At the end of almost every session I run with business owners, somebody asks the same question. It's 2017, and the question goes like this. "Which social media platform should I focus on?" Or the version for busy people. "If I've only got time for one, which one?"
The numbers were huge then
Back then I'd start with the numbers. Facebook had just passed two billion users. YouTube wasn't far behind. Instagram was growing fast, and WhatsApp and Messenger were each well past a billion. Snapchat was where the under 24s were. LinkedIn was tiny by comparison.
Every one of those numbers has changed since. Some platforms have grown, some have faded, and a few new ones have turned up that nobody had heard of in 2017. Which is exactly why the numbers were never the answer.
Where do they hang out?
Forget which platform is biggest. The most important question is where your audience is actually paying attention.
It's no different from marketing offline. If the people you want to meet spend their Saturdays at a particular sports club or music venue, it's much easier to turn up there than to persuade them all to start hanging out somewhere else.
So think about who you're trying to reach. How old are they, and what do they do for work? Where do they go when they've got ten minutes and a phone in their hand? A tiny platform full of the right people beats a giant one full of the wrong ones. For some businesses that's LinkedIn. For others it's YouTube, which plenty of people use as a search engine.
Test it
There's no one size fits all answer. The only way to be sure is to test. Put content out where you think your people are, watch what happens, and do more of what works. Then talk to people there, don't just broadcast at them. That's the whole point of Always do this before you post on social media.
I still get asked this
I still get asked this, just about different apps. And I still give the same answer. Chasing whichever platform is in the headlines this month is tiring and mostly pointless. Finding out where your customers already are is quicker, and it's what gets people talking to you.
First published September 2017.
