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Jun 11, 2021
By
Nikola Hassan

Juggling Multiple Social Media Platforms

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Juggling multiple social media platforms

How do I assess which platforms are best for me? And how do I manage all the content?

Social media platforms - the first ones that come to mind are Facebook and Instagram. But there are a whole plethora of platforms out there that can be setup with zero to little budget to make your brand visible to your target audience.

As a brand builder, think of every social media platform as a unique way to connect with your target audience. Every platform works in its own way and has its own magic; any kind of cookie-cutter shortcut approach won’t yield optimal results.

In order to assess which social media platforms are best for your brand, let’s first take a look at the main platforms’ audience profiles;

Facebook: With ages 25-55, Facebook has the largest audience of all the social platforms and the most robust advertising platform, most likely increasing sales from ad campaigns.

Instagram: Ages 18-34, highly visual, best platform for influencers and brand trust, more popular with younger generations than Facebook. (Ads done on Facebook)

TikTok: Ages 16-24, specializes in short-form content, great for influencers with a low budget and to run ads with their internal ads platform.

Pinterest: Great for driving traffic, far more women on Pinterest, highly visual, lot’s of interest in décor, food, art, tablescapes, fashion, wedding, travel.

YouTube: 21% of its global audience are aged 25 - 34, 17% are aged 35 - 44. With over 2 billion active monthly users and 5 billion video views daily, building a YouTube channel for a brand is not an option, it’s necessary. A study recently even indicated that 70% of viewers bought a brand after seeing content on YouTube (in the form of ads, product reviews, etc.).

Linkedin: Ages 25-34, for service-based businesses who want to build relationships with high-tier positions at companies, as well as run ads using their ads platform. If your business is targeting corporates, this is a fantastic tool to connect with them.

Twitter: The largest demographic is 25 - 34 years old (29%). However in Malaysia, Twitter isn’t a strong tool for a brand to grow sales. Malaysian users view Twitter as a news source for current affairs and politics. If your business is within this sector, it would be a worthwhile avenue to explore. However for the sake of creative industries, Twitter is not a high priority social media platform to focus your resources on.

How to choose which social media platforms are best suited for you?
  1. Think about your target audiences (their age group, locations, how they consume information)
  2. Think about how much time you have to allocate on social media content - the more platforms, there more time-consuming (so be sure not to bite off more than you can chew; start with IG and FB first and slowly add on from there)

We’ve put together a quick guide by industry type that might help you narrow down your choices:


Once you’ve chosen platforms and set up your accounts, now what?
  1. Familiarize with the features of each platform and make a list
  2. Prioritize the list of features to which you should focus on first, batch them by 3s so you’re also pacing yourself out nicely (don’t stress yourself out with these, but also don’t take too much of a sweet time and miss out on sales opportunities)
  3. Create content
Ok, so about that. How do I create content?
  1. Explore engaging a graphic designer -  I’d recommend this if you/your team have little experience with design and visuals. Shop around for rates and ask for portfolios. Ask friends for recommendations, or if there’s a local brand whose visuals you admire, reach out to ask them if they’d refer you to their designer (no harm in asking, the worst that can happen is they say ‘no’).
  2. If you have an eye for graphics, colors, typography and want to try out creating your own visuals but don’t have the Photoshop or AI skills, check out Canva.

Once you’ve figured out the content creator part, it’s now vital to look at your content strategy (which really warrants a blog post on its own!). But here’s a checklist of often forgotten-about things that should come in handy:

Facebook
  1. Update your banner image often (with every new campaign, for example)
  2. Don’t skimp on assets: Upload menu if you’re in F&B / if you’re a service provider with a premise, upload photos of your space / if you’re promoting an experience, upload videos
  3. Setup auto-reply for DMs (and make sure they’re linked to IG too)
  4. Setup Business Suite to connect your FB & IG accounts
  5. Setup Facebook Shop if you are retailing goods and products
Instagram
  1. Post reels often - it’s currently the algorithm sweet spot (which is socmed jargon for ‘post reels and your content will appear more prominently on feeds’)
  2. Use the Guides feature for catalogues and lookbooks, shopping guides for gifting (during the holiday season especially), as well as how-to manuals (for example, if you’re a bakery, instructions on how to store bread for optimal freshness and maximize shelf life)
  3. Use the right hashtags for that particular post
  4. Repurpose posts into stories and vice versa - work smart
  5. Post at peak times - while you’re waiting for your business profile’s analytics to build, you can refer to this guide:
TikTok
  1. Post at peak times, multiple times a day
  2. Seed products to TikTokers in exchange for TikTok videos
  3. Create your own challenges
  4. Cross-promote your TikTok videos on your other social media platforms
  5. Use hashtags as much as possible
YouTube
  1. Optimize keywords (think of it as a search engine, and make sure you’re tagging all the top trending phrases that are relevant for your brand)
  2. Incentivize viewers to become subscribers
  3. Get featured on other YouTube channels
  4. Include a call to action in each of your videos to gauge effectiveness and convert to sales leads / enquiries
Pinterest
  1. Upload your own original content as pins
  2. Video and GIF pins are highly engaging
  3. Cross-promote your Pinterest page on your other social media platforms (especially IG which is also all about #aesthetics)
  4. Make sure to claim your Pinterest site, find out more here
LinkedIn
  1. Make the most of the in-site advertising opportunities as they are so effective
  2. Post content to build credibility of your brand (awards, industry recognition, publicity / media coverage)
  3. Share articles that reflect your brand values (for example, if you operate a gym, sharing an article on 10-min stretching in between Zoom calls during lockdown is a great way to impart friendly advice)
  4. Leverage on other brands pages by commenting/replying (positively) on their posts to be seen by their audience (for example, you’re promoting a boutique hotel, so go ahead and leave a comment on a thread posted by an airline operator)

I realize all this may be a lot to take in, so feel free to re-read this a few times as you process your next steps. Also remember to work smart and repurpose your content for multiple platforms.

I know I said at the start that every platform needs to be looked at individually. What I mean by “repurposing your content”, is take a look at what you’ve created for Instagram and see how you can adapt it for Facebook, TikTok, etc.

I’m going to leave you with a little exercise:

Think about your next campaign - a new product launch, a new menu item launch, restocking of your start product, etc. Create your checklist of operational visuals you’ll need (menu, product and price list/catalogue). Then think how you can repackage these operational visuals into content for an IG post and a story. From there, think about how you’d translate this to Facebook - expand on the visuals, because Facebook users tend to have longer attention spans. And then keep going down your list of social media platforms, using these same set of visuals. Once you’ve covered all your social media platforms, that’s your master checklist of content to create.

It may seem very task-oriented, but once the checklist is out of the way, then the fun begins with the content creation. From here, look at apps and websites to use that can help manage content across multiple accounts - Hootsuite, Sprout Social, Zoho Social, are just a few social media management tools that are worth exploring.

Enjoy the process!

-Nikola

@nikolahassan