Skip to main content

The Social Media Starting Kit (Part 2): Choosing Your Network & Beginning the Journey

It's time to start posting, but where? While some assume having a presence everywhere is better, I would argue that a focused and highly social presence in a few places is better than an auto-post everywhere.

The key question to ask is...

Where is my audience?

Each business will have a slightly different answer to this question, and rightly so. Every audience is a bit different, and also how that audience behaves on social media varies. 

Two audiences, two approaches

For example, there is a huge running community on Twitter and Instagram, but their behavior on each platform varies. On Twitter, the runners are incredibly personal, communicating with each other, giving high fives, asking about health and weather conditions. (If you're not familiar with Twitter, this is also non-standard behavior for a Twitter community.) On Instagram, the runners post new pictures of themselves every run. And, these are no beauty selfies. In the winter, the more snow flaked eyelashes, the better. And in the summer, red-faced and dripping is the norm. So, if you're going to make inroads in this community as a business, you'd better count on making it personal and communicating early and often. 

The running audience is completely different from HR. On Twitter, HR is mostly tips and tricks, inforgraphics that share well, and eBooks. There are a few who have a distinct personality (William Tincup and Tim Sackett come to mind), but they are the exception rather than the rule. And, HR on Instagram? The major accounts have big follower numbers but for the most part are quiet with pictures of family, home and hobbies. An HR brand could neglect Instagram for quite some time and thrive (but they better be on LinkedIn). 

Your audience

Most businesses, as previously mentioned, are conceived in response to a problem, a problem the founder is experiencing. So, you know the problem and you've experienced it. 

You are the audience. Where are you on social media?

When I write, I imagine the reader as myself, right before I started thinking about or researching the topic at hand. This makes it easy to figure out what topics to pick and how much depth to get into and what kind of sense of humor to use. There aren’t really that many categories of people out there, so even if only 1 in 500 people happens to have my exact taste, with the insane reach of the internet, that turns into a lot of people. --Tim Urban @Medium

If you and your peers are more business-minded men in their mid-thirties to fifties, Twitter would be my go-to if your brand solves a business problem. I'd follow up with LinkedIn as well, as you probably have quite a few connections and use LinkedIn to search out vendors and competitors. 

If you are a homeschooling mom who has a solution to children's horrific spelling, then Facebook would be the place for you to go. Although Facebook has recently become more challenging for brands, if that's where your users hang out and think about your brand, go. 

Which platform is best?

The question is not really which is best, but which is best for your audience. The following infographic gives a great overview of the social media networks as well as which work best for which purpose. 


How do I begin?

The key here is to create a business profile and begin posting. You've already got your brand essentials, as well as the design ability of Canva for the visuals. The key now is to choose your social media platform and begin. 

Only one or two to start...seriously

In the beginning, choose the one or two networks with the most punch for your audience. Social media, good social media, takes time and presence. If you are chasing five or six profiles, trying to find audiences, communicate with your followers, and post with enough regularity to remain relevant, you will quickly become exhausted and throw your hands up. There is only so much time, and it is best to invest that time wisely where you need to be. 

Your Profile

Beginning a social media platform for a brand is a bit different from building one for an individual. All you need to begin a personal Instagram page is a phone and wifi. For a business profile, you'll need brand images, a tagline or message, and a best practices guide to follow to ensure you hit all the highlights. 

(The first stage of any social media marketing is a brand audit, and I find many small business owners do not take the time to build a profile. They end up posting great content, but as an egghead--a Twitter handle without a well-built profile--they'll never get the followers they're after.)

Best Practices Guides 

(These are my favorite...no need to re-invent the wheel)

Once you've got the profile set up, it's time to begin posting and managing your social media. Next time, I'll go over my favorite tips and tricks for keeping your social media machine in line. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Social Media Starting Kit (Part 1): Establishing Your Brand

Businesses, the best businesses, are the response to a problem. And, the entrepreneur's encounter with this problem and creative response is the story. Problem: Children without shoes Response: Tom's  Problem: Unhealthy hair Response: Monat Problem: Children with a lacking education after public school term Response: Classical Conversations Your business tells a story. Its formation, website, branding, and sales style are all a part of that story. But, in a world of billions, how do you ensure that story is being heard? The answer is social media. And, when a story is spread on social media, you have magnified your audience and increased the likelihood of your business' success.  But, how do you engage in social media? A business owner does not have time for rabbit holes, education in social media best practices (which are constantly changing), or endless likes, follows and unfollows, tweets and moments.  Entrepreneur's Social Media St...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Space between Social Media and Business Acumen

There was a space for an entrepreneur to offer quality and business acumen in social media to other entrepreneurs and small businesses. SDS took it. A Passion for the Written Word There are thousands out there. We're the people who notice a Q without a U, a misplaced apostrophe, and a false word ("conversate"). We strive for meticulosity. We are logophiles and linguaphiles, and we often suffer from infobesity . In the modern business world, we find our niche in the conversation of the day--social media. This passion for the written word is the beginning of the SDS story, but the inception was forced by a frustration with dishonesty and a love of the hustle. A Frustration with the Status Quo Too many are paying too much for too little. This truth is apparent to every business owner who has hired a social media agency and received a smattering of disconnected posts that amount to nothing. However, this is not the way it should be. A social media professional, at h...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Social Media Starting Kit (Part 3): Calendars and Management

You've got a profile, you've got ideas for a few posts and images, and now it's time to begin posting. But, how do you bring strategy in? When do you post? Where do you post? How do you keep from becoming a slave to your social media? That's where the next two crucial elements of social media management come in: calendars and management. First off, each social media platform has different needs, and each audience within the platform has different expectations. The average consumer expects a response from a corporation in Twitter, and 72 percent of people who complain on Twitter expect a response within an hour, per the HubSpot blog . Otherwise there are standard best practices for when to post and how often to post on each network. Image courtesy of Fast Company SproutSocial posted earlier this year about the best times to post on each social media network for engagement . It is an incredibly thorough post, and I would recommend reading it to begin charting ...
Post a Comment
Read more