Here are the 3 biggest things you need to keep in mind.

#1 Choose Social Media Platforms Where Your Audience is Located

In order to choose the best social media platforms for your business, you need to understand your customers. Specifically, you need to understand who they are and how they spend their time online.

Ask yourself:

  • What social media platforms are they using?
  • Why are they using those social media platforms?
  • How do they prefer to receive information about your type of products and services?

If you do not already know this, then we recommend mapping out a customer avatar first.

A customer avatar is simply an outline of your customer demographics, goals, preferences, challenges, and other psychographics.

The more you understand your customer, the better you can select the best social media platforms to reach and engage them.

#2 Choose Social Media Platforms That are Specific to Your Content Type

There are two types of content – macro content and micro content.

Macro-content is BIG-picture, long-form content. The 3 different types of macro content consists of Video, Audio, and Written content.

Therefore, if you have macro content, the best social media platforms to publish that content would be YouTube for video content, Apple Podcasts for Audio, and WordPress for long-form blog content.

Micro-content, on the other hand, is short-form, easy to digest content. Think of micro-content like the pictures you find on your Instagram feeds while you’re scrolling, or short witty tweets on Twitter.

Now, there are several different types of micro-content social media channels, like Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, and so on.

So, in order to choose the best social media platforms for your business, you need to pick the ones where your audience is located.
Also, when it comes to Macro vs Micro content, you should keep in mind that Macro content has a much longer shelf-life than Micro content.

For example, a single blog post that we published has been generating 300-400 views per day at LYFE Marketing.

If people continued to search for that all year, that single blog post would drive over 100,000 views in 1-year’s time.

Whereas a single Instagram post would be here today and gone and forgotten tomorrow. But at the same time, this content is much easier to create and push-out on a consistent basis.

So keep this in mind as your choose which social media platforms you want to specialize in.

#3 Limit the Number of Social Media Platforms You Choose to be On

Don’t spread yourself too thin by trying to be on every single social media platform that exists.

Each social media platform is like an art. You should master the art of 1-2  social media platforms before you consider adding more to your strategy.

It’s not necessary to be on every platform in the world. Facebook has 2 billion users. Instagram has 1 billion users. If you can do just one of these platforms very well, then you can have astronomical business results.

It takes a lot of work and money to develop a successful presence on these social media platforms. It’s not as simple as setting up a profile and pressing “publish” on a post.

No, in most cases, you will need to set aside some money to promote your content. In addition, you’ll need to review the analytics to determine if your content is effective or not.

So in short, as a small business with a limited budget, put all of your eggs in 1 or 2 baskets max to start. Then, consider expanding into other channels.

Alright, so that’s the criteria you need to keep in mind as you select the best social media platforms for your business.

Now, let’s go over some specific platforms to help you choose the best platforms for your business.