Social Media: Perfecting Your Platform

June 8, 2022

Jessica Goldfarb

Social Media Account Manager

Social media has taken the marketing world by storm. Who are you if you’re not online? With so many new and emerging apps and sites, it’s hard to decide where to put forth the effort to reach and stay relevant to your target audience.

Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, LinkedIn, YouTube, Snapchat, Reddit, Pinterest, and more… 😳

With so many growing social media platforms, you may feel a bit overwhelmed trying to stay on top of managing all those profiles. Well, we’re here to tell you that you don’t have to!

The Big Three

Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. For years these have been the biggest three social media platforms for businesses to market on. They have the largest and most diverse audience, making it easy to reach the right people.

Your individual business’s needs will determine if it’s necessary for you to be on all three of these apps, but at the very least, you’ll want to be on 2 of the big 3.

Facebook is both photo and text-based, and although it started as just a way for friends to connect, it has quickly grown into an important tool for businesses to make a name for themselves. It has proven itself as one of the most adaptive and versatile apps out there and isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

Instagram is photo/video-based, with a big recent push to video via Instagram Reels. A good portion of Instagram has been devoted to businesses and fan pages, but the majority of its users are still individual people posting their everyday lives.

Twitter is mostly text-based and serves as a fast and easy way to get updates into the world. Microblogging, shout-outs, and following your favorite celebrities and brands are this platform’s main focuses.

Tiny but Mighty

Now on to the “smaller” social media apps. Despite having not as large of an audience, being on these platforms can make a big difference.

This is where understanding your target audience will come back into play! You’ll need to keep in mind the average age ranges, genders, and other demographics of your customers when deciding which apps to be on. Since the reach of most of these apps is a little more niche, you’ll need to understand to whom each one caters.

TikTok is one of the newest and fastest growing platforms. This app is best for short UGC videos including trends, challenges, vlogs, and any content where the style is a little more personal.

LinkedIn is solely for professional networking. Anything relating to the growth of your business, or any content you want to use to recruit new employees should go here.

YouTube was one of the original video platforms for social media. You can post your longer (1 minute+) videos here, or crosspost your Instagram Reels and TikToks to the new YouTube shorts for more views.

Snapchat started as a communications tool but has evolved to include short entertainment pieces and other content. You can market on Snapchat organically by friending your followers and posting to your story. This gives a very “behind the scenes” feel that can help to drive the authenticity of your brand.

Pinterest can be a useful tool for small businesses, especially in the creative world. Artists, crafters, clothing designers, and other creators can post and pin their content to grow awareness for their brand organically.

Don’t Overdo it (SOCIAL OVERLOAD)

Understanding each of the social platforms that are popular today can help you make the decision about where you want to focus your efforts.

It may be tempting to be on every social media platform available to get the maximum amount of reach, but it is far from necessary. In this case, you are spreading yourself too thin, and the quality of your content could suffer as a result.

It is far better to be on 2-4 social media platforms and posting consistently than it is to be spread out over all of them and raking in only 1-2 likes per post. This way you are much more likely to gain a loyal following instead of being forgotten!

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