Every social platform is different in the way content is consumed, and the kind of stories that connect can vary from one channel to the next. So, what should your social media strategy be?
Why the Platform Decision Matters
According to Forbes, understanding your audience is a crucial aspect of your content strategy. The first step in choosing the right platform is to understand your audience’s communication style, geographical location, interests, and motivations.
When starting your social media journey, it’s advisable to take a gradual approach. Don’t feel pressured to post on multiple platforms simultaneously. This approach can lead to poor results, frustration, and burnout. Instead, carefully consider where your ideal customers spend their online time.
Before expanding your reach, gain experience with one or two platforms. For example, focus on creating three LinkedIn posts each week or producing two TikTok product demonstrations weekly that align with trending audio.
Be certain that you align your company’s culture with the right social media platform. For instance, use Instagram to enhance engagement, TikTok for relevance and brand awareness, and Facebook if you want to initiate conversations across a broad audience.
In the following sections, we’ll look at the unique attributes of TikTok, Instagram and Facebook.
TikTok: Where Trends Take Off
TikTok is where trends start and where audiences go to discover what’s next. Brands stand out by creating content that feels relatable and unfiltered. The less it looks like an ad, the better it performs.
With its powerful algorithm, TikTok presents users with a continuous stream of short, captivating content, encouraging active participation and sharing. This structure cultivates niche communities centered around specific interests, simplifying content creation. Influencers further amplify trends, propelling them to viral status.
TikTok users are discerning and can easily identify advertisements. Therefore, it’s crucial that the initial two seconds of your video appear organic and authentic, rather than being overtly promotional.
TikTok celebrates raw, genuine, and relatable content. This fosters a deeper connection among users, as successful trends are often humorous, silly, or tied to everyday experiences. This universality allows trends to transcend cultural and linguistic boundaries.
The short lifespan of trends on TikTok, which can last only a few days or weeks, creates a sense of urgency for users to participate while the trend remains relevant. This constant turnover ensures a steady stream of new ideas and accelerates cultural movement.
According to Medium, TikTok is more than just a platform for videos. It’s a mirror reflecting how fast our culture now moves, a place where anyone can spark a global trend, and a laboratory where the future of digital virality is being written in real time.
Instagram: Bringing Brands to Life Through Visuals
Instagram is where brands can show personality and connect with people genuinely. It’s about sharing what makes the brand interesting and relatable.
Instagram, with its visual-first platform, enables brands to build personality, narrate stories, and connect with audiences on an emotional level. By utilizing a blend of high-quality photos, videos, and features like Reels and Stories, brands can establish a unique identity, share in-depth narratives, and engage users with both polished and behind-the-scenes content. The platform’s emphasis on visuals facilitates quicker communication and fosters a deeper, more memorable connection compared to text-based content alone.
Instagram excels in several areas:
Creating a Distinct Brand Personality
- Strategic Visuals: Brands can employ specific color palettes, fonts, and graphic styles to convey their market position and values, making their content instantly recognizable.
- Emotional Connection: Visual content evokes emotional responses, enabling brands to build a more relatable and personal connection with their audience.
Telling Engaging Stories
- Stories and Reels: These features allow for dynamic, short-form videos that can be used for quick, attention-grabbing content, behind-the-scenes glimpses, or to narrate a series of visual stories.
- Carousels: Brands can utilize multi-image carousels to showcase multiple aspects of a product, tell a more detailed story, or present before-and-after content.
- Long-form Video: Features like IGTV enable brands to create longer, more comprehensive narratives, tutorials, and content that delve into specific topics.
Connecting with the Audience:
- Targeted Advertising: Paid advertising options allow brands to visually present their products or services to specific demographics, ensuring their message reaches the intended audience.
In 2021, Sked Social posted a piece on the visual strategy necessary for posting on Instagram, and it’s still relevant today.
Facebook: Scale and Targeting
Facebook is still powerful for reach, community, and precise targeting, especially for local campaigns and slightly older audiences.
Facebook’s vast user base provides advertisers with access to a diverse audience. Its advanced targeting tools enable advertisers to narrow this audience to specific demographics, interests, and behaviors, enhancing ad relevance and return on investment. This combination allows advertisers to reach a broader audience while delivering the right message to the right people.
Some examples of targeting options that Facebook offers to advertisers are:
Demographics: Target individuals based on factors like age, gender, education, job title, and more.
Location: Reach people in specific countries, cities, or neighborhoods.
Interests: Target individuals based on their hobbies, activities, or preferred pages, such as “fitness” or “travel”.
Behaviors: Target individuals based on their past actions, such as purchase behaviors, device usage, or life events like upcoming anniversaries.
Retargeting: Retarget individuals who have already interacted with your business, such as those who visited your website.
Lookalike Audiences: Identify new customers who are similar to your existing high-value customers.
Align Your Content with the Platform
Each platform reaches people in its own way. A strong brand shows up across TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook with content that fits how users engage on each. MG helps brands stay consistent while adjusting tone, visuals, and messaging so every post feels right for its audience.
To align advertising content with the appropriate social media platform, advertisers must consider the following four key factors:
- Identify Your Target Audience and Their Platform Habits: Understand your target audience’s demographics, interests, and behaviors to determine which platforms they predominantly use. Utilize platform analytics tools like Facebook Page Insights to analyze interactions and content consumption.
- Match Your Advertising Goals to Platform Strengths: Tailor your advertising goals to the strengths of each platform. For instance, if your content excels in visuals, consider using platforms like Instagram. For brand awareness, platforms with large audiences like TikTok and Facebook offer broad reach. For a younger demographic, TikTok’s short-form video format can be particularly effective.
3. Tailor Content for Each Platform: Adapt your content to suit the unique characteristics of each platform. For example, create visually appealing graphics for Instagram and use behind-the-scenes clips on TikTok. Additionally, refine your message to align with the platform’s purpose and your campaign objectives.
