5 Facebook Alternatives for businesses in 2021

Facebook, love it or hate it, you probably use it. Especially if you’re a business owner.  

Facebook has evolved considerably over the years, particularly where it comes to advertising your business. Many businesses now rely on Facebook as their main way of advertising and connecting with their customers.  

There are good reasons that businesses have come to rely on the social media giant for their advertising. Social media reaches the masses and can be highly profitable. It’s estimated that 90.4% of Millennials are active daily social media users, which has created a social media advertising marketing of $8.4 billion market. 
 
However, if you’re putting all your eggs in one basket and only using Facebook to advertise your business, you’re likely selling yourself short for a few reasons.  
 
First, Facebook can crash. On March 13, 2019, Facebook experienced its worst outage ever. Business owners and marketers experienced the shock of what happens when the only way of reaching their audience disappears into thin air. For a painful 48 hours there was no way to run Facebook ads, make posts to your page or make sales from your Facebook store. That’s a long time to lose touch with your audience.  
 
Second, Facebook ads are getting both less effective and more expensive, making it far from the powerhouse it once was to get your business out there. Changes to iOS 14 are compounding this change even further by impacting reach, optimisation and targeting of ads. 
 
Finally, people are losing favour with Facebook. The recent publicity around Facebook’s privacy breaches and hate speech amplifying algorithm has meant that many people are refusing to use the platform altogether.  Last year, over 1000 businesses even boycotted the platform demanding that changes were made. It’s safe to say the platform doesn’t have the popularity it once did.  
 
So, if Facebook isn’t the most effective social media platform to advertise your business on any longer what is?  

5 social media platforms that aren’t Facebook, what they are and how you can get the most of them for your business.  

Instagram  

Although owned by Facebook, Instagram is an entirely different platform that’s starting to outperform its parent company.  
 
Instagram is still primarily photos, but it’s also video and live video. It’s a mobile-first platform, so users are on their phones when they’re interacting with brands on Instagram.  
 
Visually creative and scroll-stopping images and video and engaging story content that gets more eyes on your business.  
 
Instagram also offers a wide range of opportunities to grow your brand on the platform through influencers. Influencers who are already connected to the audience marketers want to reach can provide an easy foot in the door to get your product or service noticed.  
 
For this reason, it’s easy to understand why on Instagram businesses receive 58 times more engagement per follower compared to Facebook. In fact, an impressive 75% of people following a business took positive action and visited a product website, after clicking on a post. 
 

The addition of hashtags and the ability to freely engage with your target customer makes it easy for you to reach your audience without hoping that they find you 
 
For this reason, advertisers are realizing that ads on Instagram are largely untapped and shifting their dollars from Facebook to Instagram.   

LinkedIn  

LinkedIn has transformed so much as a platform. Years ago, it used to just be for job seekers. People would post resumes and only connect with people they knew and no one else.   

Now, it’s become more of a content platform. Professionals are having personal conversations, gathering information about brands, and engaging with content - which makes LinkedIn a valuable platform for not only driving traffic to your website but also establishing your brand as a thought and industry leader.  

Compared to Facebook the organic reach and consumption are remarkably high, so more people are likely to see and engage with your content also. One type of post that’s particularly effective on LinkedIn for gaining traction is native articles and text posts with a business connection. 

TikTok  

If you haven’t heard of TikTok yet, you should definitely check this one out.  
 
TikTok has actually been out for a few years now, but they really blew up during the COVID-19 Pandemic at the beginning of 2020. The platform now has 800 million users globally who average anywhere from 50-80 minutes on the platform daily (that’s a lot of screen time!). TikTok is an app that allows you to create and share short videos, usually featuring music in the background.  

TikTok provides a framework that makes it easier for people to create — especially if they don’t know what else to do.  

If you’re looking for engagement, TikTok is somewhere you need to be, even if you don’t want to be. This is by far one of the best engagement platforms in the game right now, as it allows you to so easily collaborate with other videos and create short videos to respond to your fan base.  

What’s even better is that because the platform is still so young in its popularity, the algorithm allows for an extremely high level of organic reach (which matters as people spend about 70% of their time on their “For You” feed). Put simply, you can create quickly, easily, and connect with your audience very effectively.  Sounds like something any smart marketer would be all over. 

Pinterest  

Long format images, mason jars, and cupcakes, this is the place to teach and sell. Although Pinterest gets labeled as “just a lifestyle” platform it’s got lots of potential to show your audience just why your product or service is right for them.  

According to Pinterest research, 50% of users made a purchase after seeing a promoted pin, and 60% of people surveyed say they’ve discovered a new brand or product from content on the network. This platform appeals particularly to women, who make up 80% of the platform.  

Keep your content Pinterest-worthy with great images, some images with text like “10 tips,” use Pinterest boards and community boards, and test the platform. Adding the Pinterest “Pin It” button to your web pages is also a great idea. 

Clubhouse   

New kid on the block Clubhouse is an exclusive member-only app where you can listen in on conversations with influential entrepreneurs, politicians, and celebrities, ask questions and get a wealth of unfiltered information and advice.  

The best way to think of Clubhouse is like an unscripted, interactive podcast happening in real-time and you can’t go back and listen to it later.  

By no means a small platform, Clubhouse has ~100million users with a few thousand rooms at any time and can be a valuable platform if you use it wisely.  

Clubhouse is by invitation only, so if you manage to score an invite, now’s the time to experiment and connect with potential new leads for your business. The platform is perfect for building brand awareness with senior execs hosting rooms and brands sponsoring rooms.  

Although Facebook once held king as the social media platform to advertise and connect with your audience on, it’s now being dethroned by new platforms that are more effective, cheaper, and can help you reach your business’s marketing goals.