When you begin your social media marketing journey, the idea of creating a profile on every platform may feel overwhelming. The truth is, your business doesn't need to be everywhere at once. With a plethora of options ranging from Facebook to Pinterest to LinkedIn, each platform has its own advantages and drawbacks, making certain channels a better fit for specific brands. But how do you determine where your business should be? We've curated a comprehensive list of factors to help you select the right platforms for your company profiles, ensuring that your social media marketing efforts are as effective as possible.
Understand your target audience
The first and arguably most important consideration comes after conducting extensive market research. You should have a very specific ideal customer persona in mind for your offerings, including information such as demographics, psychographics, and behaviors. Part of this research should include where your target audience spends their time online. Understanding which social media channels your target audience frequents is important so that you can engage and maximize your visibility by showing up more frequently on their feeds.
This strategy ensures that you're meeting them where they are most active and receptive to your messaging. By tailoring your content and engagement strategies to better resonate with your audience, your brand can ultimately drive stronger connections and results for your brand.
Keep your goals in mind
Before you begin any marketing effort, the first step is outlining your goals, both big picture and for each campaign. Social media marketing is no different. Outline why you’re online, and what you hope to accomplish. This can be both qualitative and quantitative, including items such as changing brand identity and increasing website traffic by 8%. Once you have these goals in mind, you can then choose a platform that is most conducive to helping meet your goals.
For example, LinkedIn has extensive retargeting ad capabilities. If you want to run ads targeting professionals in the workplace after they’ve already come into contact with your business, this might be a great platform for you. If you want to create a more relatable and conversational brand, you might consider joining Twitter (X) and engaging with your audience’s content. Instagram is great for product marketing, but not for sending people to links since you can’t include a link in your captions. Comparing your goals with the features inside each app will guide you in selecting the channel best suited to your needs.
Check on competitors
Being unique and standing out from the crowded online space is essential to creating brand loyalty and making more sales online. However, it’s also important that you are aware of where else where your competitors are active on social media. Understanding where your audience is being exposed to competing businesses enables you to strategically position your brand for greater visibility and market share. This approach not only helps you stay ahead of the competition but also allows you to grow stronger connections with your audience and drive growth for your brand online.
Consider your content capacity
While it may be tempting to cast a wide net and set up shop on as many platforms as possible, it’s imperative to remember that quality is more important than quantity. Spreading your resources too thin by requiring content for a wide range of platforms will lead to shallow content that won’t help you achieve your goals. YouTube will require videos, while Instagram needs graphics for the feed, while Pinterest requires extensive keyword research with eye-catching photography.
Cross-posting and repurposing content are great ways to maximize the life of your content, but optimizing each piece of content for the specific platform is essential to achieving optimal performance. Instead of spreading yourself thin across five platforms, it's more beneficial to excel on two or three platforms where you can deliver high-quality, targeted content that resonates with your audience. Many businesses choose to outsource their content creation to a professional team so that they can focus on other business objectives.
Choose carefully
Being present on every platform isn't necessary, focus on selecting the platforms that align with your goals and resonate most with your target audience. You can strategically position your brand for maximum visibility and engagement by considering where to put your time and energy on social media. By prioritizing authenticity, providing value, and staying consistent across your chosen platforms, you can cultivate stronger connections with your audience and drive sustainable growth for your brand. Ultimately, success in social media marketing comes from developing a strategic approach that balances creativity with data-driven decisions.
At 97 Switch, we pride ourselves on our careful consideration of each business's unique needs to develop a strategy to achieve their goals. By working closely with our partners, we are able to continually pivot and optimize our marketing efforts. To learn more about our marketing services, click here!
