Mediaboss Marketing

Whenopening your company's social media accounts,you should consider who your target audience is and where they are accessible to you. However, you can't be everywhere at once. So, given your company's limited resources, here's how to know which social mediaplatforms should be your first or the one to dedicate the most resources to.

Twitter: Investors love it.

If you are targetinginvestors to fund your company, Twitter is probably the most effective way to do that. Now, let me be clear here: Twitter isn't the best way to attract investors-- warm introductions are, especially if the person making the intro is someone that investortrusts or even someone he previously invested in.An intro like that will be significantly more meaningful and effective than networking on Twitter.

However,if I had to choose one social media platform to target investors, I'd choose Twitter. The culture on Twitter is very relaxed and you are able to connect with pretty much anyone. You can imagine the shock I felt when celebrities like Alyssa Milano and Ellen followed me on Twitter. The point is, if you use Twitter correctly and not solely for self-promotion, the sky is the limit as far as who you can connect with.

Facebook: It isn't going away anytime soon.

If you're a brick-and-mortar storeor a low-tech business, consider building up your presence on Facebook.You might use Facebook to share relevant industry content and engage with those following and commenting on your posts. While Facebook is slowly becoming irrelevant to the younger generation, it is still super relevant to companies whose older customers still use Facebook.

Instagram:If talent is what you're after, this app isyour friend.

This app is great to show off your internal company culture. In today's day and age, companies will do anything to hire top talent but they'd do even more to retain thattalent. Onestrategythat is probably the most effective way to keep your employees happyis company culture.

Other companies can offer top talentonethousand dollars more in salary, but if they are happy to come to work every day, then they won't go anywhere so fast.Once you have an amazing company culture, now you need potential employees to see it. The best platform for that? Instagram with an honorable mention to TikTok.

TikTok: Don't dismiss it.

If you built a product more relevant to young adults, or if you are targeting kids, don't waste your time on Facebook or Twitter. Even Instagram takes a back seat with TikTok being the driver.

I know what you're thinking. "TikTok? For business?" Those same words were previously said about Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and every other social platform. So yes, TikTok. For business.Right now, as I write these words, TikTok is experiencing hyper-growth.

LinkedIn: Perfect for networking.

I would say that LinkedIn would be the second platform you should use once you chose one of the above ones.LinkedIn is great for many things. It's great for catching up on people's careers. It's great for connecting with people in the industry. LinkedIn is great for finding and approaching talent as well as potential partners for your business.

Overall, I would say that you should have a basic presence on most social media sites including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and LinkedIn.You can open a profile everywhere, but allocate resources to the platform that'll yieldyou the best results depending on where your audience hangs out.

The bottom line is, you have limited resources and you need to use them effectively. You also can't afford to not have any presence on social media. It's a bad look.So the question is, how do you balance those two opposing realities, and decide which platforms are best for you?

The opinions expressed here by Inc.com columnists are their own, not those of Inc.com.

More:
How to Know Which Social Media Platform Is the Right One for Your Company - Inc.