In today’s world, businesses need to know about different types of social media. Each kind of social media has its special way of helping your business. For example, Instagram is great for pictures, Twitter is good for quick updates, and LinkedIn helps with professional connections.
We’re going to talk about seven main types of social media and show you how they can help your business in easy ways, like making your marketing better and getting you closer to your customers.
1. Traditional social networking sites
Examples: Facebook, LinkedIn, X (formerly Twitter), Threads
Used for: talking directly with customers in specific areas, communities, or interest groups.
How your business can use them: Regular social sites are a great way to speak up and connect with your audience. These platforms let you share both words and pictures with anyone you want. They have features like making friends, planning events, and advertising.
Regular social sites also collect a lot of information about their users. This helps you make ads for certain groups and talk to the right people to share helpful information, tell about local events, or have contests.
You can also use these sites to talk directly to customers using messaging tools. It’s helpful for customers with quick questions. For example, in a Facebook Messenger business chat:
At the top, Facebook shows friends who liked the page. This community feature adds proof and helps build trust for potential customers.
2. Image-based social media
Examples: Instagram, Pinterest, Snapchat, and TikTok (photo mode)
Used for: sharing stories with pictures, building your brand, and social selling.
How your business can use them: Most picture-based social media platforms are great for selling stuff. They let you shop right inside the app, so you don’t have to send people to another website. You can sell things directly to your customers by setting up a strong in-app shop.
Instagram Shopping lets businesses create a store. You can point out specific products in your pictures and videos and showcase products in your profile bio.
Pinterest Shopping lets you link your store catalog and add shoppable links to search results. You’ll also get a Verified Merchant badge for customer trust.
Snapchat Store (currently in beta) allows brands with verified Snapchat Business profiles to upload a catalog and add a Shop tab to their profile.
If your business targets a younger audience, Snapchat is essential, reaching 90% of the 13–24-year-old population and 75% of the 13–34-year-old population in 20+ countries.
TikTok Photo Mode is like Instagram’s carousels. Users can add music to their images, and viewers can swipe or let them scroll automatically.
Your business can use this format to showcase products, announce sales or giveaways, or share longer stories.
3. Short-form video social media
Examples: Instagram Reels, TikTok, YouTube Shorts
Use them for: sharing quick videos (usually about 5 to 90 seconds long).
How it helps your business: These short videos are good for making people notice your brand and showing what your products do.
Why they’re good: They’re fast and easy to make and edit, perfect if you don’t have a big team for social media. Looking for ideas? Each platform always has new trends you can use for your next video.
Important tip: Make sure your videos are fun, teach something, or inspire people. If your video feels too much like a sales ad, people might not be interested.
4. Livestream social media
Examples: Facebook Live, Instagram Live, TikTok Live, Twitch, and YouTube
Use them for: showing live videos to many people at once.
How it helps your business: A lot of people started watching live videos during the pandemic. By the end of 2022, nearly 3 out of 10 people on the internet aged 16–64 were watching live streams every week.
You can use live streams to show new things you’re selling, chat with famous people, or answer questions live.
Live streams often have chats and polls where viewers can join in. It’s important to watch the comments and talk to people during your livestream. For more tips, check out our guide on how to do live streaming on social media.
5. Discussion forums
Examples: Reddit, Quora
Use them for: asking questions, giving answers, making friends, and creating groups about special interests.
How it helps your business: It’s not easy for companies to fit into these chat forums. People there often don’t like it when businesses talk too much about themselves in a place that’s more for regular chatting.
The best way to use these forums is to help your customers. Share your knowledge about what you know best, answer questions about your kind of business, listen to what people need, and give good advice.
It’s even better if you can talk about your brand and products in your answers, but don’t make that your main reason for being there.
Important tip: People on Reddit (called Redditors) don’t like it when you promote yourself too much. They might push down your posts, so they’re hard to find.
If you’re a business on these sites, always answer the question first. Only link to your products if they help with the question. Always check the rules of the group (like a subreddit on Reddit) before you post, especially if you want to link to your business.
For example, Microsoft didn’t make the /r/XboxOne group on Reddit, but when they saw many people there, they started talking with them by having question-and-answer sessions with game developers and offering tech support.
6. Private community platforms
Examples: Discord, Facebook Groups, Patreon, Slack
Use them for: making groups where you might ask people to sign up or do something first to join.
How it helps your business: Private groups are great for bringing people who like your business together. They can share ideas and help each other out without getting off-topic.
You can use your private group to talk with your customers, get them to make content for you, and do fun things like contests that are good for the group. You can also ask questions when people join to learn more about who likes your stuff.
The Sorry Girls, for example, started a paid online class and let people join a private Discord server. Having a private group like this lets you talk directly to your biggest fans.
When people ask to join the group, they need to answer a few questions like:
- What kind of Instant Pot do you own?
- How long have you been using an Instant Pot?
- How well can you use the Instant Pot?
- Do you promise not to advertise yourself, talk about other brands, use mean words, or bully?
These questions are an easy way for the Instant Pot team to learn more about the people who use their product. They use this information to make stuff that helps solve the problems their users have.
7. Decentralized social networks
Examples: Bluesky, Mastodon
Use for: making your brand known, chatting with your community, and keeping track of what’s being talked about.
How it helps your business: You can talk to people for community projects and have them help create content. It’s also good for learning what people want through listening.
Mastodon and other networks like it are different from usual social media. In regular social media, one company controls everything. But in networks like Mastodon, information is shared across many places, not just one. This means your information isn’t all in one place, and no single group controls it. People can join groups and chat across different places without their data being taken or blocked.
So, how can your business use Mastodon or Bluesky?
Mastodon doesn’t use ads and probably never will. Bluesky is only for certain people and also doesn’t use ads. But businesses still use them. They create communities, find out what people like, and get their brand known.
Know your audience
Before you start using a new social media website, think about something: Where are the people you want to talk to?
If you don’t have much time or money to spend, it’s a better idea to go where those people are already talking. Otherwise, you might join a new website and then need to get those people to come there.
Only use the websites that help you do what you want with your social media plan.
Create content tailored to the platform
After you’ve chosen the right platform for your audience, understand how they use it. Before you begin making content, think about these questions:
- What kind of content do they like?
- Which accounts do they follow?
- Do they just watch, or do they make their content too?
Knowing these things will help you create content that grabs their interest and helps you reach your goals.
Keep up-to-date with social media statistics
New social media websites are cool, that’s for sure. But before you dive in, make sure to check things out properly. You need to figure out if this new site is just something flashy for now or if it’s going to be important for a long time.
A good way to see if a platform will last is to look at its numbers and compare them to those of big social media sites. If you’re not sure where to find the latest stats, don’t worry; we can help you with that:
- Instagram Statistics
- Facebook Statistics
- Twitter Statistics
- YouTube Statistics
- Pinterest Statistics
- TikTok Statistics