Focus or Diversify Your Social Media Presence?

Be wary of merchantry translating that suggests you should focus your time as a trademark on one social media platform.

It’s conventional wisdom. It sounds good. “Be unconfined at one instead of spreading yourself out too thin.” It assumes the only options are dominating at one thing or creating lots of bad content.

It’s a lot like the Quality vs. Quantity debate. It’s framed as either doing fewer of something really well or creating lots of garbage. These aren’t your only options.

This often comes from old school marketers who found success that way. I was one of them. I understand it. I moreover understand the underlying fear and motivation for maintaining that focus.

I am your cautionary tale. I have the scars to prove it.

You don’t have to be everywhere. That’s not realistic. But you need to diversify your social media presence as much as you can.

Let me explain…

My Rise

I started my merchantry in 2011. I focused my time on my Facebook page, this website, and my email list.

Things took off surprisingly quickly considering I had very little idea what I was doing. From the years of 2013 to 2017, my merchantry reached levels I never could have dreamed of.

During that time, I dabbled in YouTube. I started a podcast but would sooner lose focus. I never touched my Instagram account except as an ad placement. I only used Twitter to share links I read. And I avoided LinkedIn.

When they emerged, I had no interest in SnapChat, TikTok, or any of the other up-and-coming apps. I had my primary focus.

This worked just fine during those years. But it wouldn’t last forever.

My Fall

As we all know, organic impact with Facebook would plummet. This wasn’t a quick, obvious change. I wouldn’t notice it immediately. But over time, I went from getting thousands of website referrals from a single post to double digits.

Facebook ads got increasingly expensive. In the early days, I thrived on micro-targeting and top-of-the-funnel campaigns to momentum traffic. That sooner wouldn’t be nearly as forfeit effective.

Likely a combination of these two things and other factors, my Google search referrals fell from 14,000 per day at its peak to well-nigh 1,400. While many businesses would love to have 1,400 daily search referrals, it was a far cry from where I was.

For a few years, I was in withholding that any of this mattered. I still had a huge email list. I still had my customers. My merchantry may have plateaued, but I wasn’t in any kind of trouble.

So, I resisted change. I kept doing the things I was doing. My Facebook page. My website. My email list.

But slowly and silently, things got progressively worse.

Then 2020 happened, and that was not good for my business. It was all downhill from there.

Still, I felt like I could turn it virtually by doing increasingly of the things I had unchangingly done. Just create increasingly courses. Offer some deals. Write increasingly blog posts.

It was unsustainable. I reached a point of no return. Something had to change.

The Pivot

I tried to ignore it for years. I didn’t need to be everywhere. I had nearly 200,000 followers on Facebook, without all. Why did I need to be anywhere else?

But at this point, it was blatantly obvious: I was getting left behind.

The vast majority of people who were seeing my Facebook posts, opening my emails, and visiting my website between those peak years moved on to something else. I wrongly unsupportable that if I kept doing what I unchangingly did that they’d stay with me — plane while the world reverted virtually us.

I started doing things that were hard. I got going on LinkedIn. Most importantly, I created my first TikTok video on September 30, 2022.

It was painful. But I knew that I had no choice. I could no longer alimony doing the well-appointed things. I had to be uncomfortable to get out of this hole.

Those TikTok videos finally led me into Instagram. When to YouTube. And finally, fully embracing Threads.

The Lesson

This was a painful lesson, but it’s so incredibly well-spoken now. And what’s hardest is that so many others don’t understand this. If I had made a conscious effort to build a meaningful presence elsewhere, this was preventable. If I had been an early adopter when new platforms emerged, I may not be in this position.

Many who push when on diversifying your social media presence are old school marketers like me. I understand it. But I worry well-nigh them considering I think I may understand where that comes from.

First, there’s the matter of getting to where we are with a method that we used years ago. It’s tried and true. We seem this will alimony working. There’s no guarantee it will.

Second, I can tell you the biggest thing that held me when from diversifying my presence and may be the same for others: Fear.

Fear of something new. Fear of the unknown. Fear of starting over and of looking ridiculous.

All of these things kept me from spending time on other platforms. Especially anything related to short-form video.

I know exactly what’s going through the heads of some marketers now who are resisting Threads considering I was them. They see Threads as the “shiny object.” They don’t think we need to be there.

And deep down, they want it to fail. They don’t want to regret not joining that next platform. I’m unrepealable of this considering I was thinking the same thing.

Rented Land

This isn’t well-nigh “building your house on rented land.” It’s all rented land. It’s well-nigh diversifying that rented land as much as possible.

Algorithms transpiration and will impact your distribution. Twitter turns to X. People transpiration how they slosh content. What they superintendency well-nigh evolves.

We need to be ready for this. One way we can be ready is by stuff in multiple places. Focusing on one is an enormous risk.

When it comes to “rented land,” we often hear that it’s all well-nigh focusing on that one platform and driving people to the things we own. But plane these things aren’t safe.

Privacy laws have changed. How people slosh content has changed. Videos and short-form content are preferred to long-form blogs now. Email unshut rates and how people receive messages is changing.

None of this is guaranteed to last. You need to be prepared.

The Shiny Object

We often hear that you shouldn’t ventilator the shiny object. I’m telling you to embrace it: Chase that shiny object!

it doesn’t midpoint you should live a life of unvarying distraction. But be curious. Jump into AI. Create a Threads account. Alimony trying new things.

When you diversify your presence, you may be surprised by what does well and where. You will moreover diversify your knowledge and make yourself increasingly useful and well-rounded — and timeless.

A platform may not be your primary home now, but things change. How people slosh content changes. Algorithms change.

That diversification gives you the worthiness to sustain losses and pivot in the future. It makes that pivot much, much easier. When something happens that drastically alters your impact on a platform (and it will happen), you’ll be glad that you did this.

I didn’t do this before. But I’m glad I am now.

Better late than never.

Your Turn

Are you diversifying your social media presence? What do you think?

Let me know in the comments below!

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