Social Media Audience Insights from an Indian Small and Medium Size Business Group

Why are we doing this analysis?

As a performance marketing company, understanding every detail of our audience is critical for improving the targeting and effectiveness of our campaigns.

We initiated this analysis to understand where our audience spends time online, how their platform preferencesoverlap, and where exclusive opportunities exist.

This is just the beginning — over the coming weeks, we will expand our research to:

• Analyse audience engagement behaviour (active contributors vs. passive viewers)
• Include Pinterest and other platforms
• Evaluate ad performance and ROI across different channels

By continuously adding to this dataset, we aim to create a knowledge base that becomes a reliable reference for social media campaign strategy.

Lets dive into answer question from insights

Let’s dive into answering questions from the insights.

Q1: What was analysed?

We reviewed 116 audience records across 7 social media platforms, representing 57 unique individuals. The goal was to identify:

• Platform popularity
• Multi-platform usage patterns
• Overlaps and exclusive audiences
• Strategic implications for targeting

Q2: Which platforms are most popular?

Here’s the share of unique users on each platform:

• Instagram – 68.42%
• YouTube – 57.89%
• Facebook – 40.35%
• LinkedIn – 29.82%
• Twitter (X) – 3.51%
• ShapChat – 1.75%
• ShareChat – 1.75%

📌 Insight: Instagram and YouTube dominate the audience distribution, making them prime channels for reach and brand recall.

Q3: How many people are active on multiple platforms?

More than 54% of the audience is multi-platform — active on at least two different social networks.

This means over half of the target audience can be reached in multiple places, opening up opportunities for retargeting and storytelling across channels.

Q4: What platform overlaps are most significant?

• Instagram + YouTube: 33.33% of unique users are on both. This is a strong overlap for video-based campaigns, especially when aiming for repetition and recall.
• LinkedIn + Facebook: 15.79% of unique users are on both. Smaller overlap here means these platforms cater to more distinct audience groups, requiring differentiated messaging.

Q5: What about exclusive audiences?

Each major platform has an exclusive segment — people who are active there but not on the paired platform.

For example:

• Instagram-only and YouTube-only audiences together make up nearly half of all unique users.
• LinkedIn-only and Facebook-only audiences each hold distinct opportunities for niche targeting.

📌 Insight: Exclusive audiences reduce overlap in campaign reach, making them valuable for expanding coverage without redundancy.

Q6: What’s the right approach moving forward?

From this analysis, our recommended strategy is:

1. Dual-channel dominance — Invest in Instagram + YouTube synergy campaigns to build consistent exposure across both high-reach platforms.
2. Segmentation for distinct audiences — Treat LinkedIn and Facebook as separate marketing streams to match their different audience mindsets.
3. Exclusive audience targeting — Use platform-only segments for incremental reach.
4. Multi-platform storytelling — For the 54% multi-platform users, design campaigns that connect across channels in sequence, building familiarity and intent.

Q7: What’s next in this blog series?

Our upcoming posts will explore:

• Engagement segmentation — separating those who actively comment, share, and post from passive scrollers
• Inclusion of Pinterest data
• Deeper analysis of ad spend distribution and ROI across platforms
• Competitive insights from observing platform ad usage patterns

Action Items from Social Media Audience Analysis

1. Platform Prioritisation

• Instagram & YouTube dominate audience share (68.42% and 57.89%).
  • Allocate 60–70% of ad spend here for B2C brands.
  • Prioritize video-first campaigns — short-form reels, product explainers, influencer collaborations.

2. B2B Opportunity — LinkedIn is Underutilised

• Observation: Many small business owners are missing out on LinkedIn as a lead generation and relationship-building channel, especially if their target audience is large enterprises or corporates.
• Impact: LinkedIn has a smaller audience share (29.82%), but it is highly quality-focused, making it ideal for high-value B2B deals.

Tips for Small Businesses to Reach CXOs on LinkedIn:

1. Optimize Company & Personal Profiles
   • Use banner images and taglines that speak directly to corporate pain points.
   • Highlight case studies, results, and testimonials in the featured section.
2. Post Value-Driven Content
   • Share insights, industry updates, and solution-focused articles.
   • Use LinkedIn’s native carousel posts to explain processes or results.
3. Engage with CXO Content
   • Follow and interact with decision-makers’ posts (comments with insights, not sales pitches).
4. Use LinkedIn Search Filters & Sales Navigator
   • Target based on job title (CXO, Director, VP), company size, and industry.
5. Leverage Direct Outreach
   • Personalized connection requests followed by relevant problem-solution messages.

3. B2C Must-Have — Instagram & YouTube

• If your business is B2C, Instagram and YouTube are non-negotiable.
• Strategy:
  • Instagram → Build brand identity, community, and lifestyle connection.
  • YouTube → Create trust and education through tutorials, product reviews, and storytelling.

4. Overlap-Based Campaigns

• Instagram + YouTube Overlap (33.33%):
  • Run coordinated campaigns for stronger recall.
  • Example: Awareness ads on Instagram → Retarget with long-form YouTube content.

5. Exclusive Audience Activation

• Build platform-specific campaigns for those only on Instagram or YouTube to expand reach without redundancy.

6. Multi-Platform Influencer Strategy

• Engage multi-platform personalities to amplify reach across all channels where they are active.

7. Testing & Optimisation

• A/B test different creatives for each platform.
• Measure ROI for exclusive vs. overlap audiences to fine-tune budget allocation.

Conclusion

This audience and platform preference analysis provides a clear, data-backed roadmap for optimising social media marketing.

It helps decide where to focus, where to diversify, and how to combine platforms for maximum return on effort.

By continuing to expand this dataset, we aim to make each campaign sharper, more relevant, and more successful.