When marketing feels like too much work. Part Three: What social media platforms should I be on?

One of the easiest ways to fail at social media (and all digital marketing actually) is to do too much. Seriously. Trying to be on every platform all the time almost never works, and it almost always inevitably ends up in burnout.

Yet, I see this all the time. Leaders think that not showing up everywhere is a missed opportunity. So they sign up for every possible channel - Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, X, YouTube, Pinterest, TikTok, Threads, Snapchat, Reddit, Substack, etc. And very soon, they realize, that being everywhere, all at once, is a lot of work and pretty darn hard.

You don't need to be everywhere.

Why? Well, for starters, your sanity. Most business and nonprofit leaders I speak to don't have a lot of time, budget or a dedicated team to manage their marketing. Which means that the person who is going to be creating all the content for all those platforms is probably going to be doing that on top of their already full-time job. I don't know about you, but most people I speak to are already ready struggling with just one job - they don't really have the capacity (mental, physical, temporal, etc.) to do more.

In the case of digital marketing, less is more. Actually, better is more. When it comes to social media - any or all of them - quality beats quantity every single time. And you can't create quality if you're stretched thin trying to show up everywhere.

So, are we all agreed - we don't need to be everywhere, all at once? Good.

So, what social media platforms should you be on?

I think there's really only two criteria that you need to consider when deciding where to show up: (1) Where is your target audience hanging out? and (2) What kind of content are you capable of creating? Let's unpack both a little.

Where is your target audience hanging out?

Imagine I make scarfs for penguins in the wild. That's my business. (Pretty cool, right?). Well, if I'm smart about running my business, I would do some market research and I'd know that my customers are in Antarctica, Australia and New Zealand, some parts of Africa and South America. Exclusively the Southern Hemisphere. So I wouldn't bother spending my time, money or effort marketing to the North Pole or Iceland, or any part of the Northern Hemisphere. It just wouldn't make sense.

The same can be said for social media. Very few people are using every single platform actively. Your customers are not using every single platform regularly. That means, you don't have to be either. Your job is to find out which ones they use, the most often, and with the greatest opportunity for trust-building. That's where you need to be.

'Ok, but how do I know which platforms they're using', I hear you asking. Good question! The platforms themselves release a lot of user data, so you can get a general idea of the representative demographics on each one. Of course, there are always outliers. While most TikTok users fall between 18-34, your 80-year-old grandma might be particularly tech savvy and love a good trend!

Trendy octogenarians aside, this platform data is somewhat useful for potentially ruling out some of the platforms that may not serve you best. However, a much better way to determine which platforms your customers are using...(drum roll please)...is to ask them.

What kind of content are you capable of creating?

If you're not able to create the kind and quality of content that the platform is known for, that the algorithms will reward, and that the audience has come to expect, it's better not to be on that platform.

Even if all your people are on TikTok, if you (or your team) don't have the willingness, the skills or the desire to create raw and authentic quality videos full of personality, then there's no point.

A small project before you choose might be to narrow down the platforms that your audiences are on and then have a scroll (go on, you have my permission) to see what kind of content people are producing on the platform. Specifically, see what content comes up in the algorithms (it's what the platform prefers) and what people are engaging with (it's what the people prefer). Make a list of what content formats are highest in both lists. You could also do some research to see what formats are performing best these days based on the data (because, the algorithm changes, after all) - look at the data that the platforms themselves release, but also look at what the platform experts are saying. Some folks, like Will McTighe, analyze thousands of LinkedIn posts every quarter and release an algorithm report to help people make content decisions.

Once you've identified the content that is home on your platforms, consider whether or not you have the ability to make that kind of content. But don't just consider it, actually give it a go. Try to produce some of the content that you'd be posting. And then ask yourself some questions:

• How easy was it to come up with ideas for content?

• How easy or difficult was it to actually make the content?

• How much time did it take you?

With social media, quality and consistency is critical. So if you can produce the right quality, but can't sustain the time, effort or cost it takes to produce that level of quality in the long term, then that platform might not be the one for you.

Honestly, it's worth saying this again. When choosing which social media platforms to be on, less is more. Even if your market research tells you that your audience is on every one of them, and you think you have the capacity to create the type of content that is fit-for-platform across every platform, start small. Choose a few places to show up and do so, consistently. Once you've established a habit on your early platforms, if you feel you have the capacity to increase your channels, then go ahead. But taking on too much, too soon? That's a surefire way to end up burning out - and then you'll be showing up nowhere at all.

If you're asking yourself, what social media platforms should I be on? Now you know.