Remember when MySpace was the end all, be all of social media? Well, it technically still exists, but how many marketers do you know that are planning strategy around it? Things fade, and as generations come and go and our use of technology evolves, so do the platforms that our clients and their customers are using.
As more and more social media platforms begin to pop up, niches begin to form in the kind of communities that exist on them. Audiences are changing too. Nobody has much of a tolerance for seeing bland, uninteresting posts that only exist because your client decided they needed a Twitter account. As new platforms like Clubhouse, Reddit, and TikTok begin to ascend culturally, it’s important to decide how our clients can fit into these niches and capitalize on them.
Face it—all your client is doing on Facebook is staking out a place for themselves. If they’re a B2B company or rely on an engaged audience to keep their business running, there are fresher platforms that can boost their brand.
Let’s say that your client is a thought leader in the field of hiring and HR. Sure, it’s fine for them to have a Twitter just to get the message out, but better places would be LinkedIn and, say, Clubhouse, where they could establish themself as someone with professional experience and a unique voice and gain a following of people who are interested in what they have to say will start a dialogue with them. Twitter isn’t the place to start a conversation about important, business-oriented topics. But the audiences on more professional-centric platforms will be much more receptive to your message.
Another example: your client is a boutique, custom surfboard shop that lets customers design the boards. Instagram is great—but if you’re not heavily using the stories and reels features to get video content, you’re not doing your job. You should also be heavily utilizing TikTok where you can easily use the product to capitalize on challenges and the latest memes.
As a marketer, you are the person that clients are going to come for answers about where the best place for their content is. And it’s really not a good look if they’re suggesting experimenting with new platforms before you are. Clients can be fickle, and it only takes not being on the ball one time for them to think “why am I paying a marketing team when I’m coming up with all the ideas?”
My suggestion to you would be to figure up-and-coming platforms out before your clients do by testing them on your own company. That’s what I did. I found a few interested and dedicated employees to start making Go! TikToks and began a company Clubhouse so we can get used to live broadcasting. Within a few trial runs, everybody had their own ideas of how we could implement these new platforms for existing clients. And you can bet that in my next round of client meetings I’m going to be bringing these ideas up.
