• I was having a conversation with a trusted mentor yesterday about whether or not I should be more active on LinkedIn. The  audience I want to attract is women entrepreneurs who are building main street businesses (vs. businesses funded by venture capital). So the real question I needed to answer was, “Are those women business owners on LinkedIn?”. Because if they’re not, then I can cross that channel off my to do list.

This kind of thing can be a scary leap if you’re not clear on who you want your customer to be. And even scarier if you think your customer is everyone (trust me, your customer is NOT everyone). And there’s a ton of conflicting advice out there. (By the way, if you feel like you’re in that boat, you might enjoy my post on managing advisor whiplash). But to get to an answer about which social channels you need to be on, the first question isn’t which channel. The first question is whether or not the people that buy your product or service — or that you want to buy your product or service — are on that channel.

So how do you know whether or not your customers or potential customers on Facebook, Instagram, Threads, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Quora, Reddit, Snapchat, TikTok, Mastodon, YouTube, etc?

Ask them.

No, I’m being serious. Ask them.

• Are you on social media?
• Which channels?
• What are you usually trying to accomplish when you’re on that channel?

When I talked to some of my customers I found out most of them weren’t very active on LinkedIn. Actually I discovered many of them hadn’t updated their profiles in years (if they even had one!).  Why? Because they started their own business and they weren’t looking for a job. The few that were on the platform were usually there because that’s where their clients hang out.

So I made the strategic decision that I don’t need to worry about regularly posting on LinkedIn, and I’m not going to focus my energy there.

Some of you may have seen my last post mentioning that I joined Threads. Do I think I’m going to start including them as part of my strategy? I think it depends on whether or not the people who take my classes start adopting it. So far, most of them have said they aren’t interested in adding another channel to their worlds. So for now, I’m checking it every now and then, but I’m definitely not creating content for it.

Pro Tip: If you are a solopreneur or just starting out, pick one or two channels where your customers are and focus on creating content for those. And remember, there’s a lot more to marketing your products and services and building your brand than social media. Way more.