Your Business and Social Media

Social Media - Where Do You Start?

I've generally found the best place to start is by asking questions. Key considerations here include:
* Where do your customers hang out?
* What platform(s) are you comfortable with?
* How much time do you have to devote to social media and how much can you repurpose?

What Social Media Platforms Are There?
​This article identifies the Top 35 social media platforms as of July 2025. There are a number on this list I wouldn't have called "social media." Some of these appear to be international and not necessarily in the US awareness. I also wouldn't consider Discord, Microsoft Teams, or Facebook Messenger as "social platforms" to interact with customers, but maybe that's just me. 

The Top 5 include Facebook, WhatsApp, YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok - no real surprises on these. 

Where Do Your Customers Hang Out on Social Media?
Considerations here include:

• Your type of business or nonprofit
• What platforms do your equivalent competitors use?
• Age/demographics of your customer
• Does your business lend itself to photo or video stories or will you be word heavy?
• Will you need a platform where donations or sales are an option?

What Platforms Are You Comfortable With?
You really won't want to feel forced to work with a social media platform you simply don't like or aren't familiar with. You will quickly face a decision of how much you or your team can manage the social media or if you will need to hire for this role. The follow-up question is whether you can afford to hire someone to manage your social media if you don't have that resource already. 

If video creation or editing is not a skill for you, that will begin to focus your social media choices. Nearly all platforms allow and encourage video as an option. Social media and users seem to love video right now. However, video is a bigger focus for certain platforms. Currently, TikTok and YouTube are pretty exclusively video based. 

How Much Time Do You Have and Can You Repurpose?
Some folks believe in being on all the platforms. Others identify 2-3 to focus on and that's plenty. Both options work. 

Some of the platforms are currently owned by the same company which makes reposting, sharing, and maximizing your effort easier—posting on Facebook may also be easily shared to Instagram and WhatsApp as they're owned by the same company.

The other option is once you have your video ready or image in mind for your post, simply copy/paste/upload may work fairly efficiently for you between multiple platforms. 

Repurposing can be taken a couple of different ways:

• Easily replicate the same thing between platforms
• Have a longer post, video, or webinar prepared and break it into smaller pieces or formats to share in smaller ways across multiple platforms and over time. 
  • Transcripts provide words that can be batched into social media posts as written content and possibly add an image. 
  • Key concepts may lend themselves to being shared and build a poll for platforms that have that option. LinkedIn loves polls for interaction!
  • Videos can originally be "live" events on or off the platform. They can be shared on social media in their entirety or in small pieces of focused content. 
  • Webinars or podcasts are perfect in small pieces on social media platforms to repurpose them. 
  • You can combine creating a podcast (audio show of varying lengths) with a live YouTube event! I suspect this cross-purposing may also work with other platforms. 
  • Repurposing can also be resharing an older piece of content (prior social media posts or blog posts from your website) for a newer audience or updating it with new material with far less time and effort involved. 

As you consider adding social media options to your business plan, this will hopefully provide some insights into considerations. Nonprofit Tech for Good provides a number of resources that may guide your decision on platforms to consider, whether you're a nonprofit, solopreneur, or author. This website offers a number of data posts to weigh where you should consider focusing your time and energy. 

Do you have a favorite social media platform? Are you on all the platforms or focus on 2-3? Do you repurpose your content to save time? Love to hear how it's going! Let's Chat or message me on LinkedIn! 

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