more of.

Making data-driven decisions for future campaigns

Remember to review your top-performing posts to understand what content resonates. Identify your best-converting social channels and focus more effort there. You may find Instagram drives more sales, while X is better for customer service.

You can do all this by looking at the social media marketing data extracted from a third-party tool. If you'd like to know more, look here for more information how Brandwatch can help your business. 

Frequently asked questions

Now it's time to look at some FAQs from our community that you might find useful when you're beginning to shape your social media marketing strategy for business.

How can businesses leverage social media for better engagement?

Businesses need to be proactive when using social media for improved engagement. Publishing content that sparks conversations is great on X and LinkedIn, while using stories and live video to connect in real-time is perfect for TikTok. Businesses need to show they're part of the conversation, not just trying to jump on a bandwagon.

What strategies work best for content marketing on social media?

The best content for a social media marketing strategy is anything that shows quality over quantity. Quality content is often cheaper and easier to make in the long run than pumping out low-standard posts. Businesses need to tell stories, interact with audiences, and find their niche to stand out. You get this from developing a smart strategy and working with social media management software to bring your ideas to life.

In what ways can social media analytics improve business tactics?

Track engagement metrics to see what content performs best and monitor follower growth to measure brand awareness.

Analyze audience demographics to refine targeting and use competitor analysis to spot opportunities. Then, test different posting times to optimize reach and measure conversions to prove ROI.

By using these analytics, you can revolutionize how your business operates.

How important is choosing the right platform in social media marketing?

The right platform is crucial for a successful social media marketing campaign. There's no point creating top-quality videos if you're only going to publish them on Facebook, for example. They need to be on Instagram and TikTok.

If you're struggling to find the right social media platform, consider your content type and business goals. Focus on two or three key platforms rather than trying to be everywhere.

What are the key factors in building a strong social media presence for a brand?

Your social media strategy should consider a variety of factors to create a strong brand presence. These include defining your brand voice and sticking to it, posting consistently, and engaging with audiences. You also need to share valuable content, not just promotions, and show your brand's personality. This means being original and not just jumping on every trend going.

Can you measure the ROI of social media marketing efforts, and how?

Yes, you can measure social media ROI.

Set clear goals tied to business objectives. Track metrics like website traffic, leads, and sales from social. Calculate the value of a lead or sale and then compare the results to your social media spending.