What's the best way to pick social media platforms for your audience?

2 best ways to pick the platforms where your audience hangs out: 1. Use the native Insights platform such as Google Analytics, Facebook analytics, Linkedin... Social media platforms collect tons of data from their users so use them! 2. Use Polls to do primary market research Every platform offers you the polls functionality, which is simple yet very powerful! Ninja tips to get highest Poll Responses: ??Ask their email at the beginning so you can follow up ??Do NOT offer a big price to participate. Else you'll attract the wrong people ??Don't offer too many choices in your questions. ??Make sure questions are worded using the language of your customers ??The simpler the questions the more responses you will get

Spend time on the platforms you are considering for you audience yourself. See what kinds of content do well and what falls flat first hand. Engage in conversations to see what people are talking about and how they engage with one another.

As a beginner in social media marketing, start by exploring platforms like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, or Twitter. Think about what you enjoy and what you're good at, then research which platforms match your interests. Try creating content and running ads on different platforms to see what feels right for you. Don't be afraid to learn from online courses or seek advice from experienced marketers to help you find your specialization. It's all about experimenting and discovering what works best for you!

Choosing social platforms is like a food truck picking the right festivals and fairs. Study your customers - where do they hang out digitally? Which networks offer virgin territory versus saturation? Match messaging and content formats to each channel's vibe. Test promising emerging platforms before committing. Quality over quantity prevents indigestion. With the right social media mix your fans will savor your content from Snap to TikTok! Now go fire up those social media food trucks!

More emphasis needs to be on diving into data and utilising tools to ensure you know where the target market sits. Laser focus your efforts on your core audience so they’re enjoying the content being created and are consuming it naturally. You’ll save a packet in paid media too ;)

Your goal is your GPS. Just like you can't reach your destination, if you don't write the precise address in your GPS, you can't reach your goals, if you don't know what it is.

Ninja tip: Don't pick multiple goals at a given time. Why? Unless you have a huge budget, you have limited resources. You could be spending 100% of your resources towards attaining 1 goal. Or you'll be splitting your resources into 3, when you have 3 goals you want to achieve at the same time. Which one will get you to the outcome quicker?

Start with a basic understanding of your audience and the types of content that best fit your brand. For example, a TikTok is largely GenZ with a growing population of millennials. Although you will find older populations, depending on your brand and product, you may find irrelevancies there. However, if you are looking to reach older millennials and older generations, you will likely fare best with Facebook or Instagram. Again, recognizing that both platforms have different types of content and you want to be intentional about what fits for your goals. Lastly, a large consideration should be given towards whether you’d like your brand to grow organically or make best use of ads. This affects the types of content you share.

Know your platform for a not only a demographic perspective but functionality and maturity perspective. Many platform have similar functionality but they still have one or two unique tools either from an organic or paid perspective. Each platform is at different cycles in terms of growth rates, algorithm preferences and approach to commercial growth. That all impacts growth and how easily you can increase awareness and how much harder or easier it is to build an audience. At the time of writing the most reach for invested time in terms of pure brand organic reach if starting at zero: 1. TikTok 2. Instagram 3. LinkedIn 5. Pinterest 6. Facebook 7. Twitter

One thing that I am still seeing with smaller businesses is that they will throw the social media duties on an existing team member, and don't see this as a dedicated position. Not everyone has the time/money/skill to successfully keep all their channels running, so they do minimal work but try to use as many channels as possible. People can tell when you are using premade templates with little to no customization and branding, or when you format a post for Instagram but hit the button to just share it on other channels where it doesn't make as much sense. Social media marketing doesn't need to be a huge financial/time commitment, but it is important to take it seriously if you want to use it to represent your business.

This is a very important element to consider because most business owners and entrepreneurs tend to overlook the importance of engagement on platforms. We make a lot of plans for content but undervalue how much outbound and inbound engagement allow for lead generation, consumer, loyalty, brand awareness and visibility. When creating an effective content marketing strategy, consider the following how your content and goals informs your engagement strategy. ?? Who (influencers) is already reaching your target audience? ?? How much engagement are your posts getting and should you consider a VA? ?? Could the DMs be important for lead gen? These plus the tools you use determine whether you can manage your own accounts or have to hire out.

Some questions to help you: Who is your current audience? What kind of content are they looking for and why? Where do they go for this content? What are they talking about? Who are your competitors? You can also: -Use the native audience insight tools on your social platforms. -Send surveys through survey monkey, or ask for preferences through a email campaign to customers or internal teams. -Create personas -Use research tools I.e. A great competitive platform to use is SEM Rush. It has an entire section on social where you can look at your competitors and their performance on different social channels. Separately SEM Rush has an audience research tool for analyzing your market and competitor audiences.

Always observe the current market, trends that what’s going on everyday. After that carefully pick up the platform where you know that your audience can spend their time. Select platform basis of 1) Current trends 2) Where your audience reside ? 3) Understand their psychology According to these steps select the platform.

Using Google Analytics to see each customer's different journeys to become a lead or prospect is key. Using the Path Exploration tool helps you visualize and understand how you should approach social media, your strategy, and your allocated budget. For instance, if social media is not the main driver of leads to your website, but it is one of the third or fourth touchpoints before they convert, but organic search is your first touchpoint in most cases, this lets you know that you should devote more attention and budget to SEO over social media, but still maintain the social media profiles that are touchpoints n the customer journey or even add incentives.

Want a quick way to reach a new audience? By pairing trending songs to your short form video content, you can tap into new communities that may not have previously considered you. Across Reels, TikTok and YouTube shorts, you can leverage charting music to tap into a captive segment. Just make sure the content is relevant, snappy and engaging!

First decide on what social Media would do for you. What’s your goal(s) for social media marketing? (You can’t do all but keep top 3 in mind) to build awareness, recruit, convert etc? Go where your audience goes. If you have an exiting customer base, ask them. What you would like social media to achieve and where your audience are will determine which platform(s) you choose.