Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest, Twitter, TikTok, SnapChat.

Do you get the feeling that you need to be everywhere on social media?

And then you worry that if you are, you’ll never get anything else accomplished?

You are not alone with that thought.

It does at times seem that everyone is everywhere. Just because it seems that way, it’s not really true.

And, you’re right, you won’t get anything done if you are always on social media.

The good news is that you can have a presence on social media and have it work for you. Here are five tips for finding the social media platform that works for you, lets you connect, and helps you build a social media following.

Clarity

Start with clarity.

Why do you want to be on social media? Is it because everyone is on social media or do you see that it can help you build your business?

What are your goals with social media?

Do you want to build a platform, connect with other artists, sell your work, chat about your life? If you want to build a platform, what are your metrics? How will you know if you are effective? Any goal is fine as long as you take time to figure out what you want to gain from being on social media.

Taking time to get clear on your goals lets you make faster progress and get better results.

Find your peeps

Your next step is to figure out where your peeps are hanging out.

You cannot be on all forms of social media and create real engagement with your friends and followers.

You can always survey your readers and followers. You might even be surprised by what you find out.

An easier way would be to see what is working now and what isn’t. If you are on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, which has more engagement from the people who are your customers?

Here’s a quick cheat sheet to get you started with the 4 most popular for creatives.

• Instagram slants younger (under 40) and is image-focused. Beautiful images stand out on IG. If you are a photographer, a lifestyle blogger, or have an ecommerce business, Instagram is for you.
• Facebook tends to attract everyone and those over 40 tend to be more engaged. Short videos, interactive content, live streams, and polls/questions tend to get a greater response. Facebook is great for creating a community around your interest.
• YouTube is second only to Google as a search engine. If you teach, YouTube is an important platform for you. Users do tend to be younger than 50.
• Pinterest is perfect if you are trying to reach DIYers who are also older women. Pinterest users are 80% female. Users also focus on lifestyle, fashion, and decorating.

What resonates with you?

You may already be on a number of platforms. Which platforms are fun for you?

You may find that you have lots of engagement on Twitter, but you just don’t like being limited to or 280 characters.

You may think you need to be on Facebook because everyone is, but you don’t really enjoy it.

This is true for more than one of my clients. They found Instagram and felt right at home. They created a Facebook Page for their business and used it to share their blog and Instagram posts. This lets people find them on Facebook, but it doesn’t zap their energy being on a social media platform that wasn’t “them.”

Since you are going to use social media to build your brand, you need to be comfortable with the choice you make. You might ask your business friends why they chose the platform they did.

If the platform doesn’t resonate with you, you are not going to use it and you will not see results.

Learn the nuances

Start with one platform, spend time learning the nuances of how it works, and then get good at it. Each platform has its advantages. Each has its culture. It’s your job to figure out how to use the platform to your best advantage.

Learn the best times to post for engagement. Learn what types of content work best on the platform. Learn how much engagement is enough.

Also, learn how to use the metrics that come with each platform. That will help you refine what you know and enhance the experience and your results.

Expanding your reach

Take the time now to get proficient at the one platform. Once you do that, expand to another if you think will help your business.

What if you are already on multiple platforms? What if you are still dabbling, and don’t feel confident about your results on one platform? Until you get good at one, I’d suggest picking one and putting the others on a technology auto-pilot. It lets you have a small presence, but you aren’t torn in so many directions.

Your turn!

Where do you find your best engagement and why?

Tags: business, customers, engagement, focus, social media

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 29th, 2020 at 9:15 am and is filed under Business, social media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.