Brands will revamp their social media strategy and focus on fewer networks – perhaps even just one next year. At least that’s what some predict.
Many organizations promote their messages on multiple platforms. As new social media platforms emerge, they attempt to the join the ranks of the major players, sometimes successfully.
But marketers, especially those at small businesses and nonprofits, can’t jump on every single platform that comes along. Next year will see a trend toward refinement. “Rather than spending equal effort on five different platforms, more businesses will find one platform that works especially well for them, and narrow their focus on it,” predicts digital marketing expert Jayson DeMers in Forbes.
Others disagree. Companies will focus on one network only if its market congregates in one, says Shel Holtz, principal of Holtz Communication + Technology, in his blog. “Until then, brands will be where their audiences are, using each channel based on its strengths.
Holtz notices the opposite trend: More companies hiring channel experts to deliver content effectively across multiple channels.
The Social Media Economist Case Study
The Economist, the financial publisher, offers a recent example of a brand narrowing its focus. As Digiday reports, it dropped Pinterest and Tumblr after failing to gain traction on those networks despite dedicating significant staff resources. Instead, it decided to commit its resources to LinkedIn and eventually found success there, but only after extensive experimenting.
At first, it posted strictly business and finance content, following the standard assumptions about the professional network. It achieved results initially but follower growth rate plateaued.
“We had to try something new. It was time to experiment,” wrote Edmund Henry, Economist social media writer, in Medium. “In the end, we decided to copy the way our editorial colleagues pitch stories to each other for inclusion in the newspaper, and apply this to how we’d decide what to post on LinkedIn.”
Realizing its readers on LinkedIn, like its magazine readers, have a range of interests, it broadened its content to include culture, arts and entertainment. Its LinkedIn follower count increased from half a million last year to 2.4 million, and it continues to grow at a rate of 25,000 followers a week.
Many observers would view the results as totally predictable. The Economist’s audience is composed largely of business professionals and academics. LinkedIn is a social network mostly inhabited by business professionals. Pinterest and Tumblr have far different audiences that are decidedly not business-centric or academic.
One Priority at a Time
While some marketers believe working on numerous channels enables them to reach a broad audience, building a fruitful presence on multiple platforms can be difficult for small organizations with limited resources, says freelance writer Mridu Khullar Relph on Buffer.
Instead of trying to be everywhere, dedicate energy to one social media channel and accumulate followers before moving on to the next one, she recommends. That strategy can better improve your social proof, since building 1,000 subscribers quickly on one social media network is better than having 200 followers each of five different channels.
Bottom Line: Marketers have long debated if they should focus on one social media or spread their efforts across multiple channels. Some experts predict brands will drop unbeneficial networks and focus on a single priority. Most marketers realize the decision depends on their resources, their audience and overall strategy.
Michael Kling is manager of public relations, marketing and social media at Glean.info, a media monitoring and measurement service that provides customized media monitoring and PR analytics solutions.
