Social media is all the rage, but if you used all the offerings out there you would never have time to do any work!

On the other hand if you are a social media manager you might well use quite a lot of the social media platforms out there.

How to make the decision which social media platforms to use is actually the second step. The first step is deciding if you even need to use social media at all.

I can’t tell you that you have to use LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Periscope, YouTube, Instagram, or any of the many others I do not have space to list. What I can suggest is what I did in my early days of deciding whether to use social media and why.

Research other businesses similar to yours and discover what they use and if possible, why they use social media. Knowing your brand and what it stands for and your target market is another important thing to take into account. Ultimately it’s about you and your business. For instance if you have a store front, such as a florist shop, having a Facebook presence is a great idea, it opens up the online world to your business. Think of your Facebook page as a showcase window to your actual store front,  and this encourages your connections to find out more. If you are a business that appeals to young adults up to the age of 25 explore the sites that this generation uses and factor in how often they visit the sites and why.

If you do decide to use social media start off with one or two social media sites that you really like, get to know them, and how to use them before you announce to the world which ones you are using. We all make mistakes in the beginning, by taking one step at a time you will look professional and knowledgable once you do start using social media for your business.

The why use social media and which platforms you decide to use are just the beginning. How often you post on these sites and time of day is information you will need to be successful in your efforts.