Your Customers Are Not on Every Social Media Platform!
It’s tempting to think that putting your business on every social media platform means reaching a larger audience.
You may see some business accounts with thousands of followers or notice one of their videos went “viral” with a million views on a particular platform. While the prospect of “going viral” and getting new customers overnight sounds exciting, it should not be the reason your business joins every social media platform. It’s unrealistic to think that pushing your business into every corner of the internet will increase your chances of success. Here are a few reasons why trying to be on every social media platform (no matter how popular they are at the minute) may do more harm than good for your business.
Lack of Consistency
To be successful on social media, you have to be consistent. You need to ensure you’re constantly providing your audience with content that they value. This takes a lot of time and effort even if you’re only managing one platform. You can’t start by posting high-quality content, gaining a lot of followers and then completely change what you post because you don’t have the time to sustain the work. That’s going to cause your audience to unfollow because the content that saves you time won’t be engaging to them. Without engagement, you’re merely talking to yourself. As you join more platforms, this vicious cycle will continue. You’ll find that you can’t manage the amount of work and time it involves to be consistent which will harm the connection you built with your audience.
Every Platform Has Its Own Rules
While it takes effort to be consistent with your content, you also need to know how to use a particular platform to your advantage. Every social media platform works uniquely. You need to be constantly aware of how each platform works and be prepared to change with it. Platforms can be temperamental at times. What gets you high engagement now might not work next week. For example, Instagram started as an image-based platform, but since the rise of TikTok, Instagram has been pushing for accounts to produce “Reels”, which are videos. They’ve done this to compete with TikTok, however, that means that their algorithm now prioritises videos rather than pictures. If you don’t keep up with how social media platforms alter their algorithms, you may be confused as to why your current content strategy isn’t doing as well. Knowing the updates of how a platform works gives you an advantage but it’s incredibly hard to tailor your strategy to every platform.
How to Find Where Your Customers Are
Social media platforms offer different services to every user. People who want to stay updated on news may use Twitter, TikTok is perfect for entertainment, Facebook is a place for people to connect while Instagram allows its users to share different aspects of their lives. Understanding who your target audience is before you choose which platforms to use is crucial. One way you can find where your audience is by looking at where your competitors are. Analyse their content to see what their audience engages with the most or note what they’re not doing so you can potentially fill that gap.
Having and maintaining a strong social media presence is difficult, yet it’s much easier when you prioritise platforms that your audience uses. Don’t join a platform because it’s popular right now. If your audience isn’t on it, you’re wasting your efforts. Instead, learn how to consistently create content on one or two platforms that your audience wants to see and engage with. This is what can help you build a valuable relationship between them and your business on social media.
