Social media hit maturity some time ago, and even before that happened it had already permeated the mainstream. As marketers, we have found ourselves (for decades now!) trying to keep up with trends, learning the newest platforms, and trying to reach our targets everywhere we could. It may seem heretical, but in this post, I advocate for deplatforming as a way to increase your following and engagement.
Counterintuitive? Maybe. But it will work.
Deplatforming is exactly what it sounds like: removing your brand from social media platforms. Not all of them, but more than you might otherwise suspect. It can take nerves of steel to walk into a meeting with your operations, finance, and technology counterparts and tell them you want to remove the brand from some positive-ROI platforms, but the result can be an astounding net positive.
By removing your brand from platforms where you are experiencing a negative ROI, mere breakeven, or even a minimally positive ROI, you can spend more resources on the highest ROI platforms. In addition to the gains from focusing only on your historically best platforms, costs will be reduced by streamlining the social marketing process. Instead of trying to appeal to inconsistent algorithm results across half a dozen platforms, consider going all-in on just one or two platforms, and reducing the complexity of your strategies to only focus on the surefire hits.
Your targets are inevitably active on multiple networks.
Of course, there was a reason we used to be “all over the place,” and that was because our targets were there… and over there… and also way over there! So, we willingly accepted the lower ROI strategies and platforms and fought against even the most hostile algorithms for the sake of awareness. Remember, however, that we judge the success of a social network by market penetration and not by market share. Why? Because platforms are not mutually exclusive, and your targets are almost inevitably active on multiple networks. Yes, there will be exceptions, but as I tell my undergrad marketing students, “We don’t worry about the exceptions.”
Your target doesn't need to be reached everywhere they are.
When you’re laying out your plans for the upcoming year, quarter, month, or even week, consider what it would look like to initially reduce focus on anything but your most stellar social strategies, and only on one or two networks. How would doing so shift your time, labor, skill, production, and other operational needs? Use the results of this to begin making the case to deplatform and go all-in with a more focused approach, knowing that your target doesn’t need to be reached everywhere they are, and they’re bound to be in multiple places… so pick just one or two, deactivate the rest, and go for it!
