No two businesses are exactly alike. That means that while someone in the same industry as you may be killing it on Facebook, you may struggle. You don’t see the same engagement or the same return on investment as you’ve “heard” others are seeing.
First and foremost, don’t worry about what others are doing. Not everything we see and hear online is true (shocking, I know). That online business owner who says she’s gaining loads of clients thanks to her Facebook posts could very well be exaggerating. Or lying.
[bctt tweet=”Not everything we see and hear online is true. Shocking, I know.” username=””]
Your goal should be to grow an engaged audience—somewhere where your current and potential clients know to find you to absorb your content and gain value from you. And the only way to do that is to consistently publish quality content that your audience needs or wants, where your audience is hanging out.
While Facebook is the biggest platform out there, changes in algorithms and sharing rules have made it a difficult place to get noticed. So businesses need to tweak what they’re doing in an effort to get the engagement they need. That might mean moving away from Facebook in favor of other platforms that serve your audience better.
[bctt tweet=”FB algorithms make it a challenge to get noticed. You might need to move elsewhere.” username=””]
What’s the Best Platform for You?
It depends. Where is your audience? What is your product or service? Which platform is the friendliest for the message you’re trying to deliver? Take a close look at the engagement you’re getting right now on the platforms you use regularly. Are the people who share and comment on your content your ideal audience? If so, you may have already found the platform for you.
If you’re not getting a lot of engagement on your social platforms today, determine if that’s because of the type or frequency of content you’re currently providing. Are you posting often enough? Does your content really speak for your business or to your audience? While my content tends to be solely business-related, I’ve found that personal photos get much more engagement.
What Platform Serves Your Content?
Each social platform serves a different purpose, and some will work better depending on what type of content you need to post. Twitter is great for short posts that link to longer articles or blogs. Pinterest is perfect for visual-heavy blogs. Instagram works well for product-based businesses. That said, depending on how you’re sharing, you can make any platform work for you—as long as that’s where your audience hangs out.
[bctt tweet=”You can make any social platform work for you—as long as that’s where your audience hangs out.” username=””]
Test, Tweak, Test
The easiest way to find out what’s going to work for you and your business is to test it out, tweak what you’re doing and then test again. As you do that, don’t try to tackle every platform at once. You will quickly enter overwhelm mode and you won’t do any of them justice. Instead, dive deep into two platforms and do them well for a few weeks. Post more often, share different types of content, use calls to action. If you find that one of them isn’t serving you, switch it up and try another.
In the end, only you can determine the social platform(s) that work for your business. And that may even shift as your business grows and matures, or as your client base changes. Embrace it and shift when you need to, but always keep an eye on what’s working and what isn’t so you can continue to be successful.
