Native social & platform centricity
Using social media platforms within their original intention or being "native to social" is crucial for experiencing success within a platform.
A lot of brands dream of success and virality without actually understanding the differences between platforms and how they actually work— so let’s take a deep dive.
Being Platform Centric
Think of each platform as a place.
Within that framework imagine each of these places as a party or social gathering.
Dinner amongst new friends at Joe’s Pizza is vastly different from having dinner with family in your childhood home.
The difference lies mainly in the setting, cultural tone, appropriate behaviors, and people present.
In the same way, social platforms have vastly different settings, cultures, people, and normative behaviors.
Being platform-centric means that we will tailor content to suit the existing trends, audiences, and algorithms each platform has to offer, and the platform itself will determine the content we create on it.
Platform Strategy
Brands tend to think they need to be on every platform to achieve success on social but this is not true at all.
In fact, trying to perform well on every social platform is the quickest way to achieve burnout for your social team and get nowhere quickly.
A major part of your content strategy lies in discovering what platforms you need in the first place and can have success on.
THE BEST SOCIAL STRATEGY IS FIGURING WHAT YOU CAN ACTUALLY DO AND THE BEST SOCIAL PLATFORM IS THE ONE YOU CAN BE ACTIVE ON EASILY.
Let’s say you want to be an influencer but Tiktok overwhelms you.
The quick pace of content creation, editing videos, keeping up with trends, posting, engaging, and putting yourself out there overwhelms you.
Then Tiktok, no matter how great it is and the results it can provide, shouldn’t be your platform. Because no matter what, you won’t be consistent. You’ll have fits and starts, you’ll be overwhelmed, you’ll get frustrated, and overall you won’t be consistent.
Once again, the best social media strategy is the one you can do.
The best platform is whichever one you can be consistent on.
Ignorance when it comes to social platforms centers around people believing virality or a high follower count is the key to achieving success in marketing and business results.
In some cases, people look to high follower growth as their main KPI and measurement of success.
Don’t get me wrong, performance matters— but when you’re only focused on the numbers you can overlook the platforms themselves and if they’re suitable for meeting your business goals.
When you begin your marketing strategy with business outcomes in mind you may quickly realize that social media platforms may not be suitable for your business to begin with and if you were to pursue them would lead to wasted time, budget, and manpower.
My goal when working with clients is to not wastemyfckingtime or wastetheirfckingmoney** so I sometimes have to ween clients off of social and direct them elsewhere— to paid advertising, SEO keyword buying, or even organic sales.
I repeat: Not everyone needs social.
Platforms You Need
For most businesses, I recommend having 3 platforms.
One platform for high growth, one platform for high value, and one platform for retention.
High-growth platforms include TikTok and Facebook.
High-value platforms can be YouTube, a company podcast, a blog, or a newsletter.
High retention platforms = email list or capture newsletter.
TikTok's SEO Gamechanger
Tiktok = SEO
Something that most people don’t know is that Tiktok is an SEO platform.
Now that you see that, you can’t unsee it. I know. I was shocked too.
The reason why Tiktok has been able to achieve so much retention and adoptability amongst Gen Z is because of it’s search ability.
Gen Z uses TikTok to look things up.
Food recipes, interior design, fun things to do near them, outfit ideas, answers to problems, what to do about relationships, etc.
Tiktok is Google for Gen Z.
I’ve come to the point myself where when I need to look something up my first instinct is to go on Tiktok because I know I’ll see trustworthy UGC content, visual representation, in a digestible short form format of the answer I’m looking for.
The platform has made a concise effort to be incredibly optimized for search.
As a creator, you can use this to your advantage.
Optimizing your Tiktok headlines, post copy, video scripts, and hashtags based on search is the key to people finding you on Tiktok.
X
I see X (formerly Twitter) as an engagement platform but it can also be a high-growth vehicle mainly for personal brands when done the right way.
Instagram Is A Website
I always call Instagram a website because to me it’s mainly a brand representation platform.
A website is where someone goes to learn more about you and see a visual representation of your product offering. Instagram is a website because people go to look (see) and not necessarily buy.
On the other hand, purchasing data amongst users on Facebook has always been high.
I have an assumption that because Facebook skews older the crowds on Facebook tend to scroll slower, for longer, really look at products advertised to them, and then actually have the money to buy.
Instagram is extremely saturated and users have subconsciously learned how to quickly scroll past the ads they’re inundated with.
But Instagram is also a retention platform.
Once someone follows you on Instagram they don’t tend to unfollow so it’s an easy way to update your audience, have conversations with them, answer questions, and keep your community tight.
Pinterest is a great shopping platform and is highly underused. If you have a DTC brand or product in beauty, fashion, lifestyle, healthcare, interior design, or skincare— Pinterest is your girl.
If you have a blog, Pinterest is your girl.
If you’re a personal brand — Pinterest cross-distribution with video and imagery from Instagram and TikTok is your girl.
Especially if your brand leans or caters to women, the level of brand resonance you can have amongst users due to the slow—consumption style of content, the feeling of user control, the tailoring for consumer preference, and the direct buying is gnarly.
I’m getting excited because Pinterest is so special and literally no one uses it.
Platform Centricity In Action
To summarize, platform centricity is a big term that simply means “use the platforms in the way they’re supposed to be used”.
Instead of assuming you’re gonna get on TikTok and tell people about how great your product is (aka echo chamber content) and thinking you’ll achieve high growth that way— you have to do the unthinkable. You have to ACTUALLY USE TIKTOK.
You have to participate in the trends, make stitches, clip and save sounds, make capcuts, create series content, use SEO-based headlines, and engage on the platform.
On Twitter, you have to tweet. You have to engage, make threads, repost, interact, etc.
On Facebook, you have to make meme-like videos and graphics because that’s what works on the platform.
On Instagram, you have to post engaging stories, layout your grid, do influencer marketing, comment on other people’s posts, share, react, and engage.
Being platform-centric means being in the platform and present with the happenings of that place and not practicing brand egotism that centers on pre-planned content calendars, echo chamber content, and content assumptions.
You use the platform for what it’s for so you can organically connect with the consumer