Choosing the right social media platform for your business
Lesson plan overview
This lesson explores social media trends for 2026 and helps learners understand how businesses, creators, and brands can choose the most effective social media platform for their goals. Through guided listening activities, vocabulary development, discussion tasks, and reflection, students analyze real-world examples of platform strategy, audience targeting, authenticity, and AI-assisted content creation. The lesson is ideal for business English, marketing, communication, or professional English learners at an upper-intermediate to advanced level. Other lessons you might like are: “Business trends“, “Brand differentiation“, “Personal branding“, and “Phrasal verbs: social media“.
Speaking: The lesson starts with a general discussion about different social media platforms, what they are best for and which ones students use both for personal use, and professionally.
Pre-listening vocabulary: Students are introduced to key vocabulary for this lesson, related to social media and marketing (e.g. engagement, niche, tap into, establish credibility, get watered down, crushing it). Activities include matching words to definitions, contextual example sentences, controlled practice and discussion questions.
Listening: Students watch a video called “How to Choose the Best Social Media Platform for Your Business”, and complete 3 listening comprehension activities.
Speaking: In pairs or small groups, students choose one or two businesses and discuss:
The most suitable social media platform
How the business can grow using that platform
Content ideas and engagement strategies
Speaking: Students read and discuss key social media trends for 2026. Guided discussion questions encourage critical thinking, opinion-sharing, and industry-specific application.
For more speaking practice and to review key vocabulary from this lesson, you can use the printable conversation cards.
Unlock these resources with one of our subscription plans
Teacher’s lesson plan
Student’s worksheet
Student’s interactive PDF
Conversation cards PDF
Pre-class activities
All video-based ESL lesson plans include online pre-class activities, which are FREE and can be completed without registration. Perfect for teachers who wish to embrace the blended learning approach. By providing students with resources and engagement opportunities before the actual class session, educators can foster active participation, enhance comprehension, and optimise in-class discussions.
The pre-class activities are optional: if you choose not to assign them, or your students don’t complete them, it will not disturb the flow of the class. You can find and review the pre-class activities for this lesson plan here:
To send the pre-class activities to your students, copy the link below.
In-class activities
To download the PDF files for this lesson, you need to have an active Premium or Premium + subscription.
Browse FREE lesson plans here.
Additional resources
Each video-based lesson plan includes links to additional resources (videos and articles), which are FREE can be found online (in the pre-class activities page. These links aim to extend the learning experience, enabling students to connect classroom knowledge with real-world applications.
Unlock these resources with one of our subscription plans
Teacher’s lesson plan
Student’s worksheet
Student’s interactive PDF
Conversation cards PDF
Not sure yet?
Try one of our FREE lessons plans
Share this lesson plan with someone who will find it useful