Yes, Some Social Media Platforms Are Better for Your Brand than Others

Yes, Some Social Media Platforms Are Better for Your Brand than Others. Brands will find that the social networks offering the strongest returns are not necessarily the highest-value social networks for other companies. A few months ago, after reading about brands that are having wild success with Snapchat marketing, you decided to do the same. It was a flawed strategy, though, because Pinterest and Tumblr failed to bring in the results the company wanted. Instead, it shifted those freed-up resources to channels more likely to drive the results the company was hoping for—which meant putting more effort into LinkedIn. Over the next year, The Economist increased its LinkedIn following from half a million users to 2.4, and it continues to add 25,000 followers each week. The company also takes time to produce content specifically for LinkedIn’s platform and how its users engage with content, which is a luxury its marketing team likely wouldn’t have enjoyed if they were still trying to find success on Pinterest and Tumblr. But once it looks like your efforts on one social network are being wasted at the expense of a more promising platform, it’s time to test a different approach. Brand marketers should take a similar approach, identifying their strongest social channels and putting their effort into getting the most out of these opportunities. As Pew Research Center pointed out, 79 percent of all adult internet users in the United States—68 percent of the total American population—has a Facebook account.

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social media platforms

For marketers juggling a million different tasks and to-do lists, social media platforms can feel like pieces of hay: on its own, each one is lightweight and manageable—but collect enough, and suddenly you have a bale too huge to lift.

Bales

So when new platforms make their way into the mainstream, you’re faced with a problem. Failing to test new platforms as they arise and carve out their niches in the social market could result in unexplored opportunities; but on the other hand, your boss won’t give you any additional resources to handle the increased workload that comes with managing yet another seemingly simple social tool.

Meanwhile, the constant pressure to build and maintain an active, engaging social brand often causes marketers to overlook a simple truth: not all social media networks are created equal. Brands will find that the social networks offering the strongest returns are not necessarily the highest-value social networks for other companies.

A few months ago, after reading about brands that are having wild success with Snapchat marketing, you decided to do the same. You put in the time, followed the best practices, and nothing materialized. Last week, your senior director asked to see some data from your social efforts, and you had nothing to show. You’re not getting any ROI out of your efforts, and even though companies are hailing Snapchat as their best new content channel, it’s proving to be nothing more than a time and resource drain for you.

You need a plan—something you can present as an answer to the questions you know your boss will have. So, what do you do? Do you cut bait on Snapchat and risk looking like a fool? Or do you let the numbers make the call, trim the fat, and focus on platforms with proven value?

The Economist
the economist

Case Study: The Economist

The Economist learned a valuable social media lesson the hard way. It committed to building a social presence on every major platform, which meant creating and maintaining a Pinterest account and a Tumblr account. It was a flawed strategy, though, because Pinterest and Tumblr failed to bring in the results the company wanted. Meanwhile, the work of maintaining these different accounts meant that the media publication was likely missing out on opportunities available through other social networks that might be more conducive to reaching The Economist’s target audience.

As Digiday reported, the publication’s struggles on Pinterest and Tumblr convinced the company to stop updating its accounts. Instead, it shifted those freed-up resources to channels more likely to drive the results the company was hoping for—which meant putting more effort into LinkedIn. The company also resolved to value quality over quantity, which meant that it was willing to post less on LinkedIn in exchange for promoting only the best content it published.

The results were commanding. Over the next year, The Economist increased its LinkedIn following from half a million users to 2.4, and it continues…

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