When considering a Social Media page for your business or organization, deciding which platform to use can be a bit daunting. Facebook, Instagram and Twitter tend to be thought of first, however LinkedIn, YouTube and Pinterest can all be used effectively.
So, which social media platform is for you? To help narrow down your options, here are five questions that you should ask yourself:
Who is your audience?
Before deciding on a platform, you need to decide on who you are trying to reach. Are you looking to reach families, communities and be more age inclusive? Are you trying to connect with the Gen Y’s and Z’s, or is it the attention of the Professional set you want to grab?
Where are they hanging out?
Now that you have the “who”, time to find the “where”. Facebook has the broadest range of users, seen as the easiest to navigate, it “makes sense” to the most people. Millennials head for Instagram, Twitter and YouTube. Professionals can usually be found on LinkedIn.
What is the best medium for your message?
The written word? Images? Video? All can be used on multiple platforms, however if you think your message is best received via video, then YouTube is where you may want to be. Are images your weapon of choice, Pinterest and Instagram would be better platforms for you.
How much time do you have?
Considering Twitter? Be prepared to be vigilante in your posting and reaction time to customers queries. Want to pop in once/twice a day? Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn are where you most likely want to be. Also, take into consideration the tools available to you per platform. The Facebook scheduling tool, for example, is a tremendous time saver.
Where is your competition posting?
Checking in on your competitors can help you decide where you should be. Perhaps sharing the same space would be most beneficial, or maybe you see an audience that is being missed, and you want to focus on reaching those that you consider are being left out.
Asking yourself these five questions can help narrow down where you want to, and should be focusing your time and energy. Sending your message along the wrong channel will not be helpful, and may even be detrimental to what you have already accomplished.
With a little bit of soul searching and some research, finding the right platform can be pretty Simple.
Simple Local Social 
This is a great article, and I couldn’t agree more with your point about how much time one has to invest in a social media platform. Have a platform to which you can’t invest the time and effort is almost worse than not having it at all. Thanks for sharing!
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Hi Sue,
Thanks for the comment!
At my previous job, I learned the hard way about how much time it actually takes to look after your platforms properly. It is one of the first questions we ask clients, it is so important.
LP
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