You’re probably on too many social media platforms

This is one of those blog posts where I feel like I need 20 pages to really get my thoughts across. Honestly, I would argue that this is the biggest mistake you could make when starting your brand’s social media journey.

It’s one of those things where you know you’ll feel guilty abandoning it once you begin. After setting up an entire social media account and putting all of this effort into it, you realize that this platform is one of three things:

1. It’s too much to do on top of the other platforms you’re a part of.

2. You don’t fully understand the platform and/or the features.

3. You realize your brand just isn’t a good fit for the platform.

All of these are valid responses, and I’d have just as much respect for you as a business owner for being so upfront about it. We’re all learning, and we’re all making mistakes along the way. It’s like that saying, “If you avoid failure, you also avoid success.”

I always say there is no true “right” or “wrong” way to show up on social media. Certain aspects of social media work great for some people, whereas others may not see the same results. This is why I call BS when I hear influencers and creators state that we must do something a specific way or else our business won’t perform well on social.

So, while I can’t speak for every business that is on multiple platforms - I can use my own experiences to talk about the importance of choosing the right platforms for your brand to be on.

In my previous experience, I have had to run up to five social media pages for one brand. Was this working for the client? HECK NO. What did I know, though? I was just a new intern there to learn, and I wasn’t fully sure of myself. Was it normal to be on this many platforms as a business? This is the best part about a blog space like this; I can tell you my thoughts on past experiences, but back then it was just a matter of a brand showing up anywhere and any way they could on social media.

It was stressful and led to burnout on content creation days for this client. Even if it was repurposing the work we had done for the other platforms, we could’ve been using the extra time to create more content for the two well-performing platforms we already had developed.

My advice?

When putting your brand on social media, do your own level of research to see which platforms you feel you’d be the most successful with; the platforms you can see yourself using the most, and how. I’d also advise starting with one to two platforms unless you have the means to add more. The more help, or time — the higher the quality of content you’ll produce which will benefit your brand.

Another piece of advice I have for you is that if you have the means to hire a Social Media Manager or Social Media Team, do that. Trying to be a business owner AND a social media manager? You are quite literally working two jobs, and you’re technically only paying yourself for one.

It WILL lead to burn-out. Burn-out will demotivate you, and what’s worse than being on a bunch of social media platforms? Being on a bunch of social media platforms, and not being active on them at all.

The truth is, none of the content means much if you don’t fully understand the extent of the platform and how your ideal target audience receives content on that platform.

For example: Posting static stock images on Instagram with a super long informative caption about your product/service is not going to do much for you. Instagram has specific algorithmic ways (oh lord, the algorithm has entered the chat) and features it pushes creators to use to get their brand recognized.

(Example: Reels & Carousels)

However, if you posted something like this on LinkedIn or Facebook — this type of post most likely would be better received.

My final piece of advice is to be mindful of how your brand shows up on social media. After all, it’s not “just posting”, and if you need help, please outsource to someone dedicated to this type of role (when you can, of course!)

As a Freelancer, I’m here to help your brand’s vision come to life, and there are plenty more tips, tricks, and pieces of advice where that came from!