Is what’s coming down the road worth the switch?
Deciding what platform is right for your business can be tricky.
Knowing what each one offers and what services are available now or down the road is key. When it’s time to add or switch here are some tips for making the transition.
If TikTok is the hottest thing right now then why have you not pulled everything from Instagram yesterday? You made the move from Facebook and how did that work for you? Is your FB page gathering dust or still providing a service for your business?
A few years ago my clients were making the mass exodus from Facebook to Instagram. Under BWCI's watch I was adamant that we did not exit our customer from Facebook we added an Instagram feed.
Why?
It takes time, effort, and resources to build a platform presence, and just because technology has changed, yet again, it does not make good business sense to dump all the invested work and start over. There needs to be an exit strategy or better yet a repurpose of the old while moving to the new. The business services available on FB still outperformed the flash appeal of Instagram. Facebook has become the Youtube of Meta it carries the bulk of the information. Instagram is a sports car built for speed. And where does TikTok come in? Its jet propulsion can be a bit volatile and direction control questionable.
At BWCI we believe in a forward calculated motion and not exiting the Highway every quarter for some country road that may not connect for another six months. That being said we are always looking ahead and experimenting. Watching the road maps and keeping an eye on construction, infrastructure, and needed services. When Instagram built the off-ramps from their parent Facebook for the new superhighway it was still a year before its mobile-only interface was desktop accessible. For serious business use, it was like a 300-mile stretch of roadway without a gas station. Doing business posts with your thumbs doing the typing and cellular image uploads was like driving a vintage car down the 405 in rush hour traffic. Unpleasant, even with the top down and the sun shining. The new platforms rising up are like taking a Tesla cross country, it can be done but there needs to be some advanced planning and a two-hour wait for a charge has been known to happen. Keeping in mind that they have taken hold, the services are being built as we speak and everything will change eventually.
Quick Platform Primer
Meta
Facebook -
Parent of engaged social media. FB has become Meta’s information storage house. This is where you place your long videos, live videos, and the bulk of information. Your ads have more space for more messaging. The pace is slower here, built for connection and interaction. The services are plentiful, from sales tools such as stores to engagement with groups.
Instagram -
Visual quick information meant to flash and draw in likes and follows. Video is side by side with static images. Built for speed scrolling your visuals have to grab people's attention.
Youtube
The great video storage facility in the sky. They have tried time and time again to move into the fast lane but Youtube serves a purpose that Google cannot ignore or risk. They store vast amounts of visual information that is directly searchable with Google. Don’t forget to title, captions, and descriptions. Remember the Algorithms.
The B2B platform has really broken to the surface this year. They’ve added a bunch of new services and cleaned up their clunkiness. Love the new Newsletters!
TikTok
The new child on the block. Fast flashy and loaded with jet fuel. Still, a bit unstable and the services are not there yet on the business end, but with chaos, there is opportunity and worth the venture.
So it’s time to do some deep thinking as to what you want your marketing to do. Think about what resources you have and how to divide them. By keeping your main vehicles on the interstate you can take a smaller more off-road-worthy vehicle to explore and set up base camps. keep it small and light so you can pivot quickly as you test the new platform. You’ll know when to go all in.
When marketing on online platforms the biggest investment is the content. The beauty of content well done and on message is that it can be reformatted, repurposed, and released across a dozen platforms. So pulling from one and leaving the latter in the dust is really not a good use of your investment. Using the same message with platform-specific formatting gets the best mileage out of your marketing dollars. You can scale down over time a platform that has served its purpose.
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Share if you know a fellow business owner who is on the path to a strong online presence.
Reach out tgold@bigwaterci.com
Trina Gold
Master Creator BWCI