The bigger they come, the harder they fall – so the expression goes. Okay, so it’s unlikely that any of our favourite social media sites are going to fall out of favour overnight. But then, back in 2008, how many of us would have predicted that the dominance of MySpace would disappear by the following year?
The point is (and you may have noticed a theme with our Indigo Online series here) that social media is always changing. It’s not just new features that are worth keeping abreast of: new social media sites are constantly appearing and attempting to make their mark on the digital landscape.
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube are some of the most popular channels to get your organisation’s message out to a wide audience, but the next big social media site could already be out there. So, as well as the content that are you posting now, it’s also important to keep an eye on the future.
How can you tell what platform is right for you? In the same way that no two organisations are the same, neither are any two social media strategies. What do you wish to achieve with your social strategy? How do you want to go about delivering it? A social media strategy should be a part of a solid communications plan and the right platforms for your organisation are ultimately going to be determined by good research to discover what platforms your audience is using.
It’s also important to remember that your social media strategy shouldn’t be set in stone. When your target audience starts getting involved with a new platform, consider adding it to your social media offering.
Take TikTok: what started as a lip-syncing video sharing platform for young people has rapidly grown into a video sharing platform with hundreds millions of users across the world. The format provides a unique challenge for organisations to get their message out in the right way, but even if you haven’t heard of it yet, major brands such as the BBC and McDonald’s are now rising to that opportunity, and generating large audiences through TikTok with many thousands of engagements in a short period of time.
It’s happened in the past, and it will happen again: the social media giants of today will likely fall, and the successful organisations of tomorrow will be the ones that know the right time to explore new social media platforms.
Erith McKean
Social Media Executive
