Social media platforms are as plentiful as bestie selfies at a high school prom. The “new,” “hottest,” and “latest” platforms roll out ad nauseam.
As you were just getting the hang of Twitter, someone is telling you to join Path. Once you thought Instagram was the bee’s knees, you’re now told that Twoo is the latest and greatest.
What do you do? How do you keep track?
You need a way to aggressively evaluate social media platforms. Not every channel will provide the engaged audience interaction that your brand needs. Not every promising social media upstart deserves your time, attention, and marketing dollar.
What you require for your social media success is straightforward answers, not a maybe-we’ll-try-this, or oh-that-looks-cool-too.
What follows is a questionnaire that you can use the
Question 1: What is your goal on social media?
There is no right or wrong answer. If you just want involvement, that’s okay, but be clear about your intentions.
Remember, ultimately, social media is a marketing activity. The goal of marketing is to acquire customers to increase revenue.
Question 2: Whom are you trying to reach?
This question is easier to answer when you localize your target audience.
If you haven’t created a target persona or a customer journey map, please stop reading this article and do it!
Your target persona integrates demographic and psychographic variables that give you insights into what social media channels are best for your business.
The endgame of social media engagement is more customers, right? Well, then; go where your customers are.
The answer will be at once obvious and difficult. On the one hand, it will be obvious because, you know, The Big Four. You should stake a presence on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google+. On the other hand, it’s difficult to do so because those sites are awash in competitors.
What’s the solution?
Research, study, and engage.
Figure out your audience. Get in their heads. Follow their journey. Understand their needs, wants, interests, drives, and passions.
Question 3: What platform are you most familiar with?
You’ll perform far better on a platform that you’re comfortable with.
Let’s pretend you’re a killer
That’s your launching pad.
If you navigate it easily, then you’ll easily reach someof your audience exploring it. (Facebook in particular dwarfs nearly any social media competitor)
The greater your skill-level on a given platform, the higher your odds of succeeding.
Question 4: What does your tribe do on the platform?
Social media sites may seem the same on the surface, but each of them is specially suited to a particular activity or goal.
Let’s compare and contrast: Instagram is for pictures; Snapchat is for pictures. Yet, Snapchat and Instagram are vastly dissimilar. The two platforms attract different types of users who are engaging in different types of activities.
Snapchat is temporary, quirky, sketched-over, cartoonish, and person-to-person. Instagram is permanent, formulaic, professional, realistic and collective.
Photographers and fashionistas are more likely to use Instagram. If that’s your audience, get involved with Instagram marketing. If you’re a B2C with a teen audience, then Snapchat could be your jam.
The point is that Snapchat-users engage in inherently different kinds of activity than Instagram-user, and vice-versa. Although there may be some overlap, in general, both sites draw different market segments.
By analyzing the differences between platforms, you can better understand what users are trying to accomplish on the platform, and that information should guide your strategy.
Follow These Tips
- Safety in numbers. Bigger social media channels are generally better. Why? Simply put: because they are bigger. When a channel has more active users, a larger swath of those users might be your target audience.
- Distrust the untested. A channel that promises to be the “Next Facebook” or the “hottest new platform,” probably isn’t. Why not? Because every other platform that isn’t well established is claiming the same thing. Wait until a platform has matured, has attracted an actual following with an identity, then test it. Social media marketing isn’t cheap, so spend your money where it matters.
- Numbers don’t lie. Always obey metrics. If you’re making bank on a particular channel, keep pounding it. Constantly analyze your metrics to identify where and how the most valuable users are funneling into your endpoint. Marketing is a data-driven game, and you can only win it through dispassionate objectivity.
- Travel every road. If you depend on a single social media channel for your customers and revenue, you are treading on thin ice. A single platform can reverse course, and leave you floundering in its wake, hemorrhaging customers and revenue in the process. Facebook’s Reachpocalypse, Google+’s authorship phase out, and the Twitter/Google partnership have revealed the unpredictability of the social media landscape. Diversify your social media efforts to increase your resilience to change.
Conclusion
There is something worse than engaging in the wrong platform.
Not engaging at all.
If you find yourself on the fence about two good social media options, choose one. Eeny-meeny-miny-mo is a better strategy than disengagement.
Once you pick, test it. It’s hard to validate the potential of a social media channel if you’re not using it.
But when you jump on board, go all out: post, like, slick, snap, tweak, smile, [AC2] upvote, comment, chat, click, plus, and tweet. Active use is the best way to pinpoint the nature of a social media platform.
