You know how important it is for your business to maintain a strong social media presence. But which social media platform should you be focusing all of your efforts on? Is it best to focus your efforts on several all at once? The more that you know about how social media can impact your business and your marketing strategy, the better position you will be in to guide your business focus in the right direction.

One of the primary reasons businesses see a failed social media strategy is because of placing a priority on social media platforms that are irrelevant for the needs of the business. Social media can be a fickle thing to work with. It can also take a lot of time to keep on top of the best practices and trends, not to mention the fact that there are dozens of social media platforms with more of a niche following than the larger handful.

Questions to ask yourself

According to digital marketing professionals, Azuri Group, before you can determine which social media platform should be the focus of your digital marketing efforts, there are some questions that you need to ask.

Who is your target audience?
What is your goal from your online presence?
Are you B2B, B2C or perhaps both?

If you can swiftly answer these questions, you’ll find it relatively simple to pare down your list of social media platforms to just a solid three or so. It’s important to keep your social media accounts manageable, which is why it’s rarely recommended that you put your focus and efforts on more than two or three platforms unless you have a team or social media marketing firm to manage them for you.

Understanding the importance of social media marketing

If you have an understanding of just how important social media marketing is for your business, you are oceans ahead of other business owners. Unless you can benefit from a focus on the smaller niche platforms, you should focus on the top five platforms.

Facebook
Instagram
Twitter
Pinterest
LinkedIn

At the very minimum, your business should have a Facebook presence, whether you use it as your primary platform of focus or not. The majority of consumers will tend to check out the Facebook presence of businesses they are interested in pursuing produces or services with.

Instagram, Twitter, and Pinterest are not always going to be relevant for some business types. Those in the construction industry, as an example, may not find it to be useful to be posting things on Instagram or Pinterest. A business with a focus on fashion or cosmetic surgery, on the other hand, may benefit from a social media platform that allows for sharing gallery images.

Going it alone or hiring a management team

Getting your social media accounts set up can certainly be something that you handle in-house. If you have a dedicated person in your business who can help to manage your social media presence, you’ll be in a good position to take full advantage of everything that social media can offer to your business. If you do not have a dedicated in-house person, you may soon find that it can become cumbersome to manage your accounts on your own. This can prove to be an excellent time for you to consider hiring a management team to help you to optimize your social media presence and also help you to achieve your overall digital marketing goals.

Social media offers a powerful way to directly engage with your current clients and to reach out to new potential clients. The more that you can take advantage of what each platform can provide to your business, the better poised you’ll be to offer a more interactive presence for your business over what your competitors may be doing.