The results are in! We’ve all decided that we will not leave any money on the table (this year or any year) and adding social media into our marketing budget is a must! 

Great! 

Last time, I spoke about building a home on social media and why it’s important to be on social media. 

In this post, I’m going to dive in on how to show up on social media, effectively. 

Choosing the Right Social Media For Your Business

A common mistake, business owners often make is creating an account on every platform because everyone is doing it.

When running a business, it’s very important to use your time wisely and effectively, especially if marketing is being done in-house.

Choosing one to two platforms maximum allows you to show up effectively and get a great return on investment.

The goal is to work smart, not hard, let’s discuss how we decide which platform is right for our business.

Here are five simple steps to help you decide.

1. Find your tribe aka target audience: When you know who your target audience is, how old they are, their gender, their income level and their interests, it’s easy to find out which platforms they frequent.Knowing this information also makes showing up on social media a little easier.A huge part of this is using brand personas to help you create your perfect customer. A brand persona is a representation of your target market. It includes gender, age, education, occupation, purchasing behaviour, pain points, etc. A brand persona answers the question of “Who is your target market?”

   Click for a free brand persona template to help you get started.

2. Determine Your Goal: In the last post, I mentioned that knowing your goals for social media will help you get started on social media. It also helps in determining which platform works best for you.If you made general goals after reading the first post, here is where you solidify your goals because this is going to help you decide which social media is worth your time and effort.Are you on social media to drive sales, or are you there to increase brand recognition and build relationships?
3. Get Familiar with the Different Social Media Platforms: Once you’ve determined your goals for social media, it’s important to know how they align with the various social media platforms.Most people are familiar with Facebook and Instagram but there’s also Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest and Youtube and each of them serve a different purpose for businesses.Spend a little time examining how you use them as a consumer and understanding the consumers drawn to each platform.

   Understand what the platforms are great for and their limitations. Research where your target audience spends most of their time and begin visualizing how you will show up consistently for them.

4. Identify Your Resources: Each platform is unique in the way you engage with the audience, but each also requires a different skill set.If social media isn’t a part of your budget, then you’ll be doing it in house. if you’ve been waiting for the moment to show off your graphic design skills or your amazing photography skills, then this is your moment to shine.But if you aren’t sure what skills you have to be successful on any platform, you need to stock up on resources.
5. Go Where Your Customers Are: After you’ve done the previous steps, you have all the information you need to decide which platforms will serve you best.You also understand which type of content works best on each platform. And you know what you need to do to show up.Now it’s up for you to decide which platform is for you. To help you, I’ve quickly summarized the various platforms and what they’re good for.

• Facebook: This is the largest platform with over 2 billion monthly users. Facebook is for building relationships, and most brands use it to increase brand loyalty. However, because of many changes, the reach is limited and smaller brands have a harder time reaching their target audiences.
• Twitter: Twitter has over 600 million users. It’s mainly for conversation and news and articles. Most brands use it for PR and conversation style communication. Twitter previously had a limit of 140 characters or fewer but with a new change, brands can use threads to get their point across. It’s also hard to build a following on Twitter.
• YouTube: YouTube has over 1 billion users, and it’s good for “how-to” videos. Brands use it to build brand awareness. There are a few disadvantages to this, but one of the biggest is the rules they place on your content and brand.
• Pinterest: Pinterest has over 70 million users, and it’s primarily a scrapbooking tool. Brands typically use it as a lead generation tool for clothing, art, small businesses, etc. The limitations are its images only and the science behind it is overly complicated.
• LinkedIn: With over 600 million users, LinkedIn is primarily used for Networking, News and Conversation. However, businesses have found success using it for business development in Business-to-Business (B2B) companies. The biggest limitation of LinkedIn, however, is limited interaction.
• Instagram: Instagram has over 200 million users. Brands use it to build relationships and lead generations. A downside to Instagram is the features that are available to help your business grow such as Instagram Reels or Instagram Shopping isn’t available to everyone. So if your business is a shop and it would be easier for people to shop on Instagram as opposed to leaving, because of the region you’re in, Instagram shopping may not be available to you.

As tempting as it may be to read all this information and want to create content for everything, it’s important that you remember you’re not a machine. Also, as a small business owner, remember it’s not about your business so much as it’s about where your target audience spends their time.

Once you know where your target audience is, you can choose two platforms (max) and show up consistently. 

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