Why you Shouldn’t Choose One Social Media Platform For your Brand

The key to growing your influence on the internet

I recently started a YouTube channel, I had had plans to start one since 2018 but I just couldn’t get around to doing it. Partly because I was camera shy and partly because I was being too lazy to add YouTube to my content creation.

But another reason I didn’t start early was because of so many information I had come across about the fact that the ideal thing to do was to start with one social media platform, build my audience and establish my authority there.

And then pick the next one and do the same thing again.

But I put it to you that, you cannot be an authority on any social platform at the snap of a finger. I have been building my Instagram account since 2014, I only just hit 2000 followers last year, and guess what, my followers have reduced.

At first, I thought that meant that my content wasn’t relevant anymore. But when I looked at it, I saw that in fact, my content was actually better than they used to be. They had more engagement than the ones I used to post.

It didn’t take me long to realize that people who were unfollowing me were doing so because they were not my target audience, considering the fact that I only started focusing on a niche a little over a year ago.

Now, I know that many people have said that you should pick a social platform one at a time just like they told me, but the truth is, you never know which platform will blow up.

You can spend years toiling with Instagram and struggling to hit 2k followers, then all of a sudden, a new platform comes out and people who only just started with them are reaching 50–100k followers. Just like TikTok.

I’m going to explain to you how to choose the best social media platform for your brand, not one like many people have been led to believe, but a couple of platforms. And how you can manage them at the same time as I do.

1. Identify Your Audience

Specifically, identify the people you are called to reach. You can do this by looking inwards to see how things are. Ask yourself questions like “Who am I?” “What’s my business all about?” “Who are those people that need what I offer?”

I went for a seminar in 2018 and many of the speakers were entrepreneurs. They spoke about how they quit their jobs and started their businesses from scratch. How difficult it was at first but how they eventually succeeded.

They all glorified entrepreneurship because they had all been successful with it. Only one woman mentioned that she didn’t see any reason to quit her job. She said that she had been called to the corporate world and her assignment was to help job seekers and salary earners succeed in the corporate world.

She decided that she would do well on LinkedIn, and she did, she also created a presence on Instagram, where she shares details about her personal and professional life. She is on Twitter, where she shares nuggets of workplace wisdom. And guess what? She has a Facebook group too.

She knew her audience and she also knew that they were scattered everywhere. There were job seekers and salary earners on all the social platforms you could think of.

She wasn’t doing it one at a time because she understood that it could take her years to build authority on any platforms. She built her presence on social media platforms all at the same time.

2. Define Your Goals

Let’s talk about me for a second.

I have this blog, I have a medium account, I have a YouTube channel, I’m present on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn and I share content regularly.

You might think that’s too much for me, but it’s not, especially when you consider what my goals are. The purpose of my online presence is to help small business owners and creatives build their influence online.

These people are scattered all over. They are watching YouTube videos, they are scrolling on Instagram and Twitter, they belong to Facebook groups, they are scouring the internet for information every hour.

Would you then say that I should only stick to Instagram and look out for Instagram vendors? Even though that sounds like a great idea, I’m not the only one with this purpose on Instagram, there are tons of us.

And do you know what? Most of them are focused on Instagram vendors alone, so while they are busy doing that, I will be busy spreading my tentacles to attract my audience on the other platforms they go to.

So no, I’m not going to stick to one platform, I’m going to widen my search, spread my net so wide that I can catch fishes from other platforms and bring them onto my boat. Because I truly know who my target audience is, I can predict which platforms they’ll be on.

3. Find Your Audience

You have to go and look for them wherever they may be.

Whatever business that you run, when you are starting and you want to find your audience, the typical thing most people do is to search for demographics and learn about the age and interests of Twitter or Instagram users.

I say, build a presence on that platform. Create a page, create content, share that content and engage with people. If you are a food vendor, trust me, your audience is on Instagram as much as they are on Twitter.

People have started creating their personal brands online these days, meaning that they are now present on social media like never before.

During the EndSars protest, I can categorically tell you that I helped a number of people open Twitter account because Twitter was where the fight was going on. Many people who had Instagram account abandoned Instagram for a while.

A lot of smart (or not so smart) people were advertising their businesses under the EndSars hashtags (this was after the protest was dying down). Twitter was the place to be.

So next time someone tells you to stick to one platform, remember that it will take you a lot of time to build your expertise on one before even thinking of moving to the next one. Tell them the TikTok story, how it blew up to become the most used platform in the world.

I have a lot more to talk to you about, I recommend that you join my Facebook group or sign up for my newsletters. We’ll talk more often.

I promised I was going to tell you how to manage the many social media platforms that you have, Here you go