You cannot be everywhere at once. Regardless of how efficient our tools and shiny new social media networks have become, you still need attention, thinking and fingers on keyboard to push out content and connect with people.
There is this vain attempt to try and connect everywhere. However, each medium takes a commitment, and if it dies out over time, you lose valuable work that could have been placed elsewhere.
What we have found in our content marketing client work is that only a couple of social media networks really matter. Depending on the industry, a company’s audience will tend to tune into one or two major social networks. It tends to be a Pareto effect. 80% of the leads come from 20% of the platform.
Our advice is typically to focus on your top customers and find out what social media they tend to use for getting information and staying tuned in. Work heavily to build a reputation on those platforms.
From there, you may start with four or five, but over time, they need to be evaluated for their true ROI. The ones with the most leads should continue to have more dedication and content, while the ones that produce very little should be shut down. This keeps things focused, and you can leverage greater returns on your commitment.
It may sound radical to skinny it down to two, but a shotgun approach is not a strategy. It is hope. It is not working what truly connects with an audience who will want to receive news and information that is highly valuable.
Furthermore, your own content should be world-class on a consistent and persistent basis. You want to become the authority in your industry so that people seek you out and share what they learn from you.
This type of prioritization is continuous. Some mediums get past a fad stage or become too noisy for people. They tune out, and your content can become buried in the mass communication streams that people see. This can lose its effect as well. So, it’s important to watch the metrics and make adjustments accordingly.
The best strategy is to continually position and produce thought-leadership content over the long haul. This is the hub of what any social network strategy will depend on.
So, if you had to pick two social media networks, what would you commit to?