The Best Social Media Platforms to Sell More in Your Online Store

Social media is more than posting your latest products. It is a way to build brand awareness, advertise to your target market, & engage in conversations. It’s also a way to make some serious money for your online store. 

Before you decide to launch a social media campaign to sell more products, take a look at your demographics. Each platform is unique, & you won’t necessarily find the majority of your demographic on your favorite channel. To help narrow it all down, we’ve put together some stats for you to get started, but it’s also wise to see if your competitors are already on the platform you’re looking to ramp up on.

Are your competitors already on that platform with a strong, engaged audience or running ads? If the answer is yes, you already know your ideal customers are there too. The next step is choosing one or two platforms to build up your presence & following. Stretching yourself too thin will likely just exhaust you & dilute your efforts. Lead with the strongest platforms, & don’t worry about the rest.

Turn to TikTok for Gen Z

Roughly  49% of Gen Z’ers ages 18 to 24 are consuming & creating content on Tiktok, making it an ideal social media platform if you’re targeting college students, recent grads, & young adults getting started in their careers. TikTok videos tend to be short & entertaining, often set to fun music. Selling your products as if you’re shooting an infomercial may not be your best bet. Instead, incorporate your products into a skit or give insights about how they’re best used. For example, your  hoodies designed with city map art are perfect for the wanderlust traveler. Speak to them directly & share your own travel stories. 

Use Facebook for Millennials to Boomers

Facebook’s (or Meta’s) primary demographic is the  25- to 34-year-old age group, although some of their audience also includes a strong Gen X & Boomer audience. You can also run Facebook ads to target lookalike audiences of your competitors or people who enjoy specific hobbies, like hiking in Utah. The more you can narrow down who your audience is & grab their attention, the easier it is to sell your products.

 

There are so many unique ways to use Facebook, like creating a page relating to your products. A page for your online store isn’t a bad idea, but catering to your audience’s interests will help you gain more traction. If you love selling customizable housewares to city dwellers, create a page with those interests in mind. 

The great part about POD is that you can mix things up & test new ideas that suit your target market. Use your Facebook presence as a way to gather feedback on design ideas. Once you find a winner, upload it to your CustomCat library, apply it to your favorite products, & we’ll do the rest. When someone clicks & is busy, we’ll get busy producing, fulfilling, & shipping it so you can focus on growing your social media audience. 

Learn how to  get started with CustomCat here to supercharge your online store.

Tap Pinterest for Gen Z & Millennials

Research shows that Gen Z floods the Pinterest Platform more than other demographics. They’re also more likely to try new products & faster to adopt them than other generations. Pinterest is also an ideal place to curate photos of all of your products without the need for so much audience interaction. Remember, Pinterest essentially serves as a visual search engine to discover new places, products, & ideas.

Try YouTube for Gen Alpha to Gen Z

Do you cater to kids & their parents? Gen Alpha (or the kids group) & Gen Z are more likely to be on YouTube than other generations. Of course, there are plenty of other audiences on YouTube, but you’ll find your kiddos & teen audience hanging out there. 

Of course, you’ll need to tread lightly when marketing to kids & YouTube & follow the rules of marking your videos for kids & keeping it all clean. But there are tons of YouTubers killing it in this space with toy videos, funny skits, education, & more. Your angle might be about teaching kids to draw while promoting T-Shirts with those designs in your online store. 

Snag Instagram’s Gen Z & Millennial Crowd

Gen Z is more likely to be on TikTok than the ‘Gram, but Instagram is still a strong contender. You’ll also find the Millennial crowd browsing the platform in their free time. Storytelling is reigns on Instagram, where content tells a story with stunning images & videos.

Make sure you do more than post glamor shots of your favorite products. Giving your audience a sneak peek at what you’re working on, your travels, & scenes from around your town helps forge a connection with potential customers. 

Try Twitter for Millennials

The majority of Twitter users are younger millennials up to Gen X. Research shows that  59.2% of users are between 25 & 49 years old. The goal on Twitter is to get the tone right. If your audience is made up of intelligent, hard-working parents who love a snarky joke on Twitter, give them more of what they want.

Strike up a conversation, respond to other people’s Tweets, & test out your favorite products. You might stumble across a goldmine simply by saying something funny that your audience responds to. It could be time to put it on a collection of hats & start selling them with a profile link to your ecommerce store.

Leverage LinkedIn for Millennials & Gen X

Ecommerce sellers don’t always keep LinkedIn on the top of their minds when exploring social media profiles, but there’s tons of potential here. Research shows that  31% of LinkedIn users are millennials ages 30 to 39 & another 23% are Gen Xers at 40 to 49.

The goal is to remember why LinkedIn users are there in the first place. They’re looking to connect all things career & business. Make sure your content & tone align accordingly to attract the right crowd to your products. Depending on who your audience is, think of matching busy professionals who are always on the go with  micro-mesh polo shirts that breathe when they move.

When to Throw Out the Social Media Demographic Rules

Now that we’ve explored a rundown of some of the most popular social media profiles, let’s talk about when to just throw out the rules altogether. If your audience is older but obsessed with travel images & photos, Pinterest or Instagram is probably your jam. If your audience is primarily boomers but you adore making videos, focus on YouTube. 

It’s not that your audience can’t be on any one of the above platforms—they are there somewhere, just not in the numbers you may see on other platforms. Make wise choices about how you’re using your time & resources to market your products. Make sure your content, focus, & audience all align, & you’re making intentional, focused choices about which social media platform you use.

 

What’s your favorite way to sell more in your online store? Let us know by leaving a comment below!