You know you should be marketing to your customers and everyone says social media is the way to go — but which type should your business be using?

Lately I have been hearing that no one is using Facebook anymore or it’s for old people. We now have three different generations in the marketplace and it’s important to know who your target market is. There is a vast difference between the baby boomers (age 55+) millennials (age 18 – 34) and generation Xers (age 34 – 54). I was looking at an article from Small Biz Daily and came across some interesting items you may want to consider when using social media.

1. Regardless of what you hear, Facebook is No. 1 across the generations. It’s the most popular social media website out there and more than 43 percent surveyed prefer it over any other site. It’s more popular than Instagram. However, while 64 percent of generation X and 65 percent of baby boomers ranked Facebook number one, only 33 percent of millennials did. In contrast to the older generation, the millennials split their votes much more evenly between Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat.

The bottom line is know your target market and maybe Facebook isn’t the only place you should be; especially if your clients are millennials you should look at other sites.

2. Millennials and generation Xers are twice as likely to follow your business on social media. Only 24 percent of baby boomers follow brands on social media, compared to 48 percent of millennials and generation Xers. The millennials are following brands for entertainment and information, while generation xers are looking for contents, deals and promotions and baby boomers are looking for deals, promotions and coupons.

Now that you know what consumers like, here are a couple of ideas of what they don’t like to see on social media.

Baby boomers will unfollow a business because they get too much spam/too many posts.

Gen X will unfollow if the business says something to offend them.

Millennials will unfollow if they have a bad experience with the business.

So one size social media does not fit every business. Know your target market, interact with them on social media sites and keep all your conversations positive.

Marge Cirillo is the Florida Small Business Development Council consultant for St. Johns County. She can be reached at m.cirillo@unf.edu or (904) 209-1295.