Every social media platform is different, and you need to know how it can be used best for your purposes. In this post we thought we’d talk you through some common questions about content targeting. The solutions you choose may depend on how much time and resource you have available.
The number one question we get asked is “Do we need to have a presence on every platform?”
The short answer is no, you don’t have to have a presence across all social media platforms just because they exist. Start by defining your audience and find out what social media platforms they use. Then target those channels.
Think about what you want to get out of your presence on each platform. You need to be specific. How do you want to engage your audience? What do you want them to take away from the experience? What do you want to get out of it? This is where Blue Juice can really help shape your strategy which is imperative to establish before you set up a channel or start posting.
Our second most asked question is “We don’t have budget or resource, so can we share the same message across all platforms?”
If you’re stumped, you can, but it won’t be nearly as effective as targeting your message by audience and therefore by platform.
The thing with these platforms is sharing from one to the other is made easy with sharing buttons, but beware of the end result: what your audience sees for each post. Sharing a post from Instagram to Twitter means the image doesn’t display so just a link will show, making your message far less effective. Remember social media is highly visual.
Cross-posting means that your communications won’t be specifically targeted for each platform and audience – they’ll be more general to fit in ‘anywhere’, but won’t be pitched to really stand out on particular platforms.
Best Practice: Targeted Cross Promoting
Targeting messages by audience and platform is key to social media success. It will take more time, effort, planning and budget but will be worth it if you really want to see results.
It’s important to know the rules for each platform from the basics such as character count to the more in-depth often unwritten rules of what works on a platform and doesn’t. And, of course, this changes all the time so it’s important to keep up with trends and changes.
Cross promoting means we take your key message and tweak it for each platform. You don’t have to create a totally new message for each, but you should be targeting it to engage with your audience.
Sources:
https://www.statista.com/topics/1882/instagram/
https://kloos.agency/blog/which-social-media-channel-is-best-for-your-target-audience/