With over 30 social media platforms that have more than 100 million active users per month, it’s easy to get overwhelmed when setting up your business on social media. In this article we’ll go over the merits of each platform and outline how small businesses can benefit from using them.
Key takeaways
- TikTok is best for reaching new audiences
- Reddit is best for targeting niche audiences and conducting market research
- Facebook is best for reaching local groups
- LinkedIn can broaden your professional network
- Paid social media can boost your sales – if done correctly
Using social media as a business
Social media is pretty pervasive nowadays, with an estimated 54.8 million users across the UK (nearly 80% of the population). On average, people spend over two hours a day on social media, meaning there’s a huge number of potential customers that you can tap into. On top of that, most people use at least three social media platforms.
But knowing how social media works as a user is very different from using it as a business. While you can set your profile to private as an individual, as a business you’ll need to make it public, meaning whatever you do can be seen by everyone.
Here are some tips for running your business’ social media channels:
- Once you create a profile(s) and start posting you’ll need to keep doing this regularly to keep gaining new followers.
- A good social media strategy plans at least one month’s content in advance (with some wiggle room for anything that crops up unexpectedly) and repurposes content relative to each platform.
- Exhaust opportunities for organic growth before you consider paid social media ads.
The best social media platforms for businesses
TikTok
TikTok is one of the most popular social media platforms in the UK, with approximately 26.8 million users, the majority of which are Gen Z and Millennials. The platform is predominantly video-based, known for fast-paced, engaging videos although recently there has been a shift to longer videos akin to YouTube clips.
What content works on TikTok?
TikTok is predominantly video-based, known for fast-paced, engaging videos although recently there has been a shift to longer videos akin to YouTube clips. You can post still pictures but these need to be in pairs (at the very least) and accompanied by trending audio to get a high number of views.
How easy is TikTok to use?
If you are an experienced video editor (or someone in your business is), TikTok is pretty easy to use. Content that could be posted on Instagram usually works well on TikTok, including photos – just make sure to accompany this with trending audio.
Keep on top of trends (audio, hashtags and video style) and you’ll have a greater chance of your content reaching beyond your followers.
A useful tool is to search ‘creators sight insights’ in TikTok then click on Content Gap. This will show you what people are searching for and not finding relevant content. When I did this on 20 May 2026, ‘you didn’t see anything madagascar’ [sic] had 192,000 searches globally over the last 7 days. This is a reference to a popular meme and indicates that if you produce something using this meme’s audio/visual, you will tap into a trending topic. (Just be aware of copyright laws).
What is TikTok best used for?
If you are looking to improve your reach and brand awareness, TikTok is a great platform to boost your impressions (i.e. the number of times a video is shown). Many businesses have gone viral via TikTok, such as cafés, bars, bakeries and even bookshops, getting millions of views and queues outside their shop.
However, converting views and likes into leads or sales can be tricky, particularly if your business doesn’t sell merchandise online.
If you do, you should create a merchandise shop on TikTok Shop and drive traffic towards through links in your bio or branded hashtags.
Analytics
TikTok Studio has an analytics dashboard that allows you to view key metrics from the past 7 days, 28 days, 60 days and 365 days (as well as a custom date range option). These metrics include:
- Post views
- Profile views
- Likes
- Comments
- Shares
- Traffic source
- Search queries
- Followers
Paid advertising solutions
TikTok for Business is a great advertising tool for UK small businesses, particularly cafes, bars and retail shops. You can easily set up campaigns, whether that’s to generate leads, increase sales or accumulate more impressions as part of a brand awareness campaign.
Right now, you can receive additional ad credit relative to your spend using our link below:
- Spend $200 → get an additional $200 (£150) back in ad credit
- Spend $500 → get an additional $500 (£370) back in ad credit
- Spend $1,500 → get an additional $1,000 (£745) back in ad credit
Sign up to TikTok for Business
Facebook isn’t what it once was in its heyday but it’s still an incredibly useful tool for most small businesses. Now, Facebook has shifted towards community, local discovery and marketplace, making it ideal for businesses looking to generate local leads and sales.
What content works on Facebook?
Facebook has three types of content that can be uploaded:
- Posts (static images)
- Reels (videos)
- Stories (images/videos up to 60 seconds that will remain live for 24 hours)
Posts are best to share updates on your business (such as closing hours or a special offer). Reels are good to boost engagement and show your fun creative side, while stories give an interactive experience for your followers.
How easy is Facebook to use?
Facebook is very easy to use if you are not social media-savvy. Unlike Instagram, which requires high-quality photographs or well-edited reels to stand a chance of success, you can post a quick text update or amateur-looking photograph with an accompanying caption and likely do well.
What is Facebook best used for?
Alongside providing updates on your business, such as sales, new items, opening hours or general activities, Facebook allows your business to engage local communities via groups.
Most towns and villages have a Facebook group set up for local residents to make announcements and updates. If it is permitted by the group’s moderator, you can post about your services in the group (usually an image + accompanying text is the best format).
There are also small business groups in local areas that you can join, although this is more useful for Business-to-Business (B2B) rather than Business-to-Consumer (B2C) sales.
Analytics
Meta Business Suite isn’t the easiest dashboard to navigate but it provides key metrics for your content and insights. These include:
- Views
- Interactions
- Visits
- Follows
- Link clicks
- Audience demographics
Paid advertising solutions
Meta Ads is a simple tool to advertise to Facebook users. Ads will appear on their feed and/or in Messenger in display ads (video or static) with a call to action at the bottom of the image (such as ‘learn more’). Once you’ve decided the ad’s objectives, who you want to target, and uploaded the assets and set your budget, your ads will be entered into an auction.
These auctions aren’t decided just by who bids the most. Ads that perform best in auction have nailed the right objective, targeting, have a sufficient budget, their duration and the quality of the creative assets.
Part of the Meta group with Facebook and WhatsApp, Instagram is one of the most popular social media platforms for businesses right now after most Millennials migrated from Facebook to Instagram in the late-2010s. It has approximately 35.5 million users in the UK and is heavily used by Gen Z and Millennials.
What content works on Instagram?
Like Facebook, Instagram has three types of content that can be uploaded:
- Posts (static images)
- Reels (videos)
- Stories (images/videos up to 60 seconds that will remain live for 24 hours)
Posts are best used for business updates/aesthetically pleasing images, whether that’s a dish served by your café or a grid banner of your logo.
Reels are the most popular element of Instagram, with users resharing memes and funny videos, as well as interview clips. This is the most common way that a profile can go viral, although using green screen material from films/TV shows to make users laugh can risk future copyright infringement.
Stories are great to build engagement with your followers (such as polls or ‘Ask me anything’) and provide daily updates of a more relaxed nature.
How easy is Instagram to use?
It’s very easy to upload new content and create an engaging experience for your followers while attracting new followers.
Make sure your business’ profile is active on the platform (liking and commenting relevant posts in your field) to appear in other users’ feeds.
What is Instagram best used for?
Instagram is best used to increase brand awareness and expand your reach. It’s also a good tool to show you’re active and trading, as well as to give a sense of your brand’s personality.
However, converting views into leads or sales can be difficult. You may find if you’ve gone viral that a lot of your views are from across the world which, while incredible to think that your business has reached someone thousands of miles away, isn’t particularly useful if your business needs walk-in traffic to generate revenue.
Analytics
Instagram’s analytics is run through Meta Business Suite, which isn’t the easiest dashboard to navigate. It provides key metrics for your content and insights, including:
- Views
- Interactions
- Visits
- Follows
- Link clicks
- Audience demographics
Paid advertising opportunities
There are 8 types of ads available on Instagram:
- Image ads
- Feed video ads
- Carousel ads
- Story ads
- Collection ads
- Explore ads
- Shopping ads
- Reel ads
As with advertising on Facebook, ads on Instagram are run via Meta Ads.
Reddit has surged in popularity in recent years, overtaking TikTok this year as the fourth most popular social media platform in the UK although many businesses don’t appreciate the value of Reddit as part of their digital marketing.
What content works on Reddit?
Most posts on Reddit are either a photo or a text post and it’s important to be authentic with your post. Don’t be overly salesy and don’t worry if the picture isn’t the most polished (as long as it’s not too pixelated).
However, many businesses will benefit from not posting on Reddit and instead “lurking”. This is because Reddit gives business owners a fantastic opportunity to learn what their audience likes, what they dislike and any frustrations or feedback they have which could present an opportunity to improve.
What is Reddit best used for?
Alongside researching the market and finding out what people are saying about your product/business or the general marketplace, Reddit is great to improve your SEO and for targeting hard-to-reach audiences.
Due to a recent deal between Reddit and Google, Google has access to Reddit’s user-generated content to improve its AI learning. This means that Google Search results often place a Reddit thread high in rankings for a relevant query. If your product or business is cited in the post or a high-ranking comment, your business will reach far beyond Reddit users.
However, achieving this is easier said than done.
Reddit users value authenticity, and manufacturing a high-ranking SEO thread or comment is likely to backfire on you. Instead, comment on posts that you can offer genuine advice or experience on to build your ‘karma’. This will allow you to post in more groups (known as subreddits).
Small businesses should join nearby cities’ subreddits and also any related subreddits (e.g. if you are a café some suggestions would be r/cafe, r/coffee, r/Hospitality and r/smallbusinessuk).
Analytics
Reddit analytics is only available via Reddit Ads and used to track campaign performances. You can track clicks, impressions, the click-through rate, cost per click, conversions, cost per acquisition, return on ad spend (ROAS), video completion rate.
Paid advertising opportunities
If you want to reach a wide audience and target niche audiences without having to build up an organic profile, Reddit Ads allows you to cultivate your ideal audience through keywords and selecting communities.
You can choose different ad types, including
- Promoted posts
- Display ads (banner)
- Video ads
- Carousel ads
- Text ads – great for impressions
If you’d like to target hard-to-reach customers and niche communities, sign up to Reddit Ads today.
LinkedIn is mainly used by job searchers or those looking to expand their professional network, with most LinkedIn users never posting and only liking posts according to a YouGov study.
Small businesses may find that LinkedIn is not an ideal platform for them unless they can find a way to tap into – or lightly mock – LinkedIn culture as it is not geared towards B2C sales.
What content works on LinkedIn?
LinkedIn posts that celebrate achievements and milestones – or those that lightly poke fun of LinkedIn culture – tend to do well. Insightful article-style posts or commentaries on leadership techniques are also popular.
Clips of podcast interviews can also receive high engagement levels.
How easy is LinkedIn to use?
LinkedIn is very easy to use. As long as you can write copy for posts and take photographs at events, you’ll be able to post regularly on the platform.
What is LinkedIn best used for?
LinkedIn is best for connecting with other business owners in your sector and for giving updates on your business, such as attending conferences/workshops or participating in charity events. It is not the best platform to connect to prospective customers, but instead B2B leads.
Analytics
In LinkedIn’s analytics dashboard you can track how your content performs, how many visitors are coming to your profile, your follower metrics and your search appearances.
Paid advertising opportunities
LinkedIn Ads is a self-serve advertising solution where you can control the bid, budget and schedule. Their forecasting tool estimates a campaign performance in real time and allows you to select various campaign details like audience size and ad format.
Your ad’s cost is determined using an ad auction where you can place a bid to show your brand’s ads to LinkedIn members when they visit the platform. LinkedIn recommends that new advertisers start with $25 (£18.50) for a new campaign.
YouTube
YouTube is an online video sharing platform that many businesses use to publish how-to-guides, documentaries, podcasts and commentaries on relevant news topics.
Videos can be as short as 15 to 30 seconds long (known as Shorts) or be an hour-long.
Right now, YouTube is seen as an alternative to TV shows. Channels dedicated to hobbies not given much airtime in mainstream media do very well on YouTube, as do podcasts and documentaries. How-to-guides or reviews are also popular as people turn to YouTube for educational purposes.
What content works on YouTube?
For most small businesses (excluding those directly involved in media), YouTube is best used to create informative videos based on your expertise or talents. Examples include:
- Estate agent and what to look for when buying a house
- Hairdresser and how to become a hairdresser
- Beekeeper and a day in the life of a beekeeper
- Café and how to make the best bacon sandwich
If these videos are embedded into your website on blogs, article pages or the landing page this will improve your website’s search engine optimisation (SEO).
How easy is YouTube to use?
YouTube is one of the most difficult social media platforms to get right.
Users now expect high-quality videos with captivating thumbnails. You’ll need to have good video editing skills as well as a decent recording setup, including a microphone, camera, set and whatever props you might need. If you’re camera-shy, you’ll need someone who’s comfortable and confident in front of a camera.
On top of all that, to get a decent number of views you’ll need to post at least once a week.
You’ll probably have heard that you can make money on YouTube with ads running on your videos. This is called monetisation and is one of the ways influencers generate revenue on YouTube. However, to qualify for monetisation your channel needs:
- At least 1,000 subscribers
- 4,000 valid public watch hours in the last 12 months, or
- 10 million valid public Shorts views in the last 90 days
What is YouTube best used for?
YouTube is best used to create dynamic videos that showcase your business’ talents and/or expertise.
Many businesses post client testimonials or interviews of the senior leadership team on YouTube, although this is unlikely to generate a lot of views unless you do something outside the box.
Analytics
YouTube Studio allows you to see how your channel is performing, from the watch time (in hours), how many subscribers you’ve gained or lost, your top content across a time period and the breakdown of your audience (new viewers, casual viewers, regular viewers).
Paid advertising opportunities
You can create two types of adverts on YouTube for Business:
- YouTube Ads
- Shorts Ads
Although a static image can work as an advert (put into a 5 second video) typically adverts that incorporate video and music are more memorable.
Which social media platform is right for me?
Depending on your business, certain social media platforms might be more suited to you. If you run a café or restaurant, for instance, LinkedIn might not be that useful for you. Conversely, unless you’re going to be producing short snippets of advice as a consultant or mortgage advisor, TikTok or YouTube might not be needed.
Generally speaking, the following social media platforms should be viewed as essential:
- Facebook (to target local groups)
- Instagram (to improve reach with reels and engagement with posts and stories)
- Reddit (to learn about your audience)
TikTok can also work really well to showcase your business’ fun side, but it does require a bit of work and effort.
Of course, there’s always X (formerly known as Twitter). The platform isn’t as popular as it used to be, and has faced criticism over its use of AI-generated images and a high number of bot profiles, but it can still be a useful resource for businesses.
Want to learn more about social media for your business?
