How does one decide which social media platform to choose for marketing? (Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Snapchat)

In my opinion all those decisions need to be supported in your formal Marketing strategy plan. That decision can't come from the "air".

If after collecting your data and conclude which ones your´s customers/clients/potential clients are, the decision should be based in those strong arguments and you need to do a strategy plan to each social media platform.

For some companies/products/services it´s a mistake try to be in all social media sites. It´s needed to have a good HR team digital specialists to control all actions in those.

We can´t be in all places at a time. In some businesse´s I doubt that the clients are using or interacting with all platforms that they´ve registered. They also do elections wich ones are more profitable, user-friendly, where you can find your friends, and so on.

For example, the young people,/, are running away, for some time, from the FB. Why? Many familiars there and they don´t feel their space private. So, they run away to Instagram, Snap and so on. 

A good segmentation, some surveys studies, some tests are needed to understand the different profiles of yours customers/clients/potential clients, get a good storytelling for each social media site and understand which is the best strategy.

For example, take a look to G+. After several respositioning it´s a social media site that hasn't collected so many admirers (particulars or professionals). But every company is there, not having such an active/interactive behaviour but because it´s important to add some more value for the googles page rank.

Another example, search your name in google. You will find out several addresses of your presence in Bayt.com. More than in FB and others. Means that this page has a good strategy and good presence in Adwords/google search rank (helped for the several users here doing questions/answering). So, sometimes we are in some social media just for google's page rank.

My suggestion, do a deep study which ones you can find yours clients/customers/potential clients/prospectors/stakeholder, filter those results, do some tests and after that decide according to the company overall strategy. Don´t try to work isolate...

 Edit: Give a look to this study. "The state of Social Media in KSA"

http://www.thesocialclinic.com/the-state-of-social-media-in-saudi-arabia-vol-3/

Hi Sidrah:

Good Question !!

My two cents as follow:

Social media marketing is an essential part of every modern company's marketing plan.

In a recent survey A significant 90% of marketers indicated that their social media efforts have generated more exposure for their businesses. The second major benefit was increased traffic, with 77% reporting positive results. Meanwhile, 69% of marketers are utilizing social medial to develop loyal fans and gain marketplace intelligence. The point for you here what’s your intention for social media marketing.

·         52% –more than half of marketers– chose Facebook (down from 54% in 2014)

·         21% of marketers chose LinkedIn (increased from 17% in 2014)

·         12% of marketers chose Twitter (increased 1% over 2104)

·         4% of marketers chose YouTube(increased 1% over 2104)

 As summary you need to sleet a basket of platforms to reach a sizable amount of audience and don’t avoid any particular platform. All platforms complement each other in social media marketing.

All of them are important because all are not using all of them, focus all to get better result and of course your company marketing strategy and business types or product type are also considered before starting such marketing ways.  

Thanks

Totally agree with Mr. Pedro's answer

Study target group - age, preferences, where they are from and rather focus on few platforms than be on all.

about me choose all above with bayt.com and kinkedin

While there are always new platfroms to use, such as SnapChat, Medium, etc., I think the biggest issue is companies not choosing the right platforms for their business and target audience.When choosing the right social media platforms for your business, try not to focus on the size of the network, but rather focus on the networks where your target audience is. The age of your target market is especially useful in deciding which social media network would be most appropriate. 

• Facebook users between 45 and 54 can usually make up a large portion of your following. 
• Users under 18 are most active on Google+ and Pinterest. 
• To find users between 25 and 34 head to Google+
• Those between 34 and 44 as well as 55+ comprise large groups on LinkedIn.

The thing to remember is that each social network has its own types of media that work best and your business does not have to be on every network to achieve your social media goals. 

• If images will be a large part of your campaign, then Facebook and Pinterest are a must. 
• If you are looking to post news articles and create conversations, then Facebook, Twitter and Google+ are great platforms for engaging.

Well to do the marketing you need to start working with all the social media platforms because sometime you will get an inquiry from face-book but at the same time you are not having from twitter. But for me the most important social media depend upon the product for which marketing required...

From my personal experience i feel "social media platform' word is equal to word "facebook" Half of the marketing of products are done in this media itself.we  come to know about all products or any news from this media.even though some countries does not use this type of media i feel to have that all countries should use one or the other media llike facebook.

All of them but still it depends on whats the product and brand.