Social media is much less about being social these days – it’s more about being heard. But how do you raise your voice above the clamour? How do you choose the right social media platform that’ll amplify your message the loudest?

With so many social media platforms out there, it’s hard to know which ones will work best for your company.

From a business perspective, having an online social presence is essential. Of course, social media is a great place to market your product or service, but it’s also an opportunity to gain trust and create diehard fans of your brand who will follow you and your company’s journey.

With this in mind, you need to choose the right platforms carefully so you’re connecting with the right audience. You also need to consider which particular social media assets are going to work with your brand best.

Here are the five important elements and one golden rule for choosing the right social media platform for your company:

1. Audience

Where does your ideal customer spend most of their time and have most of their trust? Work out if they love clicking through from Facebook posts or if they’re more of a Twitter kind of person.

Work this out and you’ve got half the battle won already.

2. Industry

When you’re choosing a social media asset, think about your business and your industry. There’s no point trying to ramp up a super-enthusiastic audience on Pinterest if your product isn’t photogenic or if your workplace doesn’t photograph well.

You can still get visual platforms like Pinterest and Instagram to work – you just have to be more creative.

3. Time

Some social media platforms require more time than others. If you have a very limited amount of time to allocate to social media, look for channels that you can do quickly or can schedule easily.

For example, if you’re time poor, but want to promote more video, Snapchat or Facebook is probably a better option than YouTube or Vimeo.

4. Budget

Work out how much money you can invest. Social media – by its very nature – is free to use. However, to get the reach you’re after, investing money in promoting your content is going to make things happen faster. You’ll also reach a higher ‘quality’ of customer in relation to how interested they are in your product.

There are still plenty of effective social media platforms out there that are free to use, but the big ones like Facebook expect businesses to pay to access their ever-growing list of subscribers.

With Facebook, you can spend as little or as much as you want, but you can narrow down the type of people you can put your posts in front of with incredible accuracy and reach. Here’s a Mashable article discussing whether paying for Facebook ads is worth it.

5. Expertise

Work out what you’re good at. Or if you have a team, what they’re good at. If your expertise is in written content, play to your strengths. If you’re more into photography, look at visually inclined platforms. If it’s video you’re good at, go for video-heavy channels.

And if you’re trying to use a social media platform that you have no experience, interest or talent in, either improve that skillset, hire someone who can do it or choose another platform.

The golden rule

Don’t try to be across all social media platforms. You’ll go mad. Even with a team of people, covering all social assets out there is not only impossible it’s pointless.

Your audience won’t be on every platform, so why should you be. If you’re doing it yourself, you’re better off focusing all of your social media brain energy and time on three platforms at most. Get these working to optimum capacity and you’ll see a much bigger return than trying to manage 10 different platforms.

Also stay up-to-date with the social media platforms you choose. If the channel starts a live element, use it. They’ll set their algorithms to promote the users who are creating with it.

But the most important thing to remember with social media, whether you’re using it for fun or as an amplification and marketing tool for your business, is it’s supposed to be enjoyable for you. If it’s not, your tone will come through and people will sense it.

Be authentic and your message will always resonate louder.