Your business is on Facebook, maybe Instagram too. Do you add Twitter? Or what about YouTube – that’s huge. We should be there. What about LinkedIn? I have a personal profile – what about the business? And what about SnapChat and TikTok – what is going on with TikTok lately? Those are common conversations discussed in marketing meetings with conflicting answers. So, what should you do?
To break it down, 90.4% of Millennials, 77.5% of Generation X, and 48.2% of Baby Boomers are active social media users (Emarketer, 2019). Our latest data reveals an average of 3 hours per person daily on social media. And I would venture to say we’ll see a huge increase in that when our COVID/Stay at Home stats are released. We just can’t ignore social media as a necessary strategy to reach our customers.
Erik Qualman, #1 bestselling author of Digital Leader states “We don’t have a choice on whether we do social media, the question is how well we do it.”
So, how do we do it well? Consider these 3 tips as a social foundation:
1. Be where your customers spend their time. The start of all good marketing decisions is knowing your customer. Know who they are, what they want and, in this case, where they hang out. Your customers are getting their news and information on social media, in a variety of different ways. They are being entertained on social media. Find out which ones and be there – in a big way.
2. Consider your resources. Managing social media well takes time. It takes strategy. It takes knowledge on each platform and the creativity to customize your message for each one. Determine how much extra time you have to devote to social media before choosing to move forward on each platform. HubSpot reports 50% of customers will ditch a business that doesn’t answer negative posts on social media and 80% expect a response within 24 hours. If you are going to be present on a social media platform, you need to have a plan and the resources for creating and monitoring in place to do it well.
3. Walk before you run. Choose the best social media outlet for your target audience and go all in. Start with a solid social media strategy and a content calendar/plan for posting consistently. Once you have mastered that platform, choose the next best platform for your audience and do the same. But only if you have the resources to do them both well. Repeat this process to other platforms but only if it makes sense. Let me repeat that – only if it makes sense for your business.
Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.
This is one of my favorite sayings – and the least favorite of my children. Social Media accounts are fairly simple to set up and get started. That is why they are so tempting to begin. It’s the daily grind part where most fall short. If a platform does not completely align with your business goals and target customer, you shouldn’t do it.