Do you use Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, or TikTok? If you do, you should notice that the posts, audiences, and the format of these sites may vary slightly or may be totally different. In this post we will go through the differences of each platform and the best practices that can be implemented for each channel. Please note that these best practices are always changing and individuals should continuously be checking up with social media sites to keep up with this moving target.
Do you a social media planner in order to post consistent content across different platforms? This may potentially be a big mistake as different channels have different grading rubrics for posts and ads. What may be acceptable on one platform, may not be the best practices on another. For example, Facebook and Instagram highly recommend making the pictures in ads as close to organic content as possible with minimal embedded text and no branding elements within the image compared to Pinterest who highly recommends that these elements be included in every post.
Let’s start with Facebook. Facebook is a well-established platform that promotes posts about friends and family, their demographics reflect the US population as a whole with 69% of the adult US population present on the site. Their recommendations according to their Facebook Business page include using an eye-catching photo with no branding or call to actions on it to make it look as close to organic content as possible. The branding and company name should be in the header of the post as it would in organic content. The title of the post should be relevant to the image and potentially call out the features and functions of the product or service. The call to action and additional information should go below the image inside the body of the post. This way the photo is not too busy and all the information that would be present in the photo as a flyer are already present elsewhere within the post. Below, Figure 1, is a screenshot from Facebook Business about the post requirements. You can click through to see an example of what their systems think an “A” is as well.
Figure 1
Instagram is a mobile-first platform that is owned by Facebook, and since has been going through a transformation to sync certain features across Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. They also promote friends and family and appeals more to the 18–29-year-old demographic than other age groups with 40% of the US adult population present on the application. Instagram also appears to be adopting very similar best practices to Facebook, which shouldn’t be surprising as they are owned by the same company. Instagram is also recommending that posts and ads by companies look as close to organic content as possible. This includes publishing an image that is creative and captivating with less than 20% text embedded in the image and no calls to action or branding whatsoever within the image. The current requirements for Instagram posts are available in the snapshot below, Figure 2. If you would like to see what Instagram’s systems consider an “A”, please follow the link below the image and you will see an example of what Instagram’s algorithm is looking for.
Figure 2
These organic-looking posts are more captivating and keeps the audience in the frame of mind that they are observing organic content making it more likely that they will stop scrolling and really take in the ad or post. They may potentially become emotionally invested in the post as well before realizing the brand in the header and a call to action in the body, which is the response that us marketers are looking for. It isn’t after they stop scrolling that they may realize that the post is actually an advertisement for a product or service leading to a more impactful ad and more conversions. It also contributes to the flow of the website as users have been conditioned to interact with these platforms in specific ways it is better to adapt to the other content and blend in (to a certain extent).
Besides Facebook and Instagram, there is Pinterest with 31% of US adults using the platform. Pinterest promotes posts that share new ideas and creations as they are positioned as a “visual discovery engine”. Their demographic audience is mostly made up of women (over 70%), and the average age of user is in their 40’s with 80% of US mothers who use the internet use Pinterest. It should also be noted that over 50% of Pinterest users live outside the USA.
Pinterest has slightly different rules when it comes to posting, so using the same post from Facebook and Instagram may not get marketers the results they’re looking for on this platform. Pinterest highly recommends starting out with a vertical image that matches the ratios of their platform (2:3) and unlike Facebook and Instagram, highly encourages users to include a brand logo (not in the bottom right corner), a title, a link, and some body text that all work together all within the image of the pin. This means that images that are curated for Facebook and Instagram will not be as favorably viewed by Pinterest’s system.
Figure 3
Next, we have Twitter with 23% of US adults being active on the platform. Twitter’s mission statement is to “give everyone the power to create and share ideas and information instantly without barriers”. Their audience mostly consists of individuals between the ages of 18 and 29 (42%) and is almost equally enjoyed by men (25%) and women (22%) alike.
Twitter has a character limit of 280, which was doubled from its original 140. Twitter seems to have a similar approach to preferred ads and posts as Facebook and Instagram does. The examples they are using on Twitter Business lack the traditional flyer elements as these elements have migrated elsewhere within the ad or post. They also specifically encourage emoji use in their posts, which is interesting as some other platforms (Reddit) see it as inappropriate. To see examples of what Twitter considers an “A”, please follow the links below Figure 4 and Figure 5.
Figure 4
Figure 5
Finally, we have TikTok which is extremely popular among teens (32.5%) and individuals in their 20’s (29.5%). TikTok does not notify their users what their best practices are or how their algorithm works, leading to lots of speculations and conspiracies around how their systems work. One of the speculations circling is that the application highly promotes attractive individuals and demotes content from creators it deems as less attractive. Their website essentially says to do continuous A/B testing, uploading content continuously, and to start with drastically different creatives before testing. For more information on best practices directly from TikTok please follow the link here: https://ads.tiktok.com/help/article?aid=11953.
Something interesting to check out is their program ACO (Automated Creative Optimization) that has the capability of merging multiple creative pictures together to “optimize” the post. You can learn more about this software here: https://ads.tiktok.com/help/article?aid=9529.
These are just the very basics of these platforms’ demographics and best practices. Social media best practices are constantly changing and must be monitored closely and periodically to ensure best practices are continuously being implemented.
Thank you for taking the time to join me on this journey, please like and subscribe if you like the content. If you would like to learn more about this topic, please follow the links provided below. If you have any questions or comments, please share them in the comments section as I would love to hear from you!
Links:
Ich weiß, wie wichtig es ist, auf dem neuesten Stand zu bleiben, wenn es um Geschäftstrends geht. Dieser Artikel ist nicht nur informativ, sondern auch https://www.maxatomstrom.de eine unterhaltsame Lektüre, die Ihnen dabei helfen kann, sich nach einem harten Arbeitstag zu entspannen.