How many social media sites does your brand use?

"Social media presents a unique (not to mention free) way to promote your brand and communicate with consumers directly."

And with each platform appealing to different demographics, it's no wonder then that most companies spread their efforts and operate on a number of social media sites so they can get their name out to a wider audience. 

Multi-social marketing is the norm

According to Brafton, it's the minority rather than the majority who only operate on a handful of social media sites – 1.2 per cent of businesses use less than three platforms and around four per cent have profiles on three or four.

This is compared to 16 per cent of brands that promote their product or service across six social media sites and 18 per cent of businesses which actively use around seven different social platforms.

Twitter is all-encompassing

While there are lots of social media sites out there, there's no doubt that some are more powerful than others – Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Vine and Pinterest, for example, are all used by most major brands.

Twitter, however, is one of the few social media sites that appears to be age neutral, according to the Pew Internet & American Life Project. It showed that the micro-blogging platform is rapidly gaining users of all ages – the 65+ age group increased by five per cent between December 2012 and May this year. At the same time, those aged 50 to 64 rose by 13 per cent.

On top of this, Twitter is also non-partisan – with a roughly equal number of males and females taking to the site, 18 per cent of all male internet users have a presence on Twitter and 17 per cent of female internet users.

This makes Twitter an indispensable way for marketers to target a broad demographic with their social media strategy.