It’s been nearly a whole month since Trump reinstated access to TikTok in the US and delayed the enforcement of the app’s ban for 75 days.
It’s impossible to predict how this will pan out for TikTok, but whatever happens, the whole debacle has been a deafening wakeup call for marketers and brands who have relied on the app to drive awareness and reach new audiences.
To borrow a phrase most commonly associated these days with Love Island, it’s vital that marketers don’t ‘put all their eggs in one basket’ when it comes to which social media channels they invest their time and money in.
According to data from GWI, the average social media user spends time on 6.8 platforms per month — that’s a lot of touchpoints you could be missing out on if you’re only targeting them on one or two.
Of course, not every social media platform is going to be suitable for every brand. But by taking a creative multi-channel approach, you can create a sustainable and powerful social media strategy that’s well prepped to handle the onslaught of changes and developments these platforms throw at us.
The dangers of over-relying on one social channel
It might feel like the sensible choice to focus your social media strategy on one platform if you’re working for a smaller brand or within a resource-stretched marketing team, but it can actually be a risky approach for several reasons.
Firstly, as the uncertainty around TikTok’s future proves, we simply can’t predict how social media platforms will shift and change. Between political debates, rebrands, takeovers, and fact-checking rules, just one executive decision could render any of these channels obsolete — and your well-crafted social strategy utterly redundant.
Not to mention, the worlds of these platforms themselves are rapidly evolving. Instagram feels like the biggest culprit of abrupt algorithm shifts and feature changes, with the heavily video-centric app now feeling unrecognisable from the simple photo-sharing channel it started its lifecycle as.
From LinkedIn to Facebook (and everything in between), it seems that no app is safe from relentless changes that can force marketers to return to the drawing board with their social strategy, so adaptability is key.
Finally, while you might believe you’ll only find your target demographic on one specific social platform, you might be surprised to discover the audiences you can reach by diversifying your social media efforts. LinkedIn, for example, has traditionally been associated with C-Suite execs and older professionals, but did you know that 60% of the platform’s users are aged 25-34?
Every platform has its own pockets of niche communities your brand can tap into — you just need to look for them and keep an open mind that with the right strategy, they’ll meet you there.
How to craft a multi-channel social media strategy
While obviously not every social media platform will be a good fit for your brand — and you don’t want to over-stretch your marketing team — you should try and identify the best opportunities for you to increase brand awareness and connect with your community by doing thorough research into each of the main platforms.
Can you see similar businesses to yours successfully engaging users on this channel? Or, even better, can you spot a gap in the market where you can do something different from these brands and capture the attention of an untapped audience? Use these insights to tailor your approach so you’re using some tried-and-tested tactics while also keeping your strategy unique.
Whichever platforms you choose, consistency is critical. Sure, you might use a slightly more formal tone when sharing an important company announcement on LinkedIn than you would when sharing a daily update on an Instagram Story, but you still need to make sure your language and visual identity is unmistakably you. Without cohesion, you can’t build trust.
Create content that you can repurpose across channels to get the most out of your resources and efforts, but make sure you’re still taking advantage of each platform’s individual features to get the most out of every post.
For example, you could record a longer piece of vertical video content that you can cut up into a series of short-form snippets to use on Instagram Reels, Facebook Videos, TikTok, and YouTube Shorts. To make this more impactful on Instagram, you could then reshare the Reel on your Story and add a swipe-up link to a web page you’d like to promote.
Whatever you test and experiment with, monitor key performance indicators including engagement rate, followers, and reactions across every channel so you know what’s working well. But bear in mind that some platforms’ algorithms (particularly TikTok and LinkedIn) can be tricky to hack, so be patient and try out different content styles a few times before you write them off.
In today’s era of fragmented consumer attention and increased social media use, brands can no longer afford to rely on a single social media channel to reach new audiences and drive awareness. Not only is a multi-channel strategy a less risky approach in the case of sudden platform shutdowns or drastic political takeovers, but you can also open up your brand to a whole new audience you might not even have known existed.
If you’d like to chat about how you can level up your social media strategy to engage existing customers and attract new ones, email our Strategic Content team at StratComms@thinkinghatpr.com to arrange a chat.
