Brands and marketers need to shift their focus from being social network specific to creating campaigns that target their audience no matter what platform they are on. The idea of doing something because everyone else is doing it means that you're following the pack and not clearly on your own path to success. It's unlikely you're following your own strategy and trying to compensate by copying the actions of your competitions. Mark Tawin would call this 'red ocean strategy' . It's important to carve your own stream and create your own sand castle (with solid foundation). Instead of focusing on a particular network, look where your audience is and that may not necessarily be where you think they are. The internet is innately social. I think a more accurate definition of social media is anywhere where there is two way dialogue between people. By this I mean that even blogs and forums come into the mix. It's about finding where your people are and and also where they are going. Every customer group is involved in trends, at a micro and macro level - discover these. Go out there are and finding YOUR customers and then engaging with them in a meaningful and memorable way. I highlight 'your' because just because a customer group i.e. within a Facebook group talk about an industry's products, does not mean that they fit your ideal customer criteria. Keep this in mind.
However, we're at a point in time when there are so many social networks. Yes, there may be the 'big 4' (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram) however there are many different platforms out there and more launching all the time. The social landscape has become scattered and for brands to create a following in each channel becomes time and financially costly. Brands are now having to generate and pay to promote fresh content (and fans expect it, putting the pressure on them to be creative). The pressure is coming from 1) social networks, for instance Facebook who has changed their algorithm to preference new content and 2) fans who now have a plethora of stories from friends, news sites and social media stars who are raising the bar. Speaking of costs, I'm not purely talking about the cost to advertise on these networks necessarily, I mean to include the cost to 'play' including resources (time, effort and other intangibles) devoted to the effort. There is always opportunity cost. Adding to this, each social networks has its day when it is super 'cool', gains enormous traction only to then petter out later on when fans aren't as engaged or even jump ship. For example, while Vine is still popular, we're seeing that vine stars such as Logan Paul and Jarred Jared moving onto other social networks namely Snapchat and taking their following claiming that "It’s clear that Vine is sort of plateauing". This brings up the issue of growing a social media community located on a platform that you don't own instead of building communities around own assets such as websites, apps etc. but let's leave this for now. A takeaway is to find the social network that fits your brand and your customers, taking into account where your customers are heading.
Fortunately for brands, they can also reach their audience through influencers who are bridging the gap between the brands who want to reach millennials. Influencers are those people with a large social media following and typically have between 5,000 to millions of fans (real fans, not fake! make sure you've done your research). While influencer marketing has been around a while now, brands seem to be a little hesitant to give over control to these social celebrities. I think influencers are part of the solution for brands, allowing them to deliver branded content to consumers through people those consumers trust. Especially if that content is delivered by influencers who actually like the company (hint, hint). You can definitely tell when it seems inauthentic so do your research to make sure there is brand/customer/influencer alignment. If there is no alignment it would be like Jillian Michaels promoting butter. Go to it!