With a plethora of social media apps available online, businesses often get confused on which one to begin with and do end up being on a lot more platforms than required which in turn hinders their social media ROI. There’s this fomo (fear of missing out) involved that makes you feel like you’re behind by not being active on xyz platforms and you need to do so to stand out. If you’re a small business in the dilemma of how many and which social media platforms should your business be on as a brand, this post is for you.

1. Know Your Audience

The first and foremost step is to know your audience, we know it sounds basic but this is the driving factor in taking the decision whether to be present on a social platform or not. Suppose your audience is gen-z and you’re planning to be active on Facebook, this simply doesn’t make sense. Why do you ask? Facebook’s users are generally older ie. GenX and even older than that. So, if your target audience is Gen Z, more suitable platform choices would be – Instagram, TikTok and Snapchat. If your target audience consists of working professionals or companies and you’re a B2B business, LinkedIn is the most ideal option as it’s a social media platform for professionals.

2. Define your Goals

Before getting swooned with options, your business needs to define goals and KPIs. What do you expect from your social media page? Is it direct conversions, branding, building a meaningful relationship with customers or getting reach?

This helps you to select ideal platforms for example if you want quicker reach, TikTok and Instagram Reels are highly popular for the same, especially with the younger generation.

3. Set a Budget

No matter how much you plan to do on xyz platforms, if you don’t have the budget to do so, it won’t work. Videos require more pre- and post-production costs and are generally time-consuming in comparison to simple graphics or carousel posts. The simplest with the least investment is text-based content. So if you want to build a brand on YouTube and the budget is a bit tight, it’s a better idea to switch to short-video platforms like TikTok and Instagram Reels instead.

4. Research your competitors

This is very helpful in knowing where to be present as where ever your competitors are, probably they have done the other steps and your target audience is already present on that platform. Plus, if the platform is working for them, it’s bound to work for you too with the right direction and efforts.

These 4 steps will help you gain better clarity on your expectations from social media and if it’ll work for you or not. Social Media marketing takes time and depends from platform to platform. Our last advice would be to not have extremely high hopes and goals like getting leads in a week or so and you’ll have a good relationship with social media.