NB: If you have the words 'community' or 'digital' in your job title, you can take your judgey, Facebook Analytics-imprinted eyeballs somewhere else, because you probably know all of this already.
Working in social media, one of the questions I’m asked over and over again is: which networks should my business be on? The old proverb (is it Irish? Let's go with Irish...) goes that it’s better to do one thing well than a lot of things poorly, and never has that been truer than with social media.
It’s a lie to say that brands can’t pursue a social media strategy across all networks effectively – thousands of businesses do it, and do it well – but they’re usually the ones with big budgets, lots of creative resources and too much time... Think about that wedding planner you went to school with who updates their Facebook business page (110 page likes) 12 times a day.
But the reality is that most of the time, you’re better off picking your fights and properly serving a particular community than spreading your efforts too thin. So with this in mind (and the warning that I have answered questions with more questions), here are a few things to ponder when you’re considering diving into the murky world of social media and you’re not sure where to place your bets.
Who are you trying to reach and which social media networks are they using?
You should know who your customers are, so try to work out which networks they use. Think of your industry and their age, sex and interests.
Facebook is still the Big Daddy, with somewhere around 95% of Australian social media users using the network, so if you’re looking for your biggest bang for buck that’s probably it. Pinterest is slightly skewed toward females, fashion and food, while Instagram tends to be adopted by younger users.
Figure out who you want to reach, and then find out where they’re engaging on social media. Here's an interesting article to kick start the process.
TIP: Do your research online and figure out which channels your customers (and would-be customers) are using before you dive in.
How much money and time do you have to play with?
While Facebook is where most of your fans will be, it is becoming more and more difficult (if not impossible) to reach people without investing in advertising and promoted posts. So if you’re coming to the table late (ie. now - now is late) and you don’t have much of a budget, you’ll struggle to make inroads.
If you do have some budget, then it's a great place to reach your customers, as you can target people based on age, sex, interests and a multitude of other factors, instead of blasting your content to the public and waiting for the right people to find you.
Alternatively, Instagram is still a free-for-all for brands (at least until their advertising project picks up speed) and you can still make huge gains based on the quality of your content alone, rather than your spend. Twitter is somewhere in the middle but demands a lot of time, as you won’t see results without posting multiple days a day.
YouTube is a huge player and for those brands with a bit of money to invest in video content, is a viable option. The Dollar Shave Club enjoyed huge viral traction through their very low budget production.
TIP: Figure out your budget and time, and then work out which network you can actually make progress with.
What is your primary objective in social media?
It sounds like a simple question, but even large brands can have trouble defining their identity and purpose on social media. Is your goal to create leads and direct sales? Or is it to advertise and increase your visibility in the market? Or is it your Board's annoying mandate that social does both and it's somewhere in the middle? Who am I, damn it?!
Depending on what you want to achieve, different channels can be more effective. As you can’t post a URL in a caption on Instagram, it doesn’t matter how many likes your photo gets, you’ll never get a measurable click-through for a sale. But it can be an excellent platform for increasing your visibility in the market and forging valuable fan relationships.
TIP: Do your research into the different networks and which is most suited to your objective. Ask other businesses and brands how they have used each network to achieve their purpose.
Which network is your content most suitable for?
A lot of this will depend on the industry you are in and the types of content you have at your fingertips on a daily basis. If you’re a florist with beautiful images at your disposal every day, you would do well on Instagram or Pinterest. If you’re a B2B business creating informative blogs, you’d do well sharing your content through LinkedIn and Twitter.
While you can share a bit of everything on pretty much every channel, you’ll have more success if you figure out which content has the most success on which channel and go from there.
TIP: If you decide to adopt multiple social media networks for your brand (which is obviously a good way to do it) you need to ensure your content is tailored for each channel. As well as being careful not to simply post all content to all channels because you can, the copy, image size and even the format of a link should all be amended depending on the channel you’re publishing the content on.