Which Social Media Platform is Best for Influencer Marketing?

Wondering which social media platform is best for influencer marketing?

You are probably no stranger to influencer marketing if you’re here.

You have probably seen some of the statistics that prove the power of influencer marketing, and maybe, you’ve even run your very own influencer marketing campaign.

Influencer marketing has skyrocketed in popularity because today, virtually everyone has a voice and can build their influence with the help of social media. This is something that just wasn’t possible before the internet and social media.

Okay, so social media is the secret ingredient that has enabled the influencer marketing market and that it has increased in popularity, but the statistics only prove that leveraging influential individuals on social media to mediate and promote your brand’s message is effective.

But they don’t tell us anything about which social media platform you should use.

Because as you probably know, there are a whole lot of social platforms out there.

But which social media platform is best for influencer marketing?

That’s exactly what we’ll look at in this article.

Which social media platform is best for influencer marketing?

When I was contemplating on what I should write on for this week’s post, this topic eventually came to mind, and when I researched it, I was surprised at how many people ask this question, but at the same time, how few answers there are to it.

And since I am here to help and to serve you, I took it upon myself to answer this question once and for all.

If I am going to answer truthfully, the real answers to the question “which social media platform is best for influencer marketing?” is that it depends.

And I know, that’s a boring answer, but I won’t just leave you at that, though.

Understand the differences between social media platforms

There might be a lot of social media platforms to choose from when creating your influencer marketing campaign, but not all social media platforms are created equal, though.

First off, we need to know the reason why there are different social media platforms in the first place.

And the main reason is that they all serve different purposes. YouTube is a platform which is focused solely on video, Instagram is a platform mainly focused on images, but also supports video content, and Snapchat is a platform which supports all types of content but has a special main feature which is that the snaps that are sent disappear.

Obviously, this is an important factor you want to think about, because depending on what content you wish to use in your influencer campaign, you’ll probably exclude a few platforms, and thus decrease the number of possible social media platforms.

For example, if I plan on running a video advertising campaign where I ask the influencer to create the video and have them promote it, I obviously want to use social media platforms that are focused on video, and where my influencer has a strong presence, and that would probably leave me with YouTube as the most obvious choice.

Another thing you want to consider is how the content creation process will go down. The most common influencer marketing campaign is set up in the way that the influencer creates the content in their very own style, then promote it on their social media platform(s) – depending on your agreement, and showcase it to their audience.

And since the influencer is the one that is creating the content, you want to think about (and ask) what type of content the influencer is best at creating. And this is a little dependent on what you plan on doing. Either you can find an influencer that resonates with you, and then ask them what content they’re best at creating, or, you can look for influencers on a particular platform, and then have them create the same type of content they are creating there. In other words, it depends on which end you start from.

For instance, if I partner with a famous YouTube influencer, it’s quite obvious that video content is their game, so, therefore, I shouldn’t ask them to create any other type of content. Moreover, since YouTube is where they have the strongest platform, then that’s where the campaign should be run.

So either you can look for influencers on a particular platform (if you’ve identified which platform you want to use), or, you can look for influencers that you believe resonate with your brand and then have them promote you on the platform they’re most active on, or, you can decide on what type of content you want to use in your influencer marketing  and then choose influencers on platforms that focus on that type of content.

The user demographics of social media platforms

Another greatly important thing you want to think about when defining which social media platform is best for influencer marketing for you is this: Is the user base and demographics of the platform closely aligned with your target audience? The purpose of this question is to answer “Will you even be able to reach your target audience on the platform?”

Your goal with influencer marketing is to reach people from your target audience, and do so by leveraging the words of a trusted influencer to better convey your message, but if the individuals that influencer reaches couldn’t care less about your brand, and aren’t within your target audience, then what good will it do for your brand?

Your goal is to reach your target audience, so therefore, you want to think about the demographics of the social media platform which you’re running your campaign on.

Take Pinterest as an example.

There are a number of influencers on Pinterest that you can leverage who have tons of followers and have built a huge audience. And on paper, it might look amazing, you’re able to reach all of these people with the help of this influencer. But are those people really relevant to your brand?

Well, Pinterest is a social media platform that is notoriously known for having a user base which consists mainly of women. So let’s say you are a brand which sells underwear for men, Pinterest might not be the ideal choice.

Of course, just because the majority of Pinterest’s user base consists of women doesn’t mean you can’t generate great results if you are targeting men, however, it would mean that generally, more women would see the promotion, and these are individuals who aren’t in your target audience and thus not relevant to you. And if you are targeting wrong, and running your influencer marketing campaign on a social media platform where your target audience is nowhere to be found, it would mean that you’d end up with potentially high numbers, such as numbers of views and likes, but when you look at the actual marketing benefits, where the end goal is sales, then it will probably be a completely different story.

This is why the single most important thing when deciding which social media platform is best for influencer marketing for you, is that you know what it is about, which content it is focused on, and what demographics it has.

Now, it also depends on what your goals are, of course. Vanity metrics such as likes and views can be a good indication of engagement and how much people cared about the content/campaign, but at the same time, it’s also important that the people you reach are actually relevant to you.

With so many social media platforms to choose from, it can feel like an impossible task to narrow them down. Of course, most marketers just turn to the most popular social media platforms, and while this can be a good idea, in marketing, basing your decisions on actual data is key.

Define your goals

Another factor you want to consider when thinking about which social media platform to run your influencer marketing campaign on is your objectives with your influencer campaign.

Because the different social media platforms are not equally good at driving results within the same objectives.

For brands, Snapchat and Instagram Stories are among the best places and platforms to use if your goal is to bring your brand closer to your audience, make it more transparent, authentic and human, but for driving sales short term, Facebook has proven to be a great platform for that.

This is why it’s important that you’ve defined your goals with your influencer marketing campaign before you jump into anything. Because based on the goals you’ve set, you want to select social media platforms that are great for helping you achieve those goals.

When you know these things, you can probably identify the platform(s) which are most relevant to you in your influencer marketing campaigns. Because which social media platform you should choose for your influencer marketing campaign isn’t solely dependent on one factor, as you can see, but more so, it’s dependent on a ton of factors that, when considered, help you make a wise decision.

It’s clear that an understanding of the social media platforms are tremendously important because all of the things I’ve mentioned above are dependent on you understanding the different social media platforms – from different aspects.

Therefore, we’ll go through the most popular social media platforms and explain shortly what makes them unique, and when they might be good for you to use in your influencer marketing.

Because there are hundreds and hundreds of social media platforms out there, I won’t be listing them all, but the most common ones because after all, those are the platforms which most of you will use.

Explaining the different social media platforms

When influencers were asked in a study in 2016 which social media platform they thought was the best social media platform for influencer marketing, the majority of them (32%) responded Facebook, and 24 percent answering Instagram.

Source: eMarketerAnd that’s not too strange either, because first of all, Facebook is the single largest social media platform in the world, Instagram is one of the largest social media platforms in the world, and secondly, most influencers use photo and video content when they promote brands, and Instagram and Facebook are two platforms that support those content types.