STARTING OUT ON SOCIALS? LETS HELP YOU PICK THE BEST PLATFORM FOR YOU

 4 Questions You Should Answer Before Choosing a Social Media Platform For You or Your Brand.

As a creator or business owner starting out, it is easy to get lost in the pool of social media platforms out there. Knowing which social media platforms to use and how many, is often a challenge for both creators and business owners. Most people think they have to be on all social media platforms in order to succeed on social media. However, that notion is false because you might end up exhausting both your budget and yourself or employees.

All you need is to figure out which social media platforms are best for your brand. Start there, and then steadily spread out as you scale up.  

In my previous post, I broke down the main social media platforms into features that are useful for brand and creators. If you haven't read it yet, you should because it's a very important part of this topic. In this piece, I'll be giving you tips to help you choose which social media platform is the right fit for you or your brand. 

Before choosing a social media platform, you have to ask yourself 4 very important questions. 

1. Where Are My Audience?

Which one is easier or more cost effective, going where your audience already are, or trying to attract them to a new platform? One of my sales slogan is; "If it'll stress the customer, ditch it". Instead of trying to attract people to a platform where they aren't comfortable with, go to where they already are and establish authority. For example, if my brand caters to young people, instead of creating a Meta page and then spending money to get my audience to start using Meta(Facebook) to connect with my brand, I'll simply create a TikTok account and make my brand's presence known.  

2. What Is My Goal?

You should pick a platform that supports your goal. Social media platforms have different features that may be beneficial or detrimental to your goals. If I wanted to drive traffic to my Twitter page through my photo content, I wouldn't go to Instagram because even if Instagram is good for sharing photo content, it doesn't allow users to post link in captions or stories. Not being able to post my link in caption would be detrimental to my goals right? So what will I do? Instead of going to Instagram I'll go for Pinterest because it's features go along with and support my goals. If you want to drive awareness through organic reach, Twitter is the right place for you. Want a visually appealing brand presentation? Then you should consider Instagram. Need to advertise using detailed targeting options? Facebook might be the right fit for you.

3. What is my type of brand?

Some platforms are better suited for certain brands. Twitter and LinkedIn are better suited for tech and professional brands while Instagram and TikTok are best suited for beauty and fashion brands. Let me tell you a funny story; one of my friends told me that she heard that only rich people use LinkedIn so she wanted to create a business profile there so she could advertise her fashion line to LinkedIn users. I laughed so much that day that my ribs started to hurt. Why would you try to sell clothes on LinkedIn please?

4. What Is My Content Format?

Content format refers to how you want to present your content. I could create a YouTube video telling Instagram to stop trying to morph into TikTok and decide to post that same content on Instagram as a reel or carousel. If I want, I could extract the audio of that same YouTube video and upload it as a podcast. If I wanted to post it on Twitter, I could create a catchy graphic that summarizes that YouTube video and then leave the link in the caption or I could post it as a thread.

Same content, different formats.

 Even though most social media platforms have started to incorporate more and more features and content formats, they still have formats that they were initially designed for, and these formats do better on them. For example, blog style formats do better on twitter, long form video so better on YouTube or Vimeo, etc. 

So if you are a dancer, you have no business creating carousel posts or creating Twitter threads and if your content format is audio, you should be on Spotify or Clubhouse instead of LinkedIn.  

 

Answering these questions will help you decide which social platform is best for your brand. Remember not to spread yourself too thin by being on all social media platforms. Choose the best platform(s) for your brand and gradually spread out as you go. 

I hope you found this read useful? Don't forget to leave all questions or remarks in the comments.