When deciding on a social media marketing strategy it is important to look at exactly where your target market are spending their time online. Social media is a rapidly changing and evolving market with new networks springing up all the time and appealing to different demographics.
Market Share
A recent study by Adcorp looked at the top social media networks by usage in July 2013. Unsurprisingly, the results showed that Facebook was leading the charge closely followed by LinkedIn and Twitter. The study also blended in blogging networks but I have not included them here.
| Network | Estimated Users | Percentage of New Zealand’s Population |
| 2,600,000 | 58.14% | |
| YouTube | 2,499,372 | 55.89% |
| 606,632 | 13.57% | |
| 331,313 | 7.41% | |
| 251,830 | 5.63% | |
| 235,593 | 5.27% |
Demographics
Once you know which networks to focus on by size, it is good to drill down and look at the demographics of each network to ensure that the majority of your time and budget is spent in the right way.
- Facebook – used by a huge range of New Zealanders with a skew to females aged 18-29. As an advertising platform, Facebook allows very precise demographic targeting.
- YouTube – the top video network worldwide is considered to be dominated by a young demographic, however the base age is is actually 18-54 year olds. Like Facebook, YouTube also allows demographic targeting for all advertising.
- LinkedIn – known as the ‘professionals network, LinkedIn’ is the network of choice for educated professionals with higher than average incomes. Most popular with males aged 25-54.
- Twitter – currently dominated by young adults in the 18-29 age range with a female skew. Users seek real time interaction and news and are not as concerned about privacy as users of other networks. Celebrities are big users of Twitter.
- Pinterest – a scrapbooking, pinboard style photo sharing network. Is the most skewed network in terms of gender with females aged 35 and older the most frequent users of the site, with some reports suggesting up to 80% of users are female.
- Instagram – a photo sharing network which is predominantly used on mobile devices, therefore the demographic that use Instagram are the same demographic that owns smartphones, generally younger consumers under the age of 34.
Once you have identified which networks your business should be involved in, you then need to formulate a social media strategy. It is best to keep ROI goals for social media focused on the short term as its fast moving nature means that popular networks may soon face the same fate as Myspace or BeBo. After you have your strategy sorted, all that is left is to implement it and track the results and return for your time.
