How To Choose The Right Social Media Platform to Start On

Then the person talking to me usually gets this look of panic on their face. Oh, well, I certainly would never turn down a free super bowl commercial, but I have no clue how to use social media to grow my business and it all seems so daunting to me. And, I cannot afford to spend tons of money to pay some marketing company to do this for me. Then the panic look is replaced by a look of hopelessness.

 

So, I am here today to make getting started simpler.  

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FIRST RULE:

CHOOSE ONE PLATFORM TO GET STARTED WITH.  

 

When you have the first platform managed, rolling along smoothly, and the process is easy for you, then go on to the next one. One of the comments I hate to hear is, “Oh yes. I use social media. I have a Facebook business page, a LinkedIn business page, I am on Pinterest, I am on Twitter”... My response is usually, -- Great what are you doing with them.. “Oh. Not much… 

 

In my opinion, this is worse than not having a presence at all. It’s like putting a sign out that says Coming Soon, Great New Store. People get excited… they wait, and they wait…… and they wait….. and when nothing happens, they just move on.  After a while, they do not even notice the sign is there.

 

HOW TO CHOOSE THE RIGHT STARTING PLATFORM:

 

SECOND RULE: 

IT'S NOT ABOUT YOU: WHERE DO YOUR CUSTOMERS HANG OUT?

 

Using social media for business is not about you. The purpose of using social media for business is to increase your business online visibility by attracting the attention of your potential customers. So in picking the right social media platform it is very important that you get into the head or your customers.

 

You must know who your customers are. And do not tell me it is everyone, because it isn’t. You have several unique customers and each have a distinct set of characteristics. Your unique customers might be a mom, a student, a businessman or business-owner, a hobbyist, etc. And each of these distinct customers have a unique fit for your product/service, and they also have a unique best fit for social media platform based upon their lifestyles.  

 

So in choosing the first social media platform for promoting your business, target one of your customers, and which social media platform that particular customer uses most frequently.

 

Additional factors to consider when choosing your first platform are:

• What kind of communication do you prefer?

• What are your resources?  

• Who’s going to do the work?

• What is your goal?

 

THIRD RULE:

ANALYZE AND TRACK EVERYTHING.

 

It is important to track what people react to and what post topics are the most popular. And then, do more of what is working, of course!