3 Types of Social Media And How They Benefit Your Business

Social media marketing strategy is not only about winning; it also requires connecting with the target audiences. Moreover, your social media marketing is strengthened when you collaborate with different digital platforms.

“We’re living at a time when attention is the new currency. Those who insert themselves into as many channels as possible look set to capture the most value.”

-Pete Cashmore, Founder of mashable.com

In 2018, KFC provided an excellent example. Due to shifting suppliers, KFC faced a chicken shortage. Rather than blaming the supplier, they took full responsibility. The brand became even stronger, along with the power of social media! KFC launched a hashtag campaign on Twitter, “#WheresMyChicken.” The message for the customers was to locate the closest solution.

You always want what you can’t have… but now you can 🙌

Just hit the #WheresMyChicken button below and find your nearest open KFC… https://t.co/suCBp2Mf53

— KFC UK (@KFC_UKI) February 26, 2018

In 2025, we can hardly say that any brand has no social media presence. Furthermore, it is the most cost-effective and prompt way to connect with your audience base.

What is the importance of social media?

Whether it’s a personal relationship or a brand’s PR strategy, social channels play the most crucial part. The digital world allows people to connect with people and build relationships. Moreover, it provides a significant opportunity to establish user support from customer insights, answer questions, and track feedback!

Below, the graph shows the rise of the most popular social networks worldwide as of October 2024, ranked by the number of active users.

This infographic summarises the insane growth of social media. An upward figure connected to the users and the networking channels.

If we look at the big ventures and their marketing strategies, social networking plays a big role in almost every step they take. On the other hand, if your SMEs are not on social platforms, you are far behind your desired goal.

So, if we ask why social media is important?

The answer is quite simple. It allows you to reach, understand and engage with your customers, even those from different parts of the world. And when you connect your users through multiple social platforms, it creates word-of-mouth marketing, along with a return on investment, brand awareness, new leads, sales, and revenue.

However, one question remains: How can you efficiently organise and display your social networks?

Obviously, your business needs multiple social channels to retain social media assistance. Besides, you need sturdy support to assemble your social proof and manage your communication process. 

In the next part of the article, we’ll explore the social media types that best suit your brand’s needs and how to excel at them using a multi-purpose social media plugin.

How many types of social media are there?

The digital world is uncontrollable today. Before we get to know more about types of social media, let’s check out some interesting social networking statistics-

• Instagram is the 9th most Googled term in the world
• SMEs in the US sell more than 4000 items per minute
• Hashtags Tweets get 100% more engagement
• In 2025, 82% of traffic came from video streaming
• 93% of consumers say social reviews had an impact on their purchasing decisions

The facts clearly state that the digital world has grown and is here to thrive.

While your brand employs various social media strategies, such as advertising, targeting niche audiences, and enhancing communication, you should prioritize identifying and focusing on the specific networking channels where you aim to expand your presence.

In the past, social media platforms had more distinct purposes and categories. For instance, (X) Twitter was primarily known for short, concise messages; YouTube was the go-to platform for video content; and Facebook excelled in thoughts, sharing in detail, product/ service marketing and advertisements. And the Instagram feed is designed for sharing visually engaging content, such as photos, short videos, and stories, to connect with followers in a highly curated and aesthetic-driven format

Understanding these distinctions can help refine your approach to growing your brand effectively. In our opinion, social networking has evolved significantly along with marketing trends. Without making it complex, we’ve made a list of the social media classifications in terms of the brand’s point of view-

1. Social networking sites
2. Social media feeds
3. Communication channels

Analyzing these social website categories helps to understand the relationship between brands. Moreover, audiences can introduce new concepts and mediums for branding and word-of-mouth marketing, so let’s jump right in and learn what types of social media are available.

Social and business review sites

Social reviews, ratings, and recommendations are integral to brands in 2025. Your website is incomplete without online reviews. It doesn’t matter if you have bad reviews as long as you have social proof. Nearly 97% of customers now check online media when researching products or services before purchasing.

Moreover, not just traffic generating, social media reviews contribute to your search engine optimization, too. Social platforms like Facebook reviews, Google My Business and Amazon are immensely popular sites to promote your brand on this platform.

Social media feeds

The media-sharing network is the most effective and impactful platform for labels. Social feeds include images, videos, live videos, stories, hashtag campaigns, GIFs, business memes, Infographics, etc. Different graphs show that visual content is the most powerful format of marketing to engage with audiences.

In 2025, 31% of marketers said they had created visual and short-form content, and sales increased by 10% from the year 2024. In the following year, they are expecting more growth.

Moreover, video content on YouTube has some insane numbers and growth. 96% of people have watched a how-to video on YouTube to understand more about the product or service. Lastly, Social media video generates 1200% more shares than text and image content.

Examples: Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube.

Communication channels

In this fast-moving digital world, speed is king. Data shows that when a customer queries something on social media, it takes around 10 hours to respond. The email response is even unsatisfactory, it takes more than 12 hours! So chances are high these times could kill a loyal customer base, then and there.

An interesting fact about website communication is that 63% of consumers were more likely to return to a live chat site. Today, a social chat widget is the only worthwhile, trustworthy, and quick service a website offers for its audiences. Moreover, live chat helps to increase conversion rates and boost revenue.

Examples: Messenger, WhatsApp, and Telegram.

Want to thrive in social media?

Throughout the article, our intent was to give you a glimpse of the top 3 social media platforms in each social media category and display statistics to help you understand the reality.

However, types and numbers are not sufficient to bloom on social media. We’ve said earlier your business needs complete support to gather all the social site activities in one place. That way, your audiences have a clear concept of your brand.

So, what is the solution?

We suggest you get the all-in-one social media plugin WP Social Ninja. This robust WordPress plugin takes care of your website’s smallest details. You can showcase online reviews and fetch social feeds. Moreover, it offers a chat widget with the most popular communication channels. Powerful, right?

We hope you enjoyed this article. If you did, you might want to check out the following resources:

• WP Social Ninja Free vs. Pro: Which is The Best for You?
• 5 Must-Read Social Media Success Stories

These posts have even more information on WP Social Ninja and how you can skyrocket your brand with this multi-purpose tool!

To know more, follow us on Twitter and hit us in the comment section below.

Source: Statista, Oberlo, Qualtrics, Venngage, Superoffice, and Mention.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the top 10 social platforms?

Facebook, YouTube, WhatsApp, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, Pinterest, Reddit, LinkedIn, and Twitter.

Which is the number one social app?

With 3.07 billion monthly active users, Facebook is the most used social media site. And this clearly states that almost 37% of the population are Facebook users.

What social platform is popular today?

The most recent data shows Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok remain highly popular social platforms with large user bases.

What is the new social media?

With some of the most famous and valuable social platforms, new social networking sites face challenges to thrive. However, a few are different and going strong. The latest social media sites are TikTok, Discord, Twitch, Instagram Reels, Patreon, Twitter Spaces, Spotify Greenroom, Caffeine, Supernova, and Clubhouse.