Choosing social media platforms is a decision that affects results more than the quality of individual posts. It should be guided by three questions: where the target audience actually spends time, what content format the company can produce over the long term, and how many channels it can service with the available capacity, including responding to messages. For companies that sell to other companies, professional networks and expert content tend to dominate; for consumer brands, visual and video platforms; for local businesses, networks with maps and reviews. A common mistake is to set up profiles on five networks at once and let them die out after six months – an abandoned profile with a last post from a year ago looks worse than no profile at all. It is more sensible to start with one network and add another only once it has been mastered.
See also: Company social media profile, Posting frequency, Social media in B2B.
