Are you feeling the FOMO because you’re not on ALL the social media platforms? Plus some podcasts, email lists, and guest articles?
If so, you’re not alone.
I have yet to meet a business owner who’s not at least pondering the idea of expanding and diversifying. This is one of the first questions that comes up in my strategy sessions intake forms as well.
I’m a BIG advocate of diversification and NOT putting all your eggs in one basket, especially if that basket is social media. However, this doesn’t mean that you should be everywhere every day.
You’ll end up spreading yourself too thin and, if you have the same predisposition as I do, end up burnt out and ready to burn everything down just to make the notifications shut the fuck up for a few minutes.
Today, we’re exploring how to do diversification right.
The bad news first:
Yes, you need to be on more than one platform
Like it or not, you’re running a media business was the subject of a previous Ideas to Power Your Future issue for good reason.
Psst, my subscribers read this before you did. Want to be the first to see analyses and roadmaps like this one? Subscribe to Ideas to Power Your Future and get them in your inbox every Thursday.
More platforms = more reach because:
- Not everyone who matches your ICP uses the same platform. Some people hate LinkedIn, while others love it and would never touch X, even though they have the same socio-demographic profile.
- Algorithms work for you (for once!): have you ever wondered why you watched a single YouTube video posted by a creator and then that person popped up on all your social media feeds? The new-ish “For You” algorithms work very hard to figure out what you like. Once they get it, they feed it to you everywhere. For any business that publishes content, this is a goldmine.
- Organic reach is abysmal across all social media platforms. [I’ve written at length about the rise and fall of social media platforms here.] BUT some days are better than others on some platforms. If your LinkedIn reach is missing in action, you can simply focus on X or Instagram that day. No point beating a dead horse and asking all your friends to comment on your post — the algorithm doesn’t care.
Is it time for you to diversify and add new platforms to your mix?
When I get this question in a strategy session, I have one litmus test to help my clients make the decision:
If you post and ghost* on your current platform, do you get decent** engagement?
*Post and ghost = you don’t spend 1+ hours commenting and engaging with other people to massage the algorithm.
**Decent can mean different things for different people. If you don’t log into your core platform for, say, three days, you should still have a couple dozen notifications.
If you’re there, then it means that this platform has become second nature to you. The effort to maintain it and grow your audience there has significantly diminished since the early days. You are ready to take on a new challenge.
Another (sad) sign you should diversify
This one is not up to you and there is very little you can do about it. As I said in my issue about the rise and fall of social media networks, if organic reach on your core platform has decreased significantly, it’s already very late. You should have already been elsewhere.
Two caveats here:
- This does not mean you should completely ditch the platform. You have an audience there, don’t ghost them. Just focus the bulk of your efforts somewhere else.
- Organic reach is not the only metric to consider. Service providers on LinkedIn, for instance, can still thrive with manual outreach via DMs.
If you’re thinking “yeah, that’s me! I’m totally ready to diversify”, keep reading. It’s not as hard as it seems.
How to diversify and start publishing on more platforms without spending ages creating and distributing content?
This is the biggest pushback I get from my clients when I advise them to diversify. They suddenly find it easier when I tell them to:
- Bundle platforms together by content format.
- Repurpose and re-publish.
Platform bundling 101
This is fairly easy to implement. It all starts with the format you’re most comfortable with/currently use the most and match it with the format each platform favors:
- Active on LinkedIn? → Add other platforms that favor text-based posts: X, Threads.
- Active on Instagram (photos)? → Add other platforms that favor photos: Pinterest
- Active on YouTube? → Add other platforms that favor video: TikTok, Instagram reels.
This way, you can publish the same content across platforms, with no or minimal edits.
Re-purpose and re-publish your best-performing pieces of content
Don’t be afraid to re-use, re-format, and republish your best-performing pieces of content because:
- Social media reach is bad (have I said this before?), so probably fewer than 5% of your followers saw it the first time.
- Even if they saw it, they already forgot about it.
- People need to see an idea several times before they retain it AND before they associate it with you.
I wrote an in-depth piece about my repurposing strategy, along with the systems I use to spend no more than 1-2 hours creating social media content per week — and I publish every day.
BTW, my Audience Accelerator Course launching in July will have a bonus lesson on content repurposing. The demand for this topic has been so big that I had to add it as a bonus.
I’ll include all my templates, spreadsheets, and how-tos in that bonus lesson.
Want in? Join my VIP list and be the first to learn when it goes live. Plus, you’ll get awesome behind-the-scenes news every Tuesday until launch date. Click ME and I’ll transport you to the VIP list instantly. Whoosh!
Start here
Let’s say you’re currently active on one text-favoring platform, where you spend roughly one to two hours every day.
- If you’re already getting consistent engagement without massaging the algorithm too much, add another platform.
- Spend one-third of your social media allocated time on the new platform. If you spend 90 mins per day on social media, allocate 30 mins to the new platform. That should be enough to get the hang of it in ±1 month.
- Use that time to post and engage with other accounts there.
That’s it. That’s the big diversification secret.
You don’t have to jump in with both feet and spend insane amounts of time on social media. What helped me diversify without going mad was putting guardrails in place.
I allocate a finite amount of time to social media every day. It doesn’t matter what happens or how generous the algorithm gods are with me on a given day — when the time is up, I ditch it, unanswered DMs and all.
I promise you there’s a whole world out there, outside the platform you cling to. And it ain’t half bad either!
Are you planning to diversify soon?
Hit reply and let me know, I want to follow you everywhere!
A final word of caution
The hardest thing about publishing on a new platform has nothing to do with time or processes and everything to do with how it feels. Daunting — that’s how it feels.
If you’re a social media veteran, you’re accustomed to getting reactions within seconds after posting something on your main platform. Things will be completely different on new platforms.
The crickets will get very, very loud and you will almost hear them telling you to quit and get back to safety aka your usual platform.
Please remember crickets are not to be trusted; their brains are the size of a needle tip, which doesn’t exactly make them stellar advisers. Everyone starts at 0 on any platform. I promise you that, if you choose the right platform, you will see results within ±3 months.
That’s it from me today!
See you next week in your inbox for an analysis of long-form content — does it still work or should you keep your content shorter than cricket legs?
Here to make you think,
Adriana
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