3 Questions to Ask Yourself Before Jumping on a New Social Media Platform

Business Tips and ToolsVisibility

Jun 24

Written By brandmerry

3 Questions to Ask Yourself Before Jumping on a New Social Media Platform

BY MICHELLE KNIGHT

Social media marketing is changing every single day, and new platforms are popping up with the message, "If you're not here, you're missing out!" The truth is you might not need to be there and today on the blog I'm sharing how to determine if a ne…

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One of the things that I see happening with entrepreneurs day in and day out is distractions.

It's like squirrel brain everywhere all the time. And I get it.

I feel it too, where something new will pop up and we'll wonder if we need to go do that. If it’s going to completely change our business?

We experience a little bit of FOMO if we see other people doing it and we're not on the platform or implementing that strategy.

And while I do believe in adjusting and pivoting, in fact, we've got an episode coming out in a few weeks all about marketing, I also know that pivoting all the time or doing it because of FOMO and not from an aligned decision is not a best practice.

You're going to find yourself distracted, running out of time, and with mediocre content and energy on every platform and within every strategy, rather than simplifying, going all in and excelling at what you're doing.

The goal with marketing is to do a really good job at what you're putting your time and energy into so you yield results quickly.

If you find yourself jumping on the bandwagon with every new platform that's coming up and wondering how to know what you should put your energy towards and what you shouldn't, then this episode and blog is for you!

What do you do when a new cool platform and major FOMO comes up?

What questions do you ask yourself?

What do you have in place and how do you ultimately decide if implementing that is going to be right for you?

Let's get into it!

CREATE YOUR MARKETING RULES

We have a tried and true approach to branding and marketing over here at Brandmerry. It's one of the reasons I created Brandmerry Academy, as a way to build a sustainable marketing practice and growth without feeling the ups and downs of every trending new platform.

When it comes to marketing, we have a very, very, clean, simple, minimalist approach.

And one of the things that we do not do is jump on the new thing.

Now that doesn't mean that I don't research the crap out of it. I'm the marketing strategist, it's my job to do all the dirty work, so then I can pass along to you, “Hey, this is what we're seeing, this is what's happening,” and hopefully offer a different opinion than what you might be seeing online.

I recently experimented with this when Clubhouse was announced.

So just like you probably were, I was like, what is this? Should I be on it? What's happening?

I went back to my marketing rules to ultimately decide if this was the platform for me.

I use these to make aligned decisions in my business and encourage you to create the same.

Rule Number One: I want to drive traffic to my website.

My website is my home base. It is where the information that you need about my brand lives. It's a one-stop shop for messaging, who I am, how I can support you, resources, blogs, podcasts, and authority.

It's where I want people to go, because that's where you can get information that you need no matter where you're at in the client journey. Whether you're just starting out and just want some cool resources to figure out if you like this person, or if you're ready to invest.

Rule Number Two: I create evergreen content.

When I first started my business, like many of you probably, I was showing up on social media all the time. And I felt like I had to show up on social media every single day, because that's what I was being taught. At the time I was working a nine to five, building a business, and I had a baby. That is not a recipe for showing up on social media every single day. It just didn't work. And I started to say, “well, shoot, if that's the way that I'm supposed to grow this business, how is this going to work?”

So I got really good at bulk scheduling.

I got really good at creating content and repurposing it. But then I quickly realized as I went through that, that the key to success was evergreen content.

Content that wasn't going to just disappear in an hour, a day, months even. I'm talking about content that will live on, content that will drive traffic to my website for years and years to come.

So any time a new platform is coming up or something new is happening, I'm asking myself, all right, is this in alignment with my two rules?

Ultimately, when deciding on Clubhouse it could work with rule number one, but straight up broke rule number two.

3 QUESTIONS TO ASK YOURSELF WHEN CHOOSING A MARKETING PLATFORM

New platforms and information are always going to be coming our way, which is why it's really important that we focus on asking ourselves three things.

QUESTION #1

Is my audience there?

This should be the number one question that everyone askS themselves any time they're thinking about their marketing strategy. Is my audience there?

I'll continue with the example of Clubhouse. When I was considering exploring that platform, I started paying attention to my audience and what they were saying. And my audience is made up of working women, some with full-time jobs and most likely taking care of their family and their children and building their business.

Every time I was doing market research or talking to people about Clubhouse they were like, “I don't have time for that. I don't have time to sit on something for six hours and listen in a room and hope that I get value.”

I realized very quickly that my audience was not there.

You need to remember this with all marketing strategies, because if your audience isn't there, then you're just showing up and creating content and nothing's going to happen because the person that you're creating that content for isn't actually there and it's not getting in front of them.

With new platforms, your audience might not be there yet so that's where you've got to do some digging and some research in those different pieces.

But if you know your audience really well, you're going to know right away that they're not there.

QUESTION #2

Do I have the capacity for this?

When I say capacity, I'm referring to time. It's important that you're always prioritizing your time.

I talk about time management a lot over here, time in and of itself is a major value for me. And using our time in the best way possible while also using our time in alignment with the life that we want to create.

We're not just doing things to do things.

We're not just doing things because people told us that we have to do that and that's expected of us.

We're being very, very conscious of our time and how we're spending it. So when you're thinking about it, do you have the capacity for this?

If you're already working at your cap, and if you added something else, would that mean that you would compromise what's already happening?

And that's what I see a lot.

When Clubhouse first started, I was in a membership community and I was watching what was happening in this group. I saw all these people talking about Clubhouse and how amazing it was.

They were talking about how it was amazing and they were on it for eight hours the other day. And they were listening to it while they wrote emails. They grew their email list by like five people and it was very, very exciting.

And then I watched those same individuals within a week or two say, “I don't have any time to work on my business. I'm finding that I don't have time for anything. What are your tips?”

Do you see the disconnect here? Because you do have time, it's how you're spending your time.

Remember, we don't want to compromise what you're already doing, that'll just make everything "okay"!

We don't want every marketing strategy to just be okay, we want them to be awesome. That's why sometimes doing less is best!

QUESTION #3

Does this fit with how I do business?

This goes back to what I shared in the beginning on the two rules. My two rules, when it comes to marketing, are that traffic goes to my website and that I will create evergreen content.

I will not create content that disappears because it's not serving me in the long run. We have blog posts that are still driving traffic from 2016!!

So, if you're going through these questions and they pass question 1 (your audience is there) and question 2 (you have the capacity), but you get to three and it's not in alignment with your rules, then don't jump ship.

Stay the course because so much of marketing is resiliency.

Marketing is about resiliency and putting in the time and the energy and not stretching yourself too thin.

TOP MARKETING RECOMMENDATIONS FOR ENTREPRENEURS

At Brandmerry we believe, and teach, that every single brand should have a website.

Now that does not mean that every single brand needs to be a design expert or needs to fork out a bunch of money for a brand design, or needs to hire a copywriter.

Most of my clients actually don't do any of those things because I give them the tools that they need to do it themselves. Some of my clients even do it in a weekend.

These don't have to be fact, what we're focused on is the information you're providing. Think about your copy, messaging, brand affinity, the emotional pieces of your brand, those are the things that really work on a website.

You can have a pretty website, but if people are landing on there and not converting it's not working for you!

Now, a lot of people will say, "but I have the website and none is landing on it!" That's where these next few pieces come into play.

DRIVING TRAFFIC AND GETTING LEADS

No matter who you sell to, everyone's on Google. Google is the largest search engine and ever business needs to pay attention to how and where they show up when their ideal customers are searching for their services.

In addition to Google, and using the same SEO strategy, are Pinterest and YouTube.

Because of the search engine platforms, just like Google, when you go to Pinterest or YouTube, you type in a topic, and then you get all of these different pieces of information regarding that topic. It's such a powerful tool because your ideal customer is typically further along in the buying process.

So it's about having consistent content on your website, usually in the form of blogging, podcasting with a transcript or show notes, or video embedded with the transcript or show notes. And learning how to drive traffic to your website, so that if someone lands on your website, they then can take action.

These are the strategies we teach inside of Brandmerry Academy so when a new platform comes up you don't feel like you need to jump ship.

These evergreen platforms might shift from time to time, but for years they've been consistent for entrepreneurs everywhere.

CONCLUSION

Remember, no matter what's changing around us, it's important we have our website, we have our core content, we're driving traffic to it and that is what I recommend every business focus on.

Then sprinkle in Instagram, sprinkle in Facebook, sprinkle in TikTok, sprinkle it all in until you reach your capacity. But the reality is many of you don't have the capacity to add more of those things that are going to disappear.

Still not convinced? Here's a scenario for you.

My clients often ask, “Well should I be showing up on Instagram every single day? I heard that you have to post five days a week in order to get results, so I could do that or I could blog.”

What if you didn't do that.

What if you took the same amount of energy that you were going to do on Instagram. Let's say for five days, and you took that amount of time to write a blog post that's going to perform for you years down the line and not disappear in like a day? Then shared that on Instagram for a boost?

Think about steady, steady, steady growth, and not having to jump on and off bandwagons as they come, because it really is about resiliency, and sustainability as a business owner.