the social media that you should be focused on in 2024 above all else is MySpace. Myspace is going to be making a huge comeback in 2024, so now is the time to go to myspace.com and sign up. I'm kidding, of course. I don't think MySpace is going to make a big comeback in 2024. So instead, in today's episode, we're going to talk about the different social media apps and which one is really best for growing a following and building a personal brand or business in 2024. I have experience on pretty much every single social network going all the way back to Twitter in 2012 when I used my Twitter account to build what was then my business at the time, which was reselling these power balance wristbands, except for I would add rhinestones, and then I would use Twitter in order to promote and sell those. I called myself Power Balance Brock. I also was such an avid user of Four Square, which is an app that a lot of people

have probably never even heard of that. I had four square merchandise, and I remember my first day of school outfit for sixth grade was a four square t-shirt. That's how avid of a social media user I was, even all the way back in elementary school. I've been on TikTok since 2018, I've been on Instagram since 2012, I've been on Facebook, I've been posting YouTube videos since I was in middle school. I've been around, I have a lot of experience on all the different social media apps, and I can confidently tell you that you can have success on pretty much any app, whether it's Pinterest, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Reddit, TikTok, whatever, you can have success. Now of course, the question is, which platform is it easiest to have success on, and then kind of the second question is, not only which platform is it easiest to have success on, which platform can you have the most success on. But if you clicked on this video because you want me to come through your screen right now, rip your phone out of your hand, and tell

you force you to pick one social media app. I can't do that, and unfortunately, the purpose of this video is not to make an argument that Instagram is number one and you need to forget everything else, or that Tik Tok is the future of social media and every other social network is going to die within the next few years. That's not what I'm going to do today, and honestly, I think that any content creator, any educator, or entrepreneur who tells you that one platform is the ultimate only platform that you should focus on and every other platform is a waste of your time, I feel like that person is ill-informed, or at least they're misinforming you, probably because they have their own biases. And listen, I understand biases. I'm a huge fan of Instagram. I sell, and my number one source of income is a membership about growing on Instagram. My largest following is on Instagram. I have the most success and the most sales coming from Instagram. Yet I'm not going to sit here and tell you that Instagram is the

only platform or the must-have platform for 2024. I do, however, think that Instagram is one of the top three. And so, for the majority of today's episode, we're going to be looking at those top three. The top three, in my opinion, in 2024, are YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok, in no particular order. I do want to give you one piece of advice before we go through the rest of this episode, though, and that is, no matter which social network you pick, whether you pick one of the top three that I'm going to be focused on for the remainder of this episode, or you decide to pick something else like Twitter, Pinterest, or LinkedIn, commit to that platform. One of the biggest mistakes that people make early on when trying to build a personal brand or business on social media is they spread themselves really thin because they don't have a team, they don't have content systems, they don't have a backlog of years worth of content that they can repurpose and reuse, and they try to post consistently every single day on TikTok and Instagram and

Twitter and Facebook, and all the other platforms, and they get burnt out really quickly. And because they're spreading themselves so thin, they never truly pour into one community on one platform. And so, they don't see success on any of their platforms. They don't see growth or new sales or new followers or new customers on any social media. It's kind of like if you started out 2024 with the goal of running a sub three-hour marathon, and becoming an Olympic powerlifter, and becoming a world champion downhill skier, and setting your own personal best in two laps across the swimming pool. Your goals are just spread out across too many different areas to have success in any of those one areas. And so, like I said, you can have success on any platform, but I do believe some platforms are better than others. Ultimately though, it's going to come down to your consistency and your willingness to commit and honestly embrace the suck regardless of the platform you choose because there is no platform without some suck, there is no

platform out there that doesn't have some element of challenge or some sticking point that makes it that much more difficult than the rest. Every platform has its pros, but also every platform has its cons, and so let's hop into my pros and cons of the top three, which again are YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok. Let's start with my personal favorite, but not necessarily the one that I'm going to tell you you have to stick with, which is Instagram. The pros of Instagram, number one, according to a study by Carrot Financial, Instagram has the highest value per follower. Carro did a really interesting study where they looked at a wide variety of businesses, and they took the actual amount of revenue generated and then divided that by the amount of followers that that company has on the platform that generated them the money. So, like to put it into real-world numbers, if you made $11,000 from Instagram and you had 100 followers on Instagram, then the value of each of your followers on Instagram would be $10. That would be an

astronomical number that would be crazy super high, but what they actually found is that the average value of one Instagram follower is about 77. You might think, Wow, that's kind of crazy low, like it's less than a dollar. Yes, but wait till you hear the rest. The average value of one follower, AKA subscriber, on YouTube was only 17 cents, so 60 cents lower. The average value of a TikTok follower was only 7 cents, so 11 times lower than that of an Instagram follower. The reason for this is that there have been so many studies showing that people go to Instagram often times to follow brands, to connect with brands, and to search out products that they end up buying. Instagram also makes it very easy for people to become shoppers. They've had the Instagram shop for a few years now. They have the link in bio. You can put links in stories. You can put clickable links in the direct messages. So your ability to sell on Instagram is diversified, and it's a lot easier than a

lot of other platforms. Instagram very much caters to the business owner who's looking to sell things online, and so that's another Pro of Instagram. It's just the ease of making sales. Now, of course, when I say the ease of making sales, that doesn't mean that you just sign up for Instagram and you can just start raking in the money. But it does mean that if you have a th subscribers on YouTube, 1,000 followers on Instagram, and 1,000 followers on TikTok, you can expect the easiest sales process to take place on Instagram, and most likely the majority of your sales to come from those thousand Instagram followers. I also think another Pro of Instagram is the diversity of content. Oftentimes, people point to this as a negative for Instagram, right? They're like, Well, there's reals and live videos and stories and carousels and feed posts and DMS and all these other kinds of posts on Instagram. But I actually think that this is a benefit or a pro of using Instagram because if you're someone who

prefers posting and taking photos. There's a space for you on Instagram. If you're someone who prefers making 90c direct-to-camera videos, there's a place for you on Instagram. If you're someone who really likes making short-form quick-edited videos, there's a place for you on Instagram with Reels. If you're someone who likes doing documentary-style behind-the-scenes direct-to-camera content, that's Instagram Stories. So no matter what kind of content you prefer creating - visual content, graphic design content, audio content - there is a space for you on Instagram. And generally speaking, across Instagram, while there used to be a heavy favoritism towards Reels, it's now pretty balanced. And regardless if you're someone who posts carousels, Reels, or photos, you can expect pretty similar results. And so, that's a real benefit of Instagram in 2024 that maybe wasn't around so prevalently in 2022 and even 2023. Instagram has its cons though, and the biggest con is probably related to the previous Pro, which is that there's

just a lot on Instagram there's a lot of changes, a lot of new updates, a lot of new features, things that are always kind of being manipulated. They're always coming out with new things, new tests, new features, new abilities, new buttons, changing the layout and design on us. And for a lot of people, that can be a source of frustration and headache. And to give ourselves a quick little plug, that is why we created the Insta Clubhub. Because we heard that so many other entrepreneurs were basically having to become their own Instagram experts just in order to grow on Instagram. So we're like, hey, let's do that for you. We'll teach you how to grow, we'll tell you what you need to know. Like, yeah, there were 17 new features this week, but here's the three that really matter, and here's how you can actually use them for your business. And that's what we disseminate, that's what we give you inside the Insta Clubhub, as well as tons of ideas for posts and hooks.

personalized lessons to meet you where you are. Whether you're an Instagram newbie or an Instagram expert, you can learn more about the Insta ClubHub and join for two weeks for just $7 by clicking the link down in the show notes or in the description below this video or this episode. Highly recommend joining the club, of course, but again, that is a con of Instagram, right? Is that it's challenging to keep up with. Another con of Instagram is that it is quite saturated. Instagram has over two billion users, and it's been around for over a decade now, which means there's just a lot of accounts, there's a lot of people probably talking about what you do, selling what you sell, promoting what you promote. That could be considered a pro because there is a market on Instagram, but also that could be considered a con because that market likely already has someone selling to them. That market has likely already seen what you have to offer. Of course, there are exceptions, of course, there are specific niches, new products, and things like that that are

fresh and totally unsaturated, but nonetheless, Instagram has 2 billion users. It's a pretty saturated place. Also, speaking of cons for in Instagram, there is little to no Pay-per-view. On Instagram in 2022, there was a program called reals bonuses where people could get paid based off the amount of views they received on their reels. Now, the only real way (pun intended) that you can get paid for your reels is if you turn on the ads on reels feature, which basically allows Instagram to run ads like a little tiny banner of an advertisement on the bottom of your reel, and then you can get paid by the views that you're receiving. I will tell you the pay-per-view system system is very very low, and that's why if you're expecting to get paid just for the views you're ranking in on Instagram, you're likely going to get paid very little. I do want to say though, it is absolutely not too late to grow on Instagram. Numerous of our students inside the club have grown their account to over 100,000.

I'm thinking of Tracy from juicing recipes. I'm thinking of Sarah and Mark from the Mobility Duo who grew from like 5,000 to now over 200,000. I'm thinking of Sharice Allison who has over 990,000 followers. I'm thinking of so many of our other club members who have grown their accounts massively. And they're not just people teaching other people how to grow on Instagram, which is often times something that I hear. Is that the only people who grow on Instagram are people teaching other people how to grow on Instagram. And that just isn't true. We have so many members inside our club who are growing. In fact, our average top Insta ClubHub member grew by 42%. 42% more followers in 2023. So while yes, it is a saturated platform, it's not too saturated. It's not too late to grow. All right, now let's move into the second of my top three, which again, this isn't in any particular order, but the second of my top three platforms for 2024 and that

is YouTube. If I could go back in time like 10 years ago, I would tell myself to focus on YouTube. And that's not because YouTube is just so much better than TikTok or Instagram or anything else, but just because YouTube takes time. And we'll talk about this more with the cons of YouTube. But one of the big pros of YouTube is that it can last for a long time, also known as it is the most Evergreen of all of your content. One of the big challenges with most social media is you spend hours making a post, you post it, and then 24 to 48 hours later, the amount of views you're receiving is like 1 or 2% of the total views. Like a day or two after you post your content, hardly anyone is going to see it. That's different than what you typically see on YouTube. On YouTube, based off the title, recommendations, and lots of other factors, you could be getting views a decade later. Sean Kel, who's a YouTube expert who we've had on the show here before, has talked about

how he posted a video about green juice about 10 years ago, and he's still making thousands of dollars every single month for the views that that video is raking in. He likes to call it views while you snooze, and that is absolutely the case on YouTube. You put in a lot of work upfront to create these videos, and then if they are positioned correctly, they can rank and still get views years after they were originally posted. Speaking of ranking, one of the real pros of YouTube is SEO, search engine optimization, and while Instagram and TikTok are pouring heavily into the discoverability features and the SEO on their platforms, SEO on YouTube is its bread and butter. In case you didn't know this, YouTube is owned by Google. Google is, of course, the world's biggest search engine. YouTube is the world's second biggest search engine, and so people are always going to YouTube and Google to look for things, to search for things, and that's how they can find your videos, that's how your videos can get discovered years after.

they were originally posted, and that's how you can organically grow your following, your audience, and your subscribers on YouTube. YouTube also has one of the best pay-per-view programs in the industry. I would call it the gold standard of pay-per-view. So that means you're going to be making thousands of dollars for every video you post, right when you get started? No, but the amount of money that you are paid per view on YouTube is higher than pretty much any other platform. And of course, because it's backed by a very established and secure platform like Google, and because YouTube itself has been around for so long now, it's a very trustworthy program. It's not as flighty or here and there or up and down as something like reels, bonuses, or TikTok. I would also say a pro of YouTube, and this is kind of just like an opinion thing, is that it's the most respected. If you tell someone you're a YouTuber, you're likely going to have more credibility than you would if you were to say you're an Instagrammer.

or a TikToker. Maybe that doesn't matter to you, and I'm not saying that it should matter to you, but YouTube has been around for so long, and the idea of being a YouTuber has been around for so long that it's more well-expected, maybe by your family or at least within the industry. All right, those were the pros. Let's talk about the cons of YouTube. Like I said when I first brought it up, I wish I would have been consistent on YouTube 10 years ago and stayed consistent that entire time. And that's because YouTube is the hardest, or maybe I should say it takes the longest to see results. On average, it takes more than 100 uploads to YouTube to reach 1,000 followers. And really, a follower on YouTube is called a subscriber, but I kind of use those terms interchangeably because pretty much every other platform uses the term follower, but YouTube still uses subscriber. But regardless if you use the term follower or subscriber, it takes a long time to grow on YouTube. It takes a lot of consistency. It takes a

lot of uploads to see results. In most cases, of course, there are anomalies, there are viral videos, there are those accounts that upload once 15 years ago, they get millions and millions of views, and millions of subscribers, but that is definitely the exception and not the rule. Another con of YouTube is it takes the highest production value. If I wanted to record a TikTok or a reel, all I really need is my phone, and yes, W that is true. When you are getting started on YouTube, all you need is your phone. It has an HD camera built in, it has a microphone built in. You can just boom, set it up, and start recording. That's true when you're first getting started. As you start to look at some of these top YouTubers, the ones who are having the most success, the ones who are having, you know, the biggest growth, the most subscribers, the most views, they're not just recording on their phone. They're recording on a professional camera, like I am right now. They have a professional microphone, they have lighting, they have

editors. They have systems, they have teams, and so oftentimes the best YouTubers, the most successful YouTubers, also have the highest production value. The ease of creating content that you might experience on TikTok or Instagram isn't seen so commonly on YouTube, and so maybe that's a barrier of entry for you. You understand that you can start with your phone, but you know that it's not realistic for you to ever have a professional camera, microphone, lighting, audio, all of that good stuff. And so maybe YouTube isn't for you. And then just like Instagram, because YouTube has been around for so long, it's very saturated. As of the end of 2023 and beginning of 2024, most sources say that there are between 800 million and 1 billion total videos on YouTube. That's a lot of content to compete with. Also, another thing that you could consider a pro or a con of YouTube is the consumption. Most people consume TikTok and Instagram almost exclusively on their phone, and very few people are

consuming Instagram and Tik Tok on a computer or on a TV. The opposite is true with YouTube, though. YouTube is very heavily consumed on TVs and on computers, and while it is absolutely consumed on mobile, in fact, the majority of YouTube content is consumed on mobile. It is still a platform that, when compared to all the other social networks, is heavily used outside of just the phone. So maybe that's a pro, maybe that's a con, depends on how you look at it. All right, now let's talk about Tik Tok, the new kid on the block. Even though I don't think you can still consider it that because it's been around for a few years now. Tik Tok absolutely blew up in 2020, and while a lot of people were concerned of whether or not it would be here one day and gone the next like Clubhouse and many other social networks, Tik Tok has proven that it has staying power. It has longevity, and it has continued to adapt and change over time. And I give a real kudo and pat on the back to the team at

TikTok, because they have done a great job of continuing to update the platform to keep it relevant. Unlike a lot of platforms that came about over the last few years. Speaking of TikTok's wild viral success, let's hop into its pros. The first one being that it is the platform still to this day where it is the easiest, quote unquote, to go viral. Now that's not to say that it is easy, but it is easier to go viral on TikTok than it is on platforms like Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc. I will tell you from personal experience, it was definitely a lot easier to go viral on TikTok in 2019, but it is still possible today in 2024. And so, because of that, another pro of TikTok is that it's often the easiest platform to have a very wide exposure and get a lot of views. Now you might say that that's very similar to going viral, but one of the cool things about TikTok is that even with a low following, you can have videos

pop off and reach millions and millions of people. I'm not going to get deep into the Tik Tok algorithm and how it works, but one key difference between the Tik Tok algorithm and every other algorithm is that Tik Tok and its algorithm really primarily cares about your content, the actual video itself, the topic of the video, and the quality of the video. It cares a lot less about all of the different other social components. So what I mean by that is you could post the exact same video on Instagram as you did on Tik Tok, and Instagram's algorithm is going to look at what kind of videos do your followers like, what kind of videos do the people you follow like. It very much cares about all of those different social components. It's looking at friends of friends and seeing what their interests are, it's looking at what people have consumed in the past, what they have engaged with in the past, and it's really heavily dependent on relationships. Tik Tok, however, cares a lot less about those relationships and those connections. Tik Tok is really primarily almost

exclusively concerned with what is this video. What's it about, and is it high quality? If it's high quality and it's related to a topic that people would want to see, it will show them that topic. So, for example, let's say there are 300,000 people on Tik Tok who are obsessed with mountain biking in Colorado, and you just started a brand new Tik Tok account. You have 10 followers, but you posted a really great, high quality (maybe it's super funny and relatable or super educational) video about mountain biking in Colorado. Well, you now have potentially 300,000 viewers. And if that video is really that high quality and it's really getting that much engagement, Tik Tok will make sure all of those people see it. And then the final Pro of Tik Tok is that it is the lowest barrier of entry in terms of content. The production value that people expect and even prefer on Tik Tok is far lower than any other platform. On YouTube, people are used to Mr. Beast Style videos with lots of editing, transitions, cuts.

effects, audio, all of that good stuff, and on Instagram, people are often times used to a lot of the same reels with lots of editing, transitions, cuts, b-roll, background, all that good stuff. People really like that authentic, genuine, down-to-earth style video where it seems like it was just recorded on your phone without any external editing or effects at it. Yes, lighting matters, yes, audio matters, but at the end of the day, if all you have is your phone, that's plenty for TikTok. All right, now let's talk about the cons of TikTok. Number one, and this has been confirmed by so many TikTok creators that I've spoken with, it is very challenging to sell on TikTok. If you think about sales as a funnel where at the top you have the eyeballs, the attention, you're kind of getting the audience warm, and then you slowly work your way down until they become a customer, TikTok really only exists at the top of the funnel, and it's very difficult to get people to the bottom of the funnel on TikTok. The bottom of the

funnel being actually putting in their credit card or signing up for your email list. That's quite tough to do, and that's because you're pretty limited in terms of ways you can promote and ways you can even make sales on TikTok. Yes, there is the direct messages, but the direct messages on TikTok are a very, very hardly utilized feature. People may use the TikTok DMS to send videos to their friends, but they're very rarely interacting with brands and businesses and people who are selling things via direct message on TikTok. That is very different than on Instagram. On Instagram, the DMS are the most heavily used area. People use the DMS on Instagram more than they use any other feature on Instagram, and that's part of the reason that it's so easy to sell on Instagram and so difficult to sell on TikTok. Also, besides the DMS, the only other area on TikTok where you can put a link that's clickable, at least, is in the link in bio. You can't put clickable links in your

captions or in comments. And so, it's very hard to direct people to a sales page, to a landing page on Tik Tok. And oftentimes, what I find is people use Tik Tok to build a massive audience and then they funnel that audience, pun intended, to their Instagram to continue the sales process. Also, you want to talk about saturation on YouTube. Earlier, I said that the high-end approximation is that there is about 1 billion YouTube videos. Listen to this stat: between January and March of 2023, so just 3 months, there were approximately 14.4 billion videos uploaded on Tik Tok. That's mind-blowing, that's crazy, that's 14 times more videos on Tik Tok in a 3-month span than there is in the entire history of YouTube. That is absolutely wild. And so, while you can still go viral on Tik Tok, and I would like, I said earlier, call it the easiest platform to go viral, it's also a highly saturated platform and a platform where you're expected to post a lot. And then the final con of Tik Tok, which I will say is

a very, very, very minor con, in my opinion, is that it does skew younger. Again, there's a lot of people on TikTok. In fact, there's over two billion people on TikTok now, and so every kind of audience can be found there. I follow people who are over the age of 80 on TikTok. They're there, they're active, they can build their following. However, it is true that compared to all the other social networks, TikTok does have the youngest user base. So, if you're trying to build a younger following, maybe you want to use TikTok. But if you're someone who's trying to build a following over the age of 50, those people might be more active on Instagram or Facebook than they would on TikTok. If you were to come to me and tell me that you're going all in on any one of these three platforms, I wouldn't tell you you're doing something wrong. I truly think that these are the top three and the three that you can have the most success with in 2024. But I have three

questions for you that you should ask yourself in order to help you pick which of these three is best for you. The first question is: what's your goal? Do you want to go viral and become an influencer? Do you want to build influence and credibility? Do you want to make more sales? Do you want to build a business? Do you want to build a personal brand? Do you want to become known for something? Do you want to become a comedian and tour the world speaking on stages? Depending on your goal, you might be more or less likely to pick certain platforms. So, rather than just blind picking a platform or watching a few more YouTube videos, listening to a few more podcasts after this, trying to get someone to tell you exactly which one is right for you, instead let's figure that out yourself by identifying what goals are most important to you in this next year. My second question that you should ask yourself is: how much content can you realistically commit to creating? And of course, that's going to vary platform to platform. How many YouTube videos can you

realistically, how many TikToks can you create per day? How many times can you realistically post on Instagram per week? Ask yourself these questions and consider the different amounts of time and effort that each of these platforms require in order to create a baseline level of quality content. Then, the third question to ask yourself, and this one's really important, is what kind of content do you enjoy making? And also, you could kind of add on to that, what kind of content are you best at making? Maybe you're someone who loves doing spoken audio, like you love just talking. You could talk, talk, talk all day long. If someone was like, Hey, I'm cornering you in a room, you gotta talk to me for the next 3 hours, you could do it. Maybe for you, it's not Instagram or YouTube or TikTok. Maybe for you, you're best suited for podcasting, and that's what you're going to do in 2024. Maybe you're someone who loves photography, and you're really, really good at photography.

maybe in that case Instagram or Pinterest is best for you. And you're going to save YouTube and TikTok for the future. Maybe you're someone who loves copyrighting, so you're going to stick to a platform like threads or x/ Twitter or Facebook where copyrighting and the text that you're writing is a lot more important. Basically, allow your own personal strengths to help inform which platform is best for you. Ultimately though, no matter which platform you choose like I've said a million times today, you can have success. It's just going to come down to your own consistency, your willingness to embrace the suck that exists on that platform, and the one thing I haven't mentioned today is your ability to Niche down, your ability to know exactly what topic you're talking about and what audience you're talking to. Because regardless of the platform, the easiest path to growth is through knowing exactly who you're talking to, what are the demographics of that audience, and what are you talking to that audience about. When you know your audience, your audience will come to

know you so pick your niche get consistent embrace the suck and regardless of which platform you choose also know that you can change in the future just because you picked a platform for 2024 you can always pivot and adapt as things change let me know down in the comments below if you're watching on YouTube which platform are you going to be focusing the majority of your efforts on in 2024 I'd love to hear from you and also make sure to check out one of our recent episodes about growing on Tik Tok or YouTube or Instagram depending on which one you choose also if there's a platform that you really want to focus on this year that we haven't talked a lot about let's say something like Facebook or Twitter or Pinterest let me know that down below as well and we'll make sure to find some experts to bring on to the show to teach you what you need to know thanks so much for listening and as always happy [Music] networking

Which Social Media Is Best For Business In 2024

Whether you’re a seasoned entrepreneur or desperate to quit your day job, this show has you covered.

Hosts Chalene and Brock Johnson bring both perspectives - whether your goal is to earn extra income on the side, or take the growth of your online business to the next level. Get top tips to build social media, grow your email list, develop digital marketing strategies, boost automated sales and create additional streams of income on a limited budget. Learn to share your story and convert followers into loyal customers with New York Times Best Selling Author, Business Coach & Serial Entrepreneur Chalene Johnson and her son Brock Johnson, Part-Time Entrepreneur, Speaker and Story-Telling Strategist. Enjoy expert guest interviews and quick episodes with actionable steps. Whether you’re a business owner, aspiring entrepreneur or someone who just wants to make extra money on the side, this is your show!
