- Based on your research what social media platforms do you think they should target as it relates to your defined audiences (2), content and getting our message across for our specific campaign? Please justify your answer. (2 X 5 marks)
The social media platforms that this project will be targeting for the Middle School Athletes and the athletes’ families will be:
- TikTok (Middle School Athletes): Our organization has chosen TikTok to target Middle School Athletes because:
- It’s popular: For this project, the organization has chosen TikTok as the primary platform to target middle-school students. One reason for this is that TikTok is popular; in particular, this program is relatively popular among middle school students. When analyzing the different possible social media platforms that can be used to target middle-school students, TikTok is the one that has the highest potential of reaching this audience. This is especially important when you factor in the fact that 68.2% of middle schoolers have TikTok accounts.[i] Overall, this further proves that TikTok would be a great platform to use to target middle schoolers since it is not only popular among people their ages but is also a platform that many of them can be found on.
- Uses Short-Form Video Content: One other reason why our organization has chosen TikTok as the primary social media platform to target school athletes is because it uses short-form video content. It is widely known that people overall have short attention spans; this is especially noticeable for the younger generation, who is well-known for having short attention spans. Additionally, we have also chosen this platform as one of our primary social media platforms since we understand that this group has particular shorter attention spans of 8 seconds when it comes to the consumption of short-form content.[ii]
- Build Engagement: The third reason why our organization has chosen TikTok as the primary platform to target middle-school students is that it can help to build engagement. Using TikTok, we can gather directed engagement from middle-school students and directly connect with them through our TikTok posts by creating content that they would find of interest. Additionally, according to research, “Engagement on TikTok remains consistent, with an engagement rate of 2.50%.”[iii] Further proving that using TikTok to target middle schoolers will be help to build engagement regarding the basketball event.
- Facebook (Athletes Families): Our organization has chosen Facebook to target the Middle School Athletes Families because:
- Raise Awareness: For this project, our organization will utilize Facebook as the primary social media platform to target the athletes’ families, as we have determined it to be the most effective platform for raising awareness about the statewide middle school basketball tournament for leagues across Michigan. Additionally, Facebook offers a wide range of ways to utilize segmentation. Using this, we will be able to segment our audience based on many different factors, such as their interests and preferences, and more precisely target them based on these factors. Doing this means that we will be pushing out content towards this group of our audience that they would find to be of relevance to themselves. Facebook is a platform with wide reach and has over 2.5 billion monthly active users.[iv] Due to this, we believe we will be able to have greater reach and create higher awareness for the Hoops for Homes Basketball Campaign.
- Wide Range to Segments: While we will be using TikTok to primarily target the middle school students, to target their parents, we will be using Facebook due to its wide range and opportunities to segment. Depending on the interests, behaviours, demographics, and psychographics of the middle school athletes’ families, we will be using Facebook’s different options to segment to effectively reach the parents of the middle school athletes, using content that will primarily focus on topics regarding the stat wide middle school basketball tournament and community updates on this even. Since these will be the parents of the middle school athletes, we have determined that they would especially be looking to gather information about the event since it will hold relevance to their children.
The social media platforms that this project will be targeting for the Local Community Advocates will be:
- X (Twitter): One of the platforms we have chosen to target local community advocates will be X (Twitter) because:
- Has Wide Reach and Visibility: One reason why X has been chosen as one of the primary social media platforms that our organization will be using to target community advocates for this upcoming event is because it has both wide reach and visibility. Using X, people will be able to retweet our content and share it more effectively across different platforms. For this project, we will be using X and its many hashtags to promote and encourage trends that will be able to draw attention to the State Wood Middle School basketball tournament for leagues across Michigan. According to statistics, X has over 200 million daily users worldwide.[v] Since X has so many active users, we will be able to widen our reach towards the community advocates without having to greatly impact our budget too much.
- Can Help in Community Building: A second reason why X has been chosen as one of the primary social media platforms that our organization has chosen to target the local community advocates is because we can use this platform to help create a greater sense of community. Since we will be targeting community advocates, specifically ones based in Michigan, who will likely be willing to support this event as it relates to supporting youths who are looking to create a better future for themselves, our organization can take advantage of Twitter allow for retweets to promote the event further and grow its visibility among the Michigan Community. Using X to help in community building will be very effective in targeting the community advocates, since doing so will allow us to create a community where we can more affectively reach them. With over 70,000 people joining new communities on X on a daily basis, we will be able to affectively build a community centred around the event, to help increase awareness and give the community advocates a comfortable place where they can connect.[vi]
- Facebook: Another platform that our organization has chosen to target local community advocates will be Facebook because:
- Is Very Community Oriented: One reason why Facebook has been chosen as one of the primary social media platforms that our organization will be using to target local community advocates is because it is a very community-oriented platform. There are many different communities on Facebook where Michigan-based community advocates may already be a part of. Knowing this, we plan to target the local community advocates of Michigan through these communities, while at the same time, we can also use Facebook to create a community that community advocates can look to connect and share information about the event. Using Facebook groups will allow us to more effectively build a community centred around the Hoops for Homes event. According to a Facebook report, over 1.4 billion people use Facebook groups each month.[vii] Knowing this, we have determined that we will be using Facebook groups to help build community and more effectively engage with the community advocates.
- Is Cost-Effective and Allows for Wide Reach: Another reason our organization will be using Facebook as one of the primary social media platforms that our organization will be using to target local community advocates is that it will allow us to have a wide reach, specifically towards local community advocates in a cost-effective way. Facebook is a free platform that is accessible to everyone, which means that it is accessible for everyone, which will help to better ensure that our messages will reach our targeted audience. Using Facebook, our organization will be able to send messages and content while at the same time not diving into our budget. The average cost-per-click for Facebook is $0.26 – $0.30.[viii] With this information, we have determined that Facebook will be the most cost-effective social media platform to effectively reach the community advocates, without being too expensive.
[i] Bharanidharan, S. (2025, January 13). REPORT: TikTok dominates the US tween/teen social media scene. https://kidscreen.com/2025/01/13/report-tiktok-dominates-the-us-tween-teen-social-media-scene/
[ii] Wolmark, M. (2023, August 30). Average Human Attention Span (Statistics). https://www.goldenstepsaba.com/resources/average-attention-span
[iii] Social Media benchmarks for 2025. (2025, March 19). https://www.socialinsider.io/social-media-benchmarks
[iv] M, S. (2023, April 9). How to use Facebook Ads to build brand awareness for your business. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-use-facebook-ads-build-brand-awareness-your-business-mahato
[v] Dean, B. (2025, April 14). X (Twitter) statistics: How many people use X? Backlinko. https://backlinko.com/twitter-users
[vi] Latest X (Twitter) statistics in 2025 (Downloadable) | StatsUp. (n.d.). https://analyzify.com/statsup/x-twitter
[vii] Mani, B. (2023, May 24). 12 Facebook Group statistics that will blow you away in 2024. Sell Courses Online. https://sellcoursesonline.com/facebook-group-statistics
[viii] Standberry, S. (2025, April 9). Facebook advertising pricing: What Facebook Ads cost in 2025? LYFE Marketing. https://www.lyfemarketing.com/services/facebook-advertising-services/costs/
