We have seen it so many times…
New business owners start their online marketing, and they want to be “everywhere”.
While it might sound great in theory, there are a few major flaws with that approach.
If you want to be on all social media networks at once…
Keep the following in mind:
1. Aside from user demographics…
…which differ from one platform to the next, there are more subtle differences which is likely to impact your exposure.
For instance, on Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin you can leave a link in the description. On Tiktok and Instagram, you need to send people to your bio, and on Tiktok you need 1,000 followers to even HAVE a link on your bio. On Youtube shorts, description links are not clickable – you need to send people to a longer video, and only then can you present them with a clickable link in the description.
So, you need at least three different calls to action, which increases the time it takes to post “everywhere.
In addition to that, you will find that each social media platform requires a different set of (Youtube) tags or hashtags (for the rest). Aside from the fact that some allow for more tags than others, the exposure you will be able to get from any specific hashtag will differ from one platform to the next.
2. Differences in audience expectations:
Every social media platform has its own unique culture. Some of this is due to the way the platform is structured. For instance, on Youtube your shorts cannot be longer than 60 seconds. On Instagram and Facebook they can be up to 90 seconds. On Pinterest, idea pins can be up to 5 minutes long, and Tiktok videos can be up to ten minutes.
On the flip side, despite Tiktok allowing the longest videos, your chances of doing well with a very short video (ten seconds or less) are best on Tiktok.
On Tiktok you can get away with posting the silliest stuff (and plenty of personal stuff in between your other videos), while creators tend to stick to a theme on other platforms.
In addition to that, on some platforms it takes more than one video per day in order to grow quickly. Add THAT to your workload.
3. The cost in time and/or money:
If you want to do it properly, and post decent, suitable content on all of the main social platforms, it involves a boatload of work. It is simply not a one-person job, unless you plan on paying that person a full time salary with overtime.
Creating content – especially video content, which seems to be the norm nowadays, is (when you include the editing) a time consuming process. If you want to create three different versions of each video, come up with suitable hashtags to use on every individual social network, and upload or schedule each video individually…
It will take some time to research, create and upload (or schedule) all of that.
4. Slow growth:
If you create – and post – content for each of the major social networks every day, two things will happen:
a. Unless you have a team of people working on social media, you will probably only be posting once per day per network.
b. There probably won’t be much time for being active on the platform as a user – and user activity plays a role in the algorithms of several social networks (when it comes to calculating your exposure). Not to mention that, especially at the start, you will find that some other small users will return the favor when you like any of their content.
If you don’t have/spend the time to do that, the lower number of likes will mean even less exposure for your new posts (while you don’t have a following yet).
That will result in very, very slow growth everywhere you try to establish your presence, and it will take a long time before you have a decent following anywhere. Until then, don’t expect too many people to take you seriously.
On the other hand, if you focus all of your attention on ONE platform at the start, you can create multiple pieces of content for that audience, and interact with them, right from the start. Add to that the fact that you can interact with other people on the platform, and come across as a real person (and not just a bot/slave/agency uploading videos), and you have a chance to build meaningful connections.
5. A lot of data – or not:
Having data about your posts will tell you a lot. You can tell not only how many people watched your videos, liked and shared/commented, but also for how long they watched them, at which point they dropped off, demographics, etc.
If you do one video a day in multiple places, this is what happens – or doesn’t:
a. Because your exposure takes a while to grow, it takes a while before you have any useful data to work through. In fact, some platforms don’t even offer any real data unless you have like 100 views first.
b. Because of you “flying blind”, so to speak, you won’t have access to that data when you need it – which is ASAP – and until you get access to useful data, all you can do is to “throw stuff at the wall. and see what sticks (if anything).
c. If you do have enough people to work on multiple platforms at once, you will find that going through all of the data, analyzing it, and planning appropriate responses to what you observe, is likely to consume quite a lot more time than anticipated.
In conclusion:
While it may be tempting to “be visible everywhere at once”…
Please don’t.
When you determine your ideal customer profile, you can also determine where they are most likely to hang out online. Double down on that one social network at the start.
Learn everything about it that you can, and about the kinds of content you need to create to get through to your target audience.
If you focus on ONE thing, and one thing (social network) only, growing a loyal following will not only happen a lot faster, but it will also be a lot easier.
Not to mention less labor-intensive.