In today’s episode, I’m going to share with you how to choose the right social media platform for business.
The answer may not be what you think it is…
Here for the links referenced in the show notes?
Nail Your Niche: tashcorbin.com/niche
Let’s dive in!
In most cases, when someone asks me what social media platform they should be on for their business, they’re unsure because they’ve been told they should be on x, but they don’t actually like that platform or they don’t know how to use it effectively.
I see a lot of people get told that they HAVE to be on:
- Instagram because it’s got a younger demographic
- LinkedIn because their ideal client’s in a job so is more likely to find them there
- Facebook because horse people hang out in Facebook groups the most
(Just to name a few examples.)
That’s one of the least important reasons to be on a certain social media platform.
In this episode, I’m going to help you decide what social media platform to focus on… not by telling you that you HAVE to be on a certain platform, but by focusing on what you most want to do and where your strengths lie.
Ultimately, it comes down to consistency and enjoyment. If you decide to be on Facebook instead of Instagram and you’re far more consistent and effective there, that’s going to be ten times better than struggling with Instagram and not enjoying it at all. Even if far more of your ideal clients are on Instagram!
In most cases, your ideal clients are on multiple platforms. There are multiple ways that you could get in front of them. You don’t have to be across all of the social media platforms for your business.
Before I dive into how to choose your social media platform, let me be 100% clear with you… I do not think you should have multiple social media platforms.
I repeat: I do not think you should have multiple social media platforms.
I’m not saying you shouldn’t be on those platforms. But I’m saying that you should choose ONE that is your primary platform.
The best way to use social media for business is to pick ONE primary platform… and nail it!
Whether that be Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, or another social media platform – pick one and nail it. Absolutely nail it.
In the early days of social media, the prevailing advice was to be on all the platforms as much as you can and use scheduling tools to get onto all of those platforms.
Back in 2013, people chose ONE platform and stuck to it.
These days, people have a bunch of different social media platforms, and they will generally have one that is their favourite.
They will engage with different social media platforms in different ways. They get different things from those different social media platforms.
If there’s one thing that I really hate as a content consumer, it’s not knowing where the main place is that I should follow someone.
I am a big fan of a bunch of influencers and content creators in Australia and overseas. And I know exactly where to go and find them.
If it’s Elyse Myers, it’s TikTok. If it’s Abbie Chatfield, it’s Instagram. And If it’s How to ADHD, it’s YouTube.
I know where to go to find those people.
Sure, they may have a presence in other places. But I know exactly where their number one platform is, and I go and find them there.
I know that most people push their Instagram content to Facebook, and vice versa. I totally understand that often their content will be on multiple platforms.
But I also know where their core platform is, so I don’t feel like I have to follow them on all platforms.
And that’s very efficient for me as a consumer.
If you’re trying to build an Instagram following, AND you’re building a Facebook page, AND you have a free Facebook group, AND you’re on TikTok, what are you saying to your audience about where to connect and engage with you most consistently?
I know that if I comment on the stories of certain people on Facebook, I won’t get a reply… because I know that their primary platform is Instagram. So if there’s something that I want them to see, I’ll go over to their primary platform to comment.
Does your audience know where they get to hang out with you?
When we follow content creators, we’re not just following them to suck in all the information… We’re following them on social media because we want to engage in a two-way conversation with them.
If I don’t know if you’re going to be listening, if I don’t know if you’re actually hanging out on this platform, then I am far less likely to engage.
There are other people that I follow (mostly people from my own audience) where I’m not 100% sure where they hang out online. This makes me question whether I should like, comment or engage, because if they’re not going to see it, then I may as well keep scrolling.
My time is important.
I want to make sure that if I’m going to go to the effort of commenting on something or sending someone a message, they’ll actually read it.
Similarly, if you are shouting on the internet over and over again that everything is pre-scheduled, what are you telling your audience? And what impact does that have on the nurture and lead generation stages of your client attraction process?
I know the prevailing advice out there on the internet is to own all the platforms – be on all the platforms. The Gary Vee approach to social media.
But I don’t like Gary Vee’s content and I don’t follow him because:
1. There’s a lot of toxic masculinity stuff going on there
2. You don’t know where he is. Is he actually there? Or is that his team doing it?
In 99% of the cases, I assume it’s your team doing all of this so I’m not actually engaging with you.
Remember: Social media is social.
This is a reason why I’m a very strong advocate for picking your platform.
My platform is Facebook.
Over the last year, I’ve also been experimenting with some stuff on Instagram. But that’s primarily so that I can teach Instagram strategies in the Take Off program and speak with confidence about the strategies that I’ve been taught.
Another reason is that I just enjoy playing around the edges with Instagram.
If you follow my Facebook page, you know that that’s where I’m going to show up live.
That’s where I will read all the comments. That’s the main place where I respond to comments.
I do it a lot more consistently these days on Instagram, but it is not my primary platform. Instagram is not my primary platform.
Facebook is my primary platform.
To be honest, I know that I’m not 100% nailing it on Facebook… so why would I divert a single minute of my social media strategy away from the platform in which I have the most momentum, the most followers, the most engagement, and the most reach, to go and chase reach somewhere else and start from scratch?
It just doesn’t make sense to me!
It took me a long time to even decide to have a go with Instagram. I’ve been in business since 2013, and 2021 is when I started posting consistently on Instagram. It took a long time.
I must reiterate: it’s mostly for Take Off students.
I do have a lot more time on my hands than I did when I first started my business. And I do love social media.
I’m a total extrovert, I love meeting people, and I have missed face-to-face connection, so I’m trying to supplement that with a lot of social media time.
But ultimately, if I have 10 minutes spare in the day to engage with my audience, I will go to Facebook. Facebook, Facebook, Facebook.
In most cases, I recommend choosing ONE primary platform and just pushing content to the other platform.
Make sure it’s clear to your audience what your primary social media platform for your business is.
Make sure that you’re nailing that platform.
I understand that there are tools you can use to push the same content out to Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, etc.
But in your desire to be on all those platforms, you may be unknowingly telling your audience that it doesn’t matter where they are, you’ll find them wherever they’re engaging, rather than simply training your audience to engage with you in one space, where they know they will get a reply, and where they know that they’re going to get the best of your content if they follow you consistently there.
I recommend that you focus on that one social media platform for business.
There are very few niches in which I recommend that you focus on LinkedIn as your main social media platform.
There are a couple of key reasons for this…
The first reason is the amount of time per day that active users spend on the platform.
With Facebook and Instagram, the average time per user, per DAY is over an hour… whereas, with LinkedIn, the average time per user, per MONTH is under 30 minutes.
Under 30 minutes a month!!
Of course, there are some exceptions to that rule.
Someone who’s an active job seeker is more likely to spend more time on LinkedIn. Someone who works in recruitment, human resources, or LinkedIn-related roles is more likely to spend more time on LinkedIn.
But even a corporate woman who is contemplating a career change will spend more time per day on Facebook and Instagram than she would spend on LinkedIn in most cases.
There are some great benefits and some great gains to be made from LinkedIn. But for me, one of the things that I really value on social media is attention span.
I get a lot of attention span from my audience on Facebook and Instagram.
It might be easier or cheaper for me to reach them on LinkedIn, but I don’t have their attention span, because they’re quickly checking a message on LinkedIn, or quickly scrolling on their feed before getting back to work.
Compare that to someone who is sitting on the couch, scrolling through Instagram, watching my reels and checking out my stories.
I get far more attention span on Facebook and Instagram.
That is the case for most niches.
In most cases, I don’t recommend LinkedIn unless you’re on LinkedIn all the time, and your audience is on LinkedIn all the time.
If you’re completely obsessed with LinkedIn, go for it.
But if you’re thinking you need to be on LinkedIn because your ideal client is in a job, ask yourself: Are they in a job where they are on LinkedIn every single day for an extended time per day? Or do they just jump onto LinkedIn to quickly check their messages?
If that’s the case, your LinkedIn strategy would need to be a very spammy one where you’re just sliding into DMs every day without permission.
Is that really the way that you want to show up online?
Personally, that’s not how I want to show up on social media for my business.
If that’s something you’re very excited about, go and find a LinkedIn expert and absolutely nail it.
But be clear on your decision: “My number one platform is LinkedIn”.
Now we are left with Facebook and Instagram as the two core social media platforms for business.
Yes, I know that there are other platforms, such as TikTok, Clubhouse, or any of the others that are hot right now.
But ultimately, which social media platform gives you the most attention span and the most scalability? In most cases, it’s Facebook or Instagram.
Generally, a good portion of your niche is there.
I’m not saying that most of your niche is there. I’m not saying that you have a lot of users there.
There are times when someone will say to me that they much prefer Instagram, but they’re told that a higher portion of their niche is active on Facebook.
If that’s the case, then chances are most of your competitors are going to be primarily focused on Facebook.
Sometimes it can be a differentiator that you’re the one on Instagram.
Look at the growing number of older content creators on Instagram who are absolutely crushing it with an older demographic.
Often, when those people who are in the older demographic on Instagram see someone their own age, they lean in. When they see someone speaking about something that they can relate to, they are drawn to that.
That’s why making the decision on what your primary social media platform for business is, doesn’t have to be dictated by where your audience is or what the experts say is the best platform for you.
I want you to embrace a social media platform that you enjoy, and that you feel like you can show up on consistently.
When it comes to making the decision between Facebook or Instagram, I don’t recommend that you just look at:
- Where your niche mostly is
- What’s going to be the best fit for your business model
- Where other businesses like yours hang out
Instead of doing all of that, I want you to ask two important questions…
Question 1: Which of the platforms do you like the best?
Break that down into which platform you like creating content on, and which platform you like consuming content on.
When I think about what kind of content I like consuming the most, I love reels at the moment. I love short reels, I think they’re lots of fun, and I definitely get a lot of information out of them.
But when it comes to creation, I much prefer doing a longer-form Facebook Live.
I find it really challenging to just talk in 90-second vox pops. I don’t do my best work in short shots.
My best work is done when I can really dig into it and provide step-by-step strategies, as well as answer any objections.
It’s why my podcast and YouTube channel do so well.
That’s what I am best at in terms of creation.
We also need to look at what platform can best support that type of content.
Longer form video doesn’t perform particularly well on Instagram. Longer form video performs more effectively on Facebook.
Yes, you can do Instagram lives, I’m not saying you can’t do that. But there are some types of content that perform better on one platform over the other.
Short, sharp video content doesn’t do particularly well on Facebook (yet).
Short, sharp video content does better on Instagram. Reels are preferenced in the algorithm and the feeds at the moment.
Visually-based content performs a little better on Instagram, whereas written-based content performs a little better on Facebook.
Think about what kinds of content you like to consume, and what kinds of content you like to create…
Which platform do you feel like you have the best conversations on, or you have the most engagement on, or you enjoy engaging on the most?
You get to choose what you like.
There are people who strongly dislike Instagram. They come to me complaining that they don’t want to be on Instagram, and they’d much prefer to be on Facebook. And my advice is simple… just choose Facebook then!
Whether you choose Facebook or Instagram will have very little bearing on your results.
The reason why you choose it has far more bearing.
That’s the first question you need to answer when picking your social media platform for business…
Question 2: What can you do most consistently?
I can jump into Facebook, show up in Facebook groups, answer questions, have conversations and participate in theme days every day for the rest of my life.
I love being in a community with people and showing up consistently.
On the other hand, remembering to create an Instagram reel that’s using trending audio is not something that I can do as consistently.
It’s not in my wheelhouse and it doesn’t particularly light me up.
I must admit, my ego loves seeing the view numbers on my reels on Instagram. But when I look at the number of comments per view, it is so small compared to the number of comments per view on my Facebook Live.
If I have 200 people view a Facebook Live, I’ll get comments out of 20-30 of them.
If I have 200 people view an Instagram real, I’ve got no comments.
The thing that I love is having conversations consistently. And I find that a lot of the strategy on Instagram is a bit one-way for me.
But other people find that they DO have a lot of conversations with people through their DMs and it works for their business.
They could scroll their Instagram feed every single day. They could love beautiful photos of luxury interiors every single day. Their Instagram feed lights them up.
I’m not saying one is better than the other because they are pretty much the same.
They just appeal to different types of:
- Personalities
- Engagement
- Content creation
- Community
- Social engagement
They just do it differently.
What can you do consistently?
That is question number two.
Remember: Consistency will always be flash and crash, no matter which social media platform you choose.
With all of that being said, regardless of which social media platform you choose for business, one of the most important things for you to get clear on is what the niche is that you’re focused on recruiting to and engaging with on your social media platform.
I have a free resource for you for this episode.
It’s my Nail Your Niche training.
In that training, I help you work out who you’re focused on speaking to when you’re growing an audience on social media, and when you’re building a group of people that you want to sell to with your marketing.
Niching is critical to standing out from the crowd with your messaging, and breaking through that algorithm – regardless of whether you choose LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Clubhouse, or anything else as your social media platform for business.
Grab this free training here: CLICK ME
If you have any follow-up questions for this, send an email to support@tashcorbin.com or get in touch through the DMs on Facebook or Instagram.
Thank you so much for joining me for this episode of the Heart-Centered Business Podcast.
Until next time, I cannot WAIT to see you SHINE.
