Choosing Your Main Social Media Platforms and Content Cadence
With so many marketing platforms available, it can be overwhelming to know where to invest your time and effort. But one thing is clear: focusing on just two platforms—one in each category: growth and community—will get you far better results than spreading yourself thin. Focusing all your energy in the same category (been there, done that!) will get you running in circles. Then you can add platforms on top according to your goals.
Step 1: Pick One Platform from Each of the Two Platform Categories
To grow your business and community effectively, the key is choosing one platform that helps you expand your reach (growth) and another that fosters deeper connections (community). By honing in on two platforms, you can maximize your impact while avoiding burnout.
What Are Growth and Community Platforms?
Growth Platforms:
A growth platform is designed to increase your visibility, attract new followers, and help more people discover your business. These platforms often have strong SEO functionality, meaning your content can be found through searches, which helps it reach new audiences over time. Growth platforms typically favor content that can be shared, searched, or go viral, making them powerful tools for expanding your reach.
Examples of growth platforms include:
Pinterest: With strong SEO features, Pinterest acts more like a search engine than a social network. Users discover new content through search, making it a great option if you create graphics or infographics.
YouTube: YouTube is one of the largest search engines in the world, allowing you to create long-form video content that can be discovered and watched months or even years after it’s uploaded.
TikTok: TikTok’s algorithm pushes content to new audiences based on interests and trends, making it ideal for fast growth if you’re creating engaging, short-form videos.
Community Platforms:
Community platforms are where you engage and nurture the relationships you've built. These platforms are designed to help you connect with your existing audience, encourage conversation, and create deeper engagement. Think of them as your "home base," where people come to interact with your content, leave comments, send messages, or participate in ongoing conversations.
Community platforms foster direct communication through features like comments, chat, or stories, allowing you to build stronger, more personal connections with your audience.
Examples of community platforms include:
Instagram: Instagram offers a mix of visuals, video, and real-time engagement through features like Stories, direct messages, and live chat. It’s perfect for building a personal connection with your followers.
LinkedIn: LinkedIn works well for building professional relationships, sharing insights, and connecting with your community through posts and direct messaging.
Twitter/Threads: These platforms are great for real-time conversation, allowing you to share quick updates, respond to followers, and foster ongoing dialogue.
Step 1: Choosing Your Two Core Platforms
Now that you understand the difference between growth and community platforms, it’s time to select the two that best suit your business. The goal is to choose one platform focused on expanding your reach (growth) and another that’s perfect for nurturing relationships (community).
Your choice should reflect the type of content you enjoy creating and what resonates with your audience. Here’s a breakdown to help you decide:
CATEGORY ONE:
Pinterest: If you excel at creating visual content, Pinterest's strong SEO features make it a powerful growth tool.
YouTube: Great for those comfortable on camera. YouTube’s evergreen content can drive traffic for months or even years.
TikTok: Ideal for short, engaging storytelling. TikTok’s algorithm rewards creativity and helps your content get discovered by a broader audience.
CATEGORY TWO:
Instagram: A versatile platform that allows you to engage your audience through posts, stories, direct messaging, and live content. Instagram's blend of visuals and community features makes it a powerhouse for relationship-building.
LinkedIn: Perfect for sharing insights and engaging in professional conversations. It's ideal if you want to build authority in your industry while nurturing your community.
Twitter/Threads: Ideal for quick, real-time interactions. These platforms are perfect for ongoing conversations and staying connected with your audience in a more casual, conversational way.
Step 2: Set Your Content Cadence
Once you’ve selected your two platforms, the next step is establishing a content cadence—a schedule that maintains consistency and quality without overwhelming you or your audience. Setting the right cadence ensures that your audience stays engaged and your content continues to work for you.
Here’s a sample cadence for a balanced strategy across multiple platforms:
Instagram: Post 3 times a week, using a mix of posts, stories, and reels. This keeps your audience engaged with fresh content while allowing you to leverage different formats.
TikTok: Post 2 times a week. TikTok thrives on short, creative content, so consistency is key to staying relevant. You will see people suggesting 2 times a day here. I have helped this account grow to 90,000 followers without that. So the choice is yours.
Email Newsletter: Send minimum 1 email every two weeks. A bi-weekly cadence gives you time to craft meaningful content and keeps your audience engaged without overwhelming them. More if you can and want!
Blog: Publish 1 blog post per week if you can. This is an ideal frequency for boosting SEO and creating long-form, valuable content for your audience. Your blog can serve as anchor content that supports your other platforms. Once you’ve reached a desired number of blogs, you can slow this down.
All that being said, it truly depends on the business. I rarely worth with two companies with the exact same cadence and that is okay. Your goals, existing audience, target audience, finances, time, values etc ALL play an important part.
Step 3: Repurpose Your Content to Extend Reach
Even though you’re focusing on two core platforms, you can support them by repurposing content across others. For example, you could turn a blog post into several Instagram captions (I always post my blogs to the feed), create Pinterest graphics from YouTube thumbnails, or use TikTok clips in email newsletters. Repurposing content helps you maintain a consistent message while saving time and effort.
Your long-form content, like blog posts or podcasts, can also act as “anchor content” that feeds into your overall content strategy. Anchor content can be sliced and diced into smaller pieces for social media, newsletters, and more.
Step 4: Analyze, Adjust, and Optimize
Once you have your platform choices and content cadence in place, it’s essential to track your performance. Use each platform’s analytics tools to understand what’s resonating with your audience and what isn’t. Are your Instagram stories getting more engagement than your posts? Is TikTok driving more traffic to your website?
You can adjust your strategy and optimize your cadence to better serve your business goals and audience preferences.
Ultimately, the key is finding what works best for you and your audience. The platforms you choose should align with your content strengths and business objectives, and the cadence should be realistic and sustainable.