By: Trisha Fawver

Are you an early adopter, or were you the last of your friends to give up MySpace? Years ago, I fancied myself an early adopter, joining Twitter early in 2007, Facebook in 2008-ish, and a half dozen other social medias that came and went (anyone else remember DailyBooth?). This has jaded me to not wanting to jump on every little “Twitter Killer” social network (where you at, Pownce?) but working in social media buying has also taught me to keep my ear to the ground.

Tried & True vs. New & Exciting?

It can be very hard to stray away from what you know works. We’ve built a robust Direct Response Influencer program on Instagram, while also working on campaigns on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and even Tumblr. It’s easy and comfortable to stick to what we know works and continue to scale that program. But when an app like Tik Tok or Clubhouse pops up in the news more and more, it’s important to look into these new platforms. What makes them different from the existing apps that would draw users? How quickly are they becoming widely adopted? We certainly don’t want to jump on every trendy new network that pops up (thanks but no thanks, Parler) but we can’t limit our efforts to just what works. We’d never grow if we did.

New Networks = New Challenges

Much like real human social interaction, it’s important to understand what actions are universally accepted across all platforms, and what actions are universally reviled. Learning the gray areas and nuances of each platform takes a keen attention to detail. It’s easy to look at an app like Tik Tok and say “Oh, it’s teenagers, direct response advertising won’t work there” and move on. However, I’ve found it important to keep my finger on the pulse and passively monitor as it’s seeming to shift to a broader age range and slowly introduce more features to age-gate content. It’s becoming less of a daunting idea to start testing some campaigns there. We’ve also jumped into Clubhouse, a very interesting audio-only network, and are looking at it through the same lens. With that attention to detail it’s been easy to see how it may not be as challenging to conquer as Tik Tok and formulate ideas.

Cautiously Adventurous

I recommend that other professionals working in Social Media remain cautiously adventurous. Dip your toes into a network as a user, get to know how it works, what kind of content is popular on the platform, and whether you enjoy it as a user or not. This knowledge can help to inform your business planning on whether you think there is a customer base using the app that you can market your products to. Not all platforms are right for all products. Use your best judgement and test small before diving in. What consumers you find – and where they’re lurking on social media – may surprise you!

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