Two business owners looking at social media on their desktop screen.

Dive Into 4 Social Media Channels

Dive Into 4 Social Media Channels

Social media is critical to a successful marketing strategy, but with so many channels available, it’s challenging to know which ones to put your time and effort toward.

We’ve gathered some interesting statistics you might find useful when determining the right channels to use for your FedEx Authorized ShipCenter® (FASC) location. The audience differs for each channel, and their reason for engaging can also differ. Use these stats and tips to see how to reach your audience and provide the right content that will connect them with your business.

Audience it attracts

  • More than 2.7 billion users worldwide, with 1 billion of them active in the third quarter of 2018
  • 79% of Americans have Facebook accounts
  • Core users are between 18 and 29 years old
  • 83% are under 45

 

Why it works

  • Facebook has a broader reach across all demographics, so you’re talking to a larger audience.
  • The platform enables precision targeting of niche audiences.
  • You can listen to what’s being said about your business and competitors in your industry.

 

How it can work for your FASC store

  • You can identify and target your audience with your messaging, making your marketing strategy more efficient.
  • Let your audience get to know your team members through their posts and pictures.
  • Post how-to videos and slide shows, assuring your audience of your professional services.
  • When you tag a customer in your posts, those posts appear on your page and on the customer’s newsfeed, which extends your posts to friends of that customer.

 

Steps to take

  • Identify your social media goals.
  • Know your audience and their needs, and provide them with relevant content.
  • Create a schedule of your posts.
  • Post regularly and often.

 

What to watch out for

  • Be careful not to post too many promotions on your site — 57.5% of social media users overall find it annoying.

Audience it attracts

  • 1 billion users
  • 800 million active users each month
  • 60% of users are under 30
  • 25 million active business profiles 

Why it works

  • Since Facebook owns Instagram, you can use Facebook Ad Manager to create ads that run on both platforms.
  • Instagram Stories ads expire after 24 hours, making them ideal for short-term offers and discounts.
  • Target your audience by location, audience interest and demographics.
  • Send messages to targeted audiences.
  • Create fun promotions by adding face filters, video effects and text to your ads.
  • Monitor the performance of your ads.

How it can work for your FASC store

  • Creating an Instagram business account lets followers reach you from your Instagram page.
  • Use Instagram to post ads, keeping your audience’s interests in mind.
  • Offer a discount to new followers.
  • Share customer testimonials and reviews.

Steps to take

  • Character count is limited, so use caption text wisely.
  • Use hashtags to categorize your content and make it easier to find.
  • Create a schedule for your ads and switch them regularly.

 

What to watch out for

  • Mondays and Thursdays are the best days to post.
  • Wednesdays and Sundays are the worst days to post.
  • Don’t use irrelevant hashtags or overuse hashtags.

Audience it attracts

  • 146 million users in the U.S.
  • 40% of users are active daily
  • 56% of the users are male; 44% are female
  • 13% of millennials (15–34 years old) use LinkedIn

 

Why it works

  • LinkedIn makes up more than 50% of all social traffic to B2B websites and blogs.
  • LinkedIn creates 59% of leads for B2B marketers, 80% more leads than Facebook or Twitter.
  • Decision makers read LinkedIn posts for relevant content.
  • About 3 million users share content weekly.
  • Content published on LinkedIn gets high rankings in Google searches.

 

How it can work for your FASC store

  • How-to content gets the most attention. And what better way to show your expertise than sharing your knowledge on packing and shipping?
  • Link your store’s website to your LinkedIn post to gain visitors to your site.
  • LinkedIn encourages members to post content outside of their professional life to give users more reason to get engaged with posts.
  • Encourage your employees and customers to share your posts — shared posts are deemed more credible among users. 

 

Steps to take

  • Post content regularly.
  • Long-form articles (around 2,000 words) perform better.
  • Use clever and stunning images to complement your text.
  • Use a call to action and encourage readers to click thumbs up on your article to get more people to view your content.
  • Content posted on Thursdays gets more views. 

 

What to watch out for

  • Avoid including videos in your articles; they don’t perform well on LinkedIn.
  • Use a neutral tone and voice in your articles; users view neutral articles more and post more comments on them than ones that use positive or negative language.

Audience it attracts

  • 1.3 billion users, with 30 million visitors per day
  • 5 billion YouTube videos are watched every day
  • 62% of the users are male; 38% are female
  • Users by age: 18 to 24 — 11%, 25 to 34 — 23%, 35 to 44 — 26%, 45 to 54 — 16%, 55 to  64 — 8%, 65 or older — 3%, unknown age — 14%
  • 9% of U.S. small businesses use YouTube

 

Why it works

  • Top reasons for people watching YouTube videos: to help them fix something, for entertainment, to learn something new, to satisfy their curiosity and to help them solve a problem.
  • How-to videos get more attention on YouTube than any other category. 

 

How it can work for your FASC store

  • Create how-to videos of your packing and shipping expertise to show customers they can trust you to handle their items.
  • Insert your personality and those of your team members into the videos to make your store memorable.
  • Share videos of social engagements you do through your store, such as fundraising or community events.

 

Steps to take

  • Keep a regular schedule of your uploaded content.
  • Choose the right categories and tags so users can easily find your video.
  • Write descriptions for your videos that include keywords of what you’re demonstrating.
  • Use subtitles, not annotations.

 

What to watch out for

  • Posting only every so often will make users drift from your YouTube channel.
  • You can film people in a public setting and use the footage on YouTube without their consent. However, if you film them in a private setting or in a location where a person can reasonably expect privacy, you’ll need to obtain their permission to use the material in a video. 
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