There are many different social media platforms, including Facebook, X, Instagram and LinkedIn. 

Social media networks can offer a number of services and functions to your business. Many will allow you to create a business page and upload posts on a regular basis. 

If you want more exposure to potential customers, you may want to look for social media networks that also provide an advertising service.

When deciding on advertising for your business, most social media networks will ask you a number of questions to help select the best style of advertisement (ad) for your business. They may ask you to decide on the most important outcome you want from the ad, such as sales on your website, downloads of your app or increased brand awareness. Many will ask you to consider the demographics, interests and behaviours that best represent your customers. If the social media platform is linked to other networks, you'll also need to decide which of those networks you want to run your ad.

Several social media networks will give you an option for how much you want to spend on the ad and how long you want it to run. This helps you stick to a budget for your marketing and reduces the risk of overspending money.

Another option social media platforms may provide is allowing your customers to purchase your product or service directly from the ad, so you'll need to decide if this is right for your business.

Once your ad is up and running, most social media networks will provide you with statistics so you can monitor the performance of your ad. If you find that one version of your ad is working better than another, some services allow you to edit the ad.

Deciding on a social media network to use for your business marketing will depend on a number of factors, including:

• the type of business you have
• which platform has more potential customers for your business
• how much interaction you want to have with your customers through social media
• how comfortable you feel managing your business marketing and advertising through social media.

Social media can be a dynamic two-way channel for communicating with your customers. If you decide to use socal media for your business marketing, you'll need to have a plan for monitoring your social media channels and responding to your customers.

If you find social media marketing a bit overwhelming or you just don’t want to spend a lot of time managing it, there are companies that can build and manage ads for you, and keep you informed about how they're performing.