You Don’t Have to Be on Every Social Media Platform Just Because It Exists
When you work in social media, everyone thinks they understand your job completely. And they love to tell you how to do it better. Wait, no. I think that’s just being a female boss or business owner in general. 😅
Anyway, I’ve worked in marketing for just shy of 15 years now. I was working for a small communications agency when Facebook was still for college students and Pinterest was just becoming a platform we thought our clients might be able to use to market their businesses. Since then, the social media landscape has changed dramatically and now these channels have become the go-to (and sometimes the only) places small businesses market their products or services. They’ve become so much the bread and butter of small business marketing tactics that as soon as a new social media platform comes out, we instantly jump on it without thinking twice because it exists so we have to market our business there.
But how is a small business owner - especially a solopreneur or someone with a very small team - supposed to keep up with all the new platforms and algorithm changes? It seems nearly impossible, unless you hire someone to specifically manage your marketing for you, whether that’s an internal employee or external consultant like me. And, hey, I’m all for trying out new marketing tactics, and I’m happy to help you if you want to take marketing off your plate (that’s kinda what I love to do). BUT, what if you stopped to think before creating an account on [insert new platform name here]?
‘Cause here’s the thing - creating an account on the hot new social media platform and then rarely updating it because you simply don’t have time is not a sustainable marketing practice. So I’m here to give you a perhaps unpopular viewpoint when it comes to marketing your small business: don’t be on everything.
Are you breathing more easily now? Awesome.
But then how do you decide which marketing platforms to use with your limited time, money, resources? Here are a few questions I work through with my 1:1 clients:
Where does your audience live?
How is your product or service best explained?
Which platforms are you “good at?”
Answering these questions will help you sort through a sea of potential marketing platforms to choose the ones that are best for your business.
Need more help answering these questions or figuring out which marketing channels will work best for your unique business, products, and services? There’s an entire lesson on this in my Marketing Clarity Mini eCourse, which is just $77.77 - less than a 1-hour consulting call with me! Or, if you’re thinking more along the lines of bringing on a coach or consultant to help you with marketing on a regular basis, fill out this form to request a free 30-minute Discovery Session with me and let’s see if we’d make a good team!
