Do you feel the the need for your brand to be present on every social platform available? Even for large companies, it takes the right evaluation and methodology to decide where to focus resources, especially when they are limited. Multiple touchpoints for interaction are important, but not at the cost of spending time and resources on a format devoid of your audience.
Not every business has the capacity or even the need to be present on every social platform available. As new outlets (such as Pinterest) gain popularity, it’s always worth evaluating whether your company should add them to the social mix, but does it make sense to be there just to be there?
Some large brands do it very well, such as Land’s End. They have the broad audience as well as the resources to handle the challenge of differentiating tactics to match the style of varied outlets while still weaving cohesive messaging across them. Communicating on blogs, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube, and through apps, Land’s End effectively connects with their audience in a variety of formats.
For a mid-size business or a company in a niche industry though, the situation is likely to be much different.
Maybe it’s a budget decision…
Maybe it’s a strategic look at where the target audience resides…
Social media planning and daily interaction is unfortunately not this simple:
Rather than forcing a losing proposition to be everywhere all the time, it’s likely to make more sense to aim for success in just a couple social areas.
A regional restaurant chain for instance may want to focus on Yelp, foursquare and Facebook, leaving Twitter and more off the social media menu until they can dedicate a staff member to handling other areas of engagement. By paying more attention to areas where they know customers are more likely to be posting lengthier comments and reviews, the restaurant group is covering the most important bases.
We are constantly on the lookout for new ways that our clients can interact with their customers online. But depending on the campaign or the audience, and taking into consideration what can be done (or enhanced) on their existing social platforms, the recommendation we make may be to focus on distinct areas of social media and do them well.
Yes, using multiple formats is important…but what’s the point of reaching out on a format devoid of your audience? While there is still ultimately an end consumer in the B2B marketing world, for instance, they are interacting on a professional level much differently than they are for their personal lives.
Does your company have a blog that hasn’t been updated in 6 months? Is your brand’s Twitter account stagnant? Before you blame yourself for not keeping every customer touch point up to date, take a breath and re-evaluate where you will truly engage with customers and find value.
