Social media, love it or hate it, there’s no denying it is a hugely important communication tool. It’s something we’re involved with every day, whether posting our own messaging or creating content for our clients.
But how much do our clients use social media themselves? What do they find most engaging? And could the answers to these questions help us understand what kinds of content we should be building moving forward? We wanted answers and so launched a survey, asking these questions and more to our very lovely and helpful clients.
How much do our clients use social media?
A lot! Close to three-quarters of the people we spoke to (73%) told us they access social media every day. Many of these told us they looked at social media multiple times a day. The remainder use social media two to three times a week or less.
Interestingly this figure corresponds with research by Statista which also reported 73% of Brits access social media every day. This is helpful because it shows us that our clients are a good reflection of wider society and can give us useful insights into social media preferences.
We also asked which days they access social media. There was no clear pattern here. For 40% it was every day, 40% weekdays only and the remainder had no set day.
Which platforms do our clients prefer?
The platform our customers used most often was LinkedIn, followed by Instagram. 29% reported posting or viewing content on LinkedIn and 23% on Instagram.
When we asked about other platforms, the numbers dropped off quite significantly. We’re not saying there was a tumbleweed moment exactly, but just 16% of our survey respondents said they used Twitter/X and even fewer used Facebook (13%) and TikTok (10%). The remaining platforms we asked about, SnapChat, BeReal and WeChat, were used by just 3% of our survey respondents. For our survey group at least, we can say that these are statistically insignificant.
A standout result happened when we asked what type of device people used to access social media. 75% use their phones, with the remaining 25% preferring to use their desktops.
What are our clients doing on social media?
We decided to dig deeper and asked what content they found most engaging. There was a clear winner here: video. 31% told us they found video content most engaging followed by short clear narratives reported by 23% of our survey participants. Only 8% told us they found other content options engaging, including case studies, news and events.
Video was preferred when we offered several types of content. So, we wanted to test this further and asked them to choose between two options: video or static content. These results were closer. Video won again, but only just with a 55% / 45% split.
We also wanted to find out what kind of content people were interested in. We initially divided this into a hard choice, educational content or entertaining. But then we relented and said they could choose either or both. The vast majority (70%) went for both.
What can we learn from this?
These survey results give us really valuable information (thanks everyone who responded!) The key takeaway is that vast numbers of people do engage with social media, and it can be an incredibly powerful communications and marketing tool.
We learned that if you plan to use it to communicate with customers, delegates, prospects or colleagues, you will gain most traction if you can make the content both informative and entertaining. A large percentage of people love watching video content on social media, but many also like short clear narratives too. And finally, among our survey respondents at least, the most favoured platforms are LinkedIn and Instagram.
So, what are you waiting for? Get out there and start communicating!
