You might feel like you need to be present on every social media network, but between posting new content, answering emails, and a billion other tasks, how do you find the time?
If time is limited and you don’t have a social media manager at your disposal, a better strategy is to focus your energy on growing your audience on one platform. This will help you stay consistent, expend less energy and time, and grow faster.
Think of it this way: if you have a few thousand followers on one platform, you’ll gain more traction than a few hundred followers on three platforms. Once you get your following to a decent size, it’ll be easier to expand your audience on the second network, third network, and so on.
So which platform should you choose? Here are some tips to consider.
Where Your Audience Hangs Out
These don’t just include places where you have followers, but where people are actively using and searching on the platform. Having a lot of followers may seem nice, but if they aren’t active, they won’t help you grow!
First, consider your target audience. If you’ve already created a reader persona, you can use that. If not, think about the following:
- What age is your ideal audience?
- Where do they live?
- Income level?
- Education level?
- What type of work do they do?
- What do they value?
- What do they enjoy?
- What problems can you solve for them?
Of course, you can have more than one persona type you want to target.
Then, you can research different social platforms to check out their demographics. Here’s an overview of key demographics of several platforms to get you started. Pick one that aligns best with your audience.
If you already have a presence on any platforms, check out the analytics for each one. You’ll be able to see demographics like age, gender, location, interests, and other key information of people engaging with your profile.
See if the users actually visiting your social media are the same as your target audience. If not, maybe you can try a different platform that will appeal more to your ideal audience.
What You Want to Accomplish
Ask yourself what you’re trying to achieve by being on a particular platform. It could be a number of things:
- Spreading awareness of your brand
- Finding new customers
- Engaging with customers
- Connecting with other brands you want to work with
- Sales or lead generation
- Gaining subscribers
- Growing site traffic
- Increase media mentions
- Build your own community
Again, don’t feel overwhelmed by the thought of having to tick off all of these items. Pick a few to start with. Choosing a couple goals will guide you on choosing the best social media platform to accomplish these items.
Check Out Competition
To find some of the competitors in your niche, search for your target keywords on that platform and look at what profiles pop up. For each competitor, take note of a few things:
- Who their followers are (use this list to locate both potential audience you want to attract and other competitors!)
- Who’s interacting with their content
- What are they posting and who is the content targeted at
- How much they engage with followers
- How active they are on that platform
You can also see who their top followers are and use that to find other competitors (or even potential audience you want to attract!).
What Type of Media to Focus On
Of course, choosing a platform depends on the form of media you primarily want to post.
Do you have a product that’s easy to promote with images? Pinterest and Instagram are perfect.
Maybe your service or product isn’t as aesthetically inclined, but you have a great message to share and you love to engage with your followers? Facebook is where it’s at.
If your product or service is easy to share through video, or you’re someone who is comfortable in front of a camera, go for YouTube.
Maybe your content isn’t image heavy, but you’re good with words and want to interact frequently with your audience. Or maybe your industry is evolving very quickly and you need to post a lot of updates. Twitter is an easy way to get those short and sweet messages out there without spending a lot of time.
Make a List
After you’ve figured out everything above, make a list of the platforms and organize them in order of your top choice to your lowest priority. Start by focusing on your top platform, then move down the list one by one. Remember, you don’t have to be everywhere at once. Growing your presence takes time, and that’s okay!
Once you’re on multiple platforms, you might feel like managing them all is overwhelming. This is one reason why Community Sharer exists! We designed this app to make your life easier and save you time from managing your social media. We automatically share new content to any platforms you connect to Community Sharer, with no extra work from you! Doesn’t get any easier than that. Join our community and see how simple it is to use!