When you just start your new business you might be thinking which social media to use for it. The answer is both simple and complex.

Simple answer – you should use those media that your potential clients are using.

The complexity here lies in the how to get that information. But whatever you’re going to launch it should necessarily include interviewing some of your potential customers, and that’s one of good questions to ask – which social media do they use, why, and what do they think of them. Even if you don’t have budgets for the massive quantitative survey, some interview will easily give you some framework to act on.

There also might be some other considerations, like what you can do and have budget to do on social media.

One of the first considerations is – which is your favorite. It might seem counterintuitive, since your customers don’t care about YOUR taste, rather you should care about THEIR preferences, but the social network that you use, especially if for long time, may give you some good results because you understand it. Go into some social network you only heard about, and it will be very difficult for you. But the one where you naturally ‘live’ may be good for your business as well, especially if you’re going to do social media managements yourselves.

Also, I’ll just share some helicopter view of mine on what social media you might use. Ok, it’s not a fully descriptive comparison, but rather things to have in mind:

• Facebook – I think it’s a must for everyone, as it is a world leading social network, you just can’t ignore it really, unless you’re in some unusual place on Earth, like Russia, where the leading network is by far VKontakte, then Odnoklassniki, and Facebook taking only somewhere about 15% of the market.
• Instagram – it’s probably number two, there are many statistics available online, like this one, and they have different data on who is the number 2. However, it’s a network with a twist – it is mainly for posting photos or live stories. And if your business doesn’t have so many graphics content, like you may be into accounting outsourcing, it might not really cut it for you. But remember from what we started – you’ve got to be there where your clients are. So if they’re there, you might need to invent something how to present your not so graphical business in the way that will go to Instagram.
• Twitter – this is one is also probably a must-have, many people use it, and it serves sometimes as online support channel, as many customers from known brand just ask their questions there and receive answers, so they may bring this behavior to your Twitter as well.
• YouTube – that’s for sharing video, and frankly if you don’t plan or can’t make a video at least once in a week, you shouldn’t put much hopes into it. It may be some hub for your how-tos or instructional videos if you have some, but if you really want your YouTube channel to grow you need to be prepared to shoot lots of videos.
• Pinterest – once again, graphics/photo oriented network, if you do not have such content, then probably there is nothing for you to do there, but if you have one, it might be worth going for it as the whole point of Pinterest is that other people repost your pictures to their own walls, organically spreading your content. Something totally not present in Instagram (and I think it hurts Instagram).
• LinkedIn – that’s b2b network basically – if that’s your market, welcome.

There other social networks as well (many!) but I don’t have much to say about the rest as my experience with them is either very limited or inexistent.