Very few people would argue that you shouldn’t have at least some social media presence. It’s an incredibly valuable and affordable way to connect with your customers.
When it comes to social media marketing, it can feel like in order to be successful you need to be on all platforms at all times and have massive followings everywhere. But it’s simply not true.
You don’t have to waste time and energy on platforms that give you no ROI. It’s important to know who your audience is and lean into the platforms that they use and use platforms that will attract new people to your audience. We want to help guide you in selecting the platforms that are appropriate for your business and your audience.
But first, who is your audience?
Let’s be clear. Your audience is not necessarily your following. In fact, a lot of accounts that have massive followings actually have a lot of fake accounts that follow them. So don’t be fooled. It’s easy to get discouraged when you see other accounts with large followings and compare yourself to them, but they actually might have a very small real audience.
So, it’s important to figure out who your audience is as well as your potential audience and lean into the platforms that will help you connect with them. It is better to have a smaller following of highly engaged people than a large following with little to no engagement.
Before we dive in…
Before we start comparing the different social platforms, just a word of advice. Be true to who you are. You don’t have to be on TikTok if it’s not your style. The most important thing you can do in any of your marketing is to identify who your audience is, the problems they have, and how your company can help solve those problems.
Let’s Talk About The Different Social Platforms
You’re probably aware of all of these platforms but let’s take a minute to talk about them. Again, you don’t have to be on all or even the majority of them to be successful. It’s about figuring out what works for your business and what platforms are going to give you the best ROI.
Facebook- As of January 2021, Facebook has 2.8 billion active monthly users. Facebook is definitely the king of social media. It provides a wide range of capabilities that many other platforms don’t have including groups, events, pages, and a robust search engine. Companies have tons of marketing opportunities with Facebook. If you’re marketing using social media, Facebook is a no-brainer.
Instagram – Instagram is the third most popular social network with 800 million active monthly users. People on Instagram live for beautiful, curated content that is aesthetically pleasing. A great way to increase your following is simply by liking or commenting on other people’s photos. Instagram seems to know no bounds for types of companies that can have successful marketing efforts on their platform.
Twitter- If you have a robust blog, lot’s of news to share, and you retweet some of your favorite pages frequently, then Twitter may be the place for you. Twitter has 330 million active monthly users. It’s an incredibly powerful news outlet. You’re limited by characters, but your potential to grow is pretty unlimited.
LinkedIn – LinkedIn is a huge platform that is often neglected. While it’s often viewed only as a B2B platform, it actually can be used quite well for B2C as well. If nothing else, as a business owner, it is great to be on there to connect with peers in your industry and build brand awareness.
YouTube- Second to Facebook, YouTube is the next most popular platform with 1.5 billion active monthly users. YouTube’s search engine is so powerful, it’s actually even more used than Yahoo and Bing. If you choose to utilize YouTube for video marketing, know that you can do so for a reasonable cost. You don’t need a high-end studio and top of the line equipment to do well in promoting your brand. With the right content, you can capture a niche audience and do really well.
Pinterest – While Pinterest has often been looked at as a platform just for women, it’s attracting more men too. But even though it is more geared towards women, that’s not a bad thing in the natural products realm. After all, women do the majority of shopping in their homes. If you have recipes, infographics, quick health tips or beauty secrets, Pinterest is a great way to build brand awareness.
A Word of Caution
While it’s strongly encouraged to be on social media as a business, at the end of the day, you don’t own your page on these platforms. The platform owns the page. As seen in years past, social media platforms die out (hello, MySpace) and your content could become lost as people flee platforms or they get closed down permanently.
In addition, many of these platforms are monitored by third party fact checkers. We’ve seen many accounts get censored, their ability to advertise removed, and some accounts even be banned due to posting different things that don’t line up with the mainstream. Not only that, but algorithms change often and this has left many once popular pages now struggling since the algorithms don’t usually favor the natural products industry.
We strongly encourage you to have something that YOU own. A website! You own the domain. You own the content. You have control. At the end of the day, it’s yours. Use this to your advantage. The most valuable piece of marketing collateral you can have is your website and your email list. These are yours not a social network’s.
This is not to say that your website is the only tool you should utilize. Use your website, social media, print, or whatever floats your boat. But just know that your social media pages don’t belong to you.
Don’t Feel Pressured To Do It All
Social media marketing can be a daunting task but it doesn’t have to be. It can be looked at as a valuable tool as opposed to a challenge you have to face to stay engaging and relevant.
As you look at what platforms you should be on, take time to evaluate what’s worked well and what hasn’t for your business. Be willing to shift if things change. Ask your peers what they have been successful with.
It’s hard to determine exactly what you should do. There are so many resources online that have conflicting information about what works and what doesn’t. But when it comes down to it you should know your audience and be able to frame your messaging in a way that reaches them on whatever platforms you deem appropriate for your business.
