We live in an era where we are inundated with options. More specifically, access to consumers through technology and digital marketing largely phished through social media platforms. With so many platforms available such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest, Snapchat, TikTok, LinkedIn and a variety of others. With so many options available, the pressure to have a presence on each can be overwhelming to a business, especially a solopreneur. To alleviate this pressure off of you, the following is curated to aid you in your decision of which social media platforms best suit your business or brand’s needs.
WHY: Identify your business goals and use KPIs to assess the areas you need to strengthen/focus on.
There are three (3) main elements that lend to effective KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) in digital marketing that, as a business owner, you should evaluate when considering which social media platforms are best suited for you. They are attraction, engagement, and conversion. Attraction: Would you like to see an increase in your audience size? This is the area where awareness of your brand, product or service is qualified by followers or audience size to begin their customer cycle and audience journey with your story. Understanding the visibility of your target demographic per platform to attract new followers is the consideration to be made. Engagement: Is your audience not interacting with your content? Increased engagement with your content allows your audience to feel more vested in the narrative of your brand’s story. Seek platforms that encourage commenting and conversation with the types of content you share. Conversion: Are you generating ‘likes’ but not sales? Convert your interested spectators and double tappers to customers and clients. Platforms with paid advertising or embedded direct sales would be ideal targets for you. WHO: Know your target customer demographics and behaviors.
You can not market effectively to an audience you’re unfamiliar with, you must know your audience thoroughly. Demographics - age, race, gender and socio-economic status. These are all identifiers that segment your audience by general commonalities that have proven behavior patterns. Many social media platforms appeal to certain demographics because of the content they are best known for. Lifestyle Habits - Simply put: what does their everyday life look like when they aren’t using your product or service and the lifestyle that suggests they need your product/service. Dislikes & Intersectionality - For as much as we focus on our audience’s likes that cater to your business’ brand, we also need to give attention to their dislikes. Many brands “do too much” in an effort to appeal to their evolving audience. However, there is a fine line between relevancy and retention damaging. Having a keen knowledge and grasp of what your audience doesn’t like is beneficial to your marketing. It serves as a necessary precaution against turning off your loyal audience. The intersectionality of our audience is equally as important to have a keen grasp of because your customers are not monoliths and you do not want to offend your audience by only appealing to one dimension of their existence - worse case, you may lose customers to competition who sees the value in appealing to their intersectionality. WHAT: Consider your content
Select the platforms beneficial for the type of content that you are sharing -- visual, written, audio or a multi-format combination.
Visual: platforms that primarily support images and videos
e.g. YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, Pinterest
Written: platforms that primarily support written expression and articles
e.g. Twitter, Medium, LinkedIn, Tumblr
Audio: platforms that primarily support podcasts, voice notes/recording, and drop-in audio
e.g SoundCloud, YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Clubhouse
Combination: platforms that support multiple formats of content
e.g. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat, TikTok Sharing the story of your brand requires intentionality coupled with a strategy through curated content. By carefully choosing the platforms to best share your most effective content, you position your business in a place to maximize your audience, both current and potential to increase your following through attraction, your audience engagement and conversion from mere followers to customers.
This article was originally written and published for ThinkSMARK on March 15, 2021 where I am a Content Strategist as well as certified Digital Marketing consultant. Sign-up for one of my 3-Day Digital Marketing Basics Workshops here.