In the world of today you will need to establish a digital footprint. This can include social media, websites, ecommerce platforms and more. Today I start the discussion with a review of social media platforms so you can make educated decisions as to where to invest your time. Hello, my name is Bill Strand and I am the host of the Reptile Entrepreneur Podcast.

This is going to be a two part series where I present to you the top platforms to consider when you are planning your digital footprint. In this first part I am going to do a high level review of the different social media platforms available to you and describe their characteristics and advantages/disadvantages. In the second part I will go over the non-social media alternatives such as website, link aggregators, and ecommerce platforms. Although I wouldn’t ever recommend this approach, you could have an entire profitable business without touching social media. Of course, it would be ten times more successful with social media so doing without would be a special challenge I will have with my top listeners one year. It will not be part of my advice to you! Sorry, it is time to get social. You don’t have to dance to the latest tunes, but we need to get you out there in a way that is comfortable to you! So, let’s start this and review social media platforms.

What is your goal?

To begin, it helps if you have a goal as to what you are trying to accomplish. Though most people just start something without thinking and, before they know it, it grows into something that can be converted into a business. In that case, some decisions were made before you knew you were making decisions! But, for today, let’s assume you are coming at this green and let’s start at ground zero. The clearer you are about what you want to get out of the social media outreach the easier it will be to create a portfolio that aligns with your goals. For example, are you doing a marketing outreach, building a community, or building a following? They may use the same tools but each goal will have a different strategy. I know that is slightly cryptic so we’ll go over each one of them. Of course, depending on your purpose, you could have a blend of these, but I will present the purest forms of these three and you decide how you would like to blend the strategies. You will notice these three have very strong components of education, exposure, and engagement.

Marketing Outreach.

If you are a business then you are looking for a marketing outreach whose main purpose is to present your product. This will, of course, include brand marketing and content marketing, but the main purpose is to present your company and product. You will favor platforms that allow you to educate and allow communication with customers. You will select the platforms that showcase your product the best.

Building a Community.

If you have a passion for a rare or relatively unknown species and you are trying to build awareness and a community then you will want to create platforms that encourage people to get excited about this species. You will have education content and the forum platforms will be especially useful because they will encourage other people to take leadership roles.

Building a Following.

If you are wanting to be an educator or influencer in the community then you will select platforms which will give you a “stage from which to present your content. A robust messaging system needs to be in place to allow you to establish relationships with your followers.

Social Media Tools

So what are your tools in all of this? There are a myriad of social media platforms for you to choose from. I will list the top platforms for the US speaking market as that is what I am familiar with. The Chinese social media list is extensive in its own right so I am sure you will be able to find parallels.

The main danger of using social media as a digital homebase is that you don’t own the platform. Terms and conditions and change at any time. Neither your account nor your followers are your property and so can legally disappear without recourse at any time no matter how hard you worked to build it up. You cannot not be on social media, but diversify your digital footprint.

The social media platforms differ in what their main media is. Whether forum style conversation, images, or video. Now, this distinction is getting more and more hazy as the social media platforms are migrating further from their original unique nature and trying to be all things to all people. Presently, we are seeing our older, mature platforms running out of ideas and simply copying from the newer platforms. So, although there is still a noticeable difference, there is a homogenizing going on so the distinctions will get less defined. But here are your main social media platforms listed in order of size according to Statistica. I am not including messaging apps. Although they can be tools you use, their use is a little more complicated and best left to a later discussion.

Before we jump into these I want to reiterate the inherent lure and danger of social media platforms for marketing and to base your businesses digital footprint. On one hand, a huge benefit is that it is free access to 100’s of millions of customers. So…..kind of hard to ignore that. So the danger is less of a reason not to do it and more of a caution to prepare contingency plans for. The main danger of using social media as a digital homebase is that you don’t own the platform. Terms and conditions and change at any time. Neither your account nor your followers are your property and so can legally disappear without recourse at any time no matter how hard you worked to build it up. You cannot not be on social media, but diversify your digital footprint.

In addition, although our niche reptile community is knocking on the mainstream door, we aren’t there yet. And there are people out there that do not like our industry. Their mission in life is to end pet keeping. And they are well funded. I heard that PETA bought Facebook stock. So you can see that all it takes is congress to pull Mark Zuckerberg for a stone age conversation again and suddenly pages that have pets on them are shut down. He’d sacrifice our small community to avoid having to listen to PETA shareholders or politicians who are still figuring out dial up. I do not know the inner workings and only hear of the politics on the surface so I cannot tell you how the wind is blowing right now. I am just saying that social media is a fierce battle ground for special interest groups.  So, absolutely have a strong social media outreach, but also listen to the next episode that talks about internet outreaches that are much safer from board room decisions. Be smart about the diversification of your efforts. Do not over extend yourself, but, also, do not trap yourself and wake up to a nasty surprise sometime in the future of your business suddenly disappearing. Okay, let’s talk about the major players.

Facebook

The largest social media platform is Facebook with 2.85 billion users. It started in 2004 and rose steadily to eat up and leave its MySpace and Friendster competitors in the dust. It is a forum style platform which allows you to create pages or groups where people can follow and interact. The distinction between pages and groups is becoming blurry, but the basic idea is that a page represents a person or and business and a group is for a discussion topic. For example. If you want to create a digital front for your blue tree monitor breeding business you would start a Page. If you wanted to create a community where blue tree monitor enthusiasts could congregate, help beginners along, and help the community grow you would create a group.  Facebook is a mature platform that is geared towards business. Their business model was to offer their service for free and, in exchange for the free candy, they tracked everything you did online to create a digital marketing profile of you so they could offer targeted advertising. That is how they make their money. Facebook tends to be less than forthcoming in how they conduct business so they have had numerous trust issues over the years. It is almost as if they are farming all the people who are using their free service for their own gain. I will leave the parallels to donkey island from Pinocchio to you. I, myself, I actually like targeted advertising and I disgusted my daughter when I confessed that I used it like a search engine because I was lazy. I just search for some product and wait for the ads to come to me. So, yes, I know I will see ads anyways. May as well be things I want to see! I always wonder how things would be different if Facebook advertised that as a feature instead of hid the fact that they were snooping behind our backs. But we will never know.

Facebook is best used for starting a community group as it allows any group member control the narrative. What I mean by this is that you have a team of admins and moderators controlling the page, but anyone can post on equal terms. This is good to develop community because the group doesn’t appear to belong to any one person. It is a double edged sword, as most things are, because there is a constant power struggle between the administrators trying to keep order with a set of community engagement rules and the roving bands of experts wanting to come in and take leadership of the nicely packaged crowd of eyes.

Facebook’s strength is that it has the ability to create a storefront, provide customers, and has robust advertising tools. You literally could live and work within the Facebook app. There are so many reasons why just the thought of that sends up serious warning flags. But, the point is, that it is possible.

One huge downside to Facebook is that it is very poor if you are a start up business trying to get exposure just because you are awesome. Organic reach in Facebook is minimal. And, definition time…organic reach is where you can make a post and people can find it because they are interested in that topic. Facebook has gotten so huge that there is no way they can show the posts of all the people you follow so they make decisions as to which ten of 5000 posts from this morning you will see. You can have a page with 4 000 followers and your posts will be seen by 5.  So if you have a start up business your chances are not good. You just have to be patient and constantly show up to post and interact. That is unless you pay. You can pay to be moved to the front of the list. And, that is what we called “paid reach”. So, if you are wanting to do paid advertising then Facebook is excellent because you have a deep set of targeting tools to control what accounts will see your marketing. Keep in mind the demographic as well. 61% of Facebook accounts are in the 18-44 age so you are starting to tap into an older demographic. The fact is that Facebook isn’t that great at innovating new features. They prefer to wait until someone else like TikTok hits a homerun and then they copy the feature. But this doesn’t work so well to bring in those younger audiences because the younger audiences are already enjoying that feature on the other apps that made them successful. And your typical middle age parent doesn’t really know what to do with short video format. So, while Facebook is the huge gorilla in the social media world, it is watching other young bucks quickly growing and the writing is, as they say, on the wall. Though you do have plenty of time to make use of it if Facebook is your cup of tea. It has tremendous momentum and even people who are vocally sick of how things are at Facebook cannot leave. Facebook has the gravity of everyone you know being there. You can’t just pick that up and go somewhere else. One are they have invested in is a business suite of tools which allow you a powerful dashboard to control your activity across Facebook and Instagram. I have made extensive use of this feature.

But, I must add that there is a dark side. Well, darker side. (I am not sure we ever made it into too much light.) Facebook has an unnatural obsession with blocking the sale of animals on its platform. So much so that all it takes to get your account removed without warning in the middle of the night is for one of their bots or some self-righteous animal rights nut to come across a post you did three years ago mentioning the sale of a snake and your page is removed without warning and you must plead your case to get it back. This is so bad that even having a price for something completely within their terms of service (such as a cage) can trigger the shoot first, don’t bother asking questions later or ever response…leaving it up to you to find the right people to prove your innocence.  If you love Facebook then have at it. If you have a choice then I would encourage you to look elsewhere to invest time and resources. At the very least, have another platform that you keep alive and healthy in case the Facebook one suddenly finds itself sleeping with the fishes. Facebook has very active pockets of people, but takes random shots at us in the animal world.

YouTube

YouTube is the next largest social media platform with 2.29 billion users. YouTube is a little different than the other social media entries because it is also the world’s second largest search tool. This means that you have 70% of every age category going to YouTube when they want to be entertained or when they have a question. It doesn’t hurt that, after 1000 subscribers and 4000 watch hours you can monetize your account and earn advertising revenue. So, YouTube is almost a requirement to anyone that I advise. In fact, my question to them is not whether they want to do YouTube, but what ideas they have for their YouTube channel.  It is the ultimate education platform with people searching for your content as well as organic reach.

YouTube got its fame with long form video. That is video that is longer than one minute. TikTok, which we will get to soon, captured the imagination of the younger demographic with videos under 60 seconds long which are called short form video. Just like Facebook, YouTube is concerned about the rise of TikTok and has taken to copying the successful features.

Huge plusses are that YouTube has ad revenue share so you can make non-trivial amounts of money. If you are good then you can make a living as a YouTuber.

It is also owned by Google who has not shown the same kind of censoring towards the reptile world that Facebook has.

On the con side, there is no private messaging function so your only interaction with your fan base is on the public comments section. This really cuts down on the depth of interaction you can have with your subscribers. So, I always recommend a YouTube channel in conjunction with another platform that has robust messaging tools such as Instagram, ahem, Facebook, or TikTok. But YouTube is the undisputed top choice for producing how-to or educational content. And getting yourself on camera is the #1 way to build those intimate relationships. I am sorry for you camera shy people. That is just the way humans work.

Instagram

Instagram comes in next at 1.38 billion people. 61% of their account are in the 18 to 34 age range which is smack dab in the digital age eyes out there. Instagram is a strange beast. It was purchased by Facebook so expect all the ills of Facebook to eventually make their way over. But I say that only so you are prepared if it happens. And I am talking about abysmal organic reach, draconian approach to animal accounts and a very thin veil that all of this spectacle is merely a cover story for them sucking your personal data and shopping habits from you. So, keep in mind it could happen, but be encouraged that Instagram has stayed strangely away from that drama. It is also being heavily invested in and new features are coming out all the time. Literally every month something new is rolled out. Much of it is copying TikTok, but there is actually some things they come up with. But the point is that the engineers are at work developing the platform so that is a sign that there are future plans. In fact, many of the new features Facebook has rolled out is to integrate it closer to Instagram. Note, I didn’t say to integrate Instagram closer to Facebook. I am getting the feeling there is a distinct future for Instagram. Wither for good or ill I cannot say. There is much going on behind the scenes at Facebook that requires maneuvering beyond the understanding of those of us far away from the bright center of the FB universe.

Instagram started life as a photo sharing app and has started a transition to being a multimedia sharing app with  strong emphasis on video. The president of Instagram Alan Mosseri shared that user statistics showed that we spend most of our time on video content so they are responding to what we are showing we like.

As far as features, I would say that Instagram is the best combination of everything out there. Yes, a number of the features were copies, but they were done well and they have been received well by the Instagram community. It is kind of strange getting a new feature just to keep up with TikTok. And let me take a break and explain why that is haphazard.

When you copy a feature from a competitor it always is a mixed bag. Sure it was popular over there on Tiktok, but you have  a different audience on Instagram. Yes, I know there is a huge overlap. And this is obvious because the Reels feature, which is a copy of TikToks short form video,  is filled with TikTok branded videos. Yeah, that kind of stings when you get your competitor’s content hand-me-downs. But when you copy a competitor’s features, in whatever industry you are in, you are now adding a piece to your offering that does not align with your vision for where you want to go. It is an odd piece that you will now have to devote resources to support and distracts you from your vision. Of course, the biggest tragedy is if you are copying because you don’t have a vision and have no idea where you want to go. I do not know what the conversations at Instagram are.

On Instagram you have prominent still image feed, video feed, and private messaging capability. Perhaps one of the best features is that there is a strong organic reach so through hashtags and keywords you are helping the Instagram algorithm place your posts and it is possible for a small account to get a piece of this. There are moves to make Instagram a strong search engine which raises a number of powerful future scenarios for Instagram as a marketing platform. That is what it is now, but it looks like there are features coming to strengthen that. So, I am strong on Instagram. Yes, I am nervous about them being owned by Facebook. I know it could all go downhill quickly so I am not putting everything in the Instagram basket, but with the characteristics and features available I am going to put a high score on Instagram as a platform to invest your time and resources.

TikTok

Oh, I know a lot of silicon valley executives wish there wasn’t the next entry. TikTok exploded onto the scene and it now has 1 billion users. While this is still much less than half of what FaceBook boasts, TikTok has achieved this in five years and the growth rate is significant. It is obvious that TikTok is a runaway train right now.

TikTok is most famous for their short form video where TikTokers dance and make entertaining video that are easy to consume and addictive. Download the TikTok app and watch entire sections of your day disappear.

Presently, the largest demographic is the 16-24 year olds. So this is the next generation social media right here and this is why the older platforms are trying to copy Tiktok. They know they need young blood or they are dying. Another interesting statistic is that TikTok accounts are 61% female.  So, three thoughts on TikTok.

• If you are an educator this is the #1 place to be if you want to change the reptile community five to ten years from now.
• Making content for TikTok is intimidating for many people who didn’t grow up making video content. I mean, we know how to take still images of our lunch or Starbucks drink and we are pretty salty that that talent is not still appreciated. The older formats still have years of life in them. Just know that this is the new frontier.
• TikTok, like every platform starts off with one defining feature. It then morphs into something more profitable which means business friendly. This is the point where it can be ruined, but I think TikTok has learned from other’s mistakes and wins and is trying out revenue share and financial incentive programs for creators so it is obvious that they are making sure the heart and soul of TikTok stays where it is. So, although I have only a shadow of a presence on TikTok, I am thinking it will do some morphing and become a place that will more align with my personal style. I will be far behind the curve because I wasn’t part of the big growth explosion, but, as is all things, you make your choices as to where to apply the limited resources that you have. So, whether you bop to the TikTok groove or not, keep an eye out on it. Right now, it takes a special kind of person to capture the surf on TikTok. If that is you, you are probably already on it. If you are not on it then I suggest keeping tabs on our new social media friend and see how the posting trends change and what tools become available to you. I strongly suspect that there will be some morphing of the product that will be in a positive direction for reptile educators or maybe even a storefront. I, personally, have that account, as I said, and I practiced some videos. You have to be careful doing this because I started getting responses and wasn’t finding them until later. Remember, any social media territory you establish requires maintenance, time, and resources to manage. But I am watching TikTok carefully and am waiting for the specific changes that suggest to me that a stronger marketing approach is being implemented.

Honorable mention: Pinterest, Reddit, Twitter, Linkedin

There is an honorable mention for Pinterest, Reddit, Twitter, and Linkedin.

Pinterest

Pinterest is a very interesting service which is mainly visual and has the distinction of being 71% female with the main age group being females between 30 and 64. While an active user base of 478 million seems paltry compare to the billions discussed above, it is way more than enough to keep your business busy selling product. So don’t worry so much about the overall user number. The real question is where are your customers? I know of a man who has his entire business on Pinterest. He just liked the Pinterest platform and used the tools to their full potential. And he was successful to the point where that became his full time income.

Reddit

Reddit is a forum format like Facebook. It sits at 430 million active users and just won’t stop its slow growth trend. So it isn’t in the lime light, but it is still a respectable social media outreach.

Twitter

Twitter is at 397 million and is designed to be short sentences tweeted out to your followers. I never liked this platform, but it just keeps staying alive! If your audience and customer base is already there then that is where you must go.

Linkedin

My one last mention is Linkedin. This is a pretty sizeable platform with 740 million active users. Here you will find people interested in business and industry. What was originally meant to be a simple online resume and way to connect with people you knew professionally, has become a professional social media.

For me personally, this is one of the most insufferable platforms. If you thought the ego bluster was thick and annoying with so many people trying to be an expert on Facebook, imagine what it is like when the people are feeling like their career is on the line based on how knowledgeable they appear. So there is a great deal of sculpting responses to make it seem like you are giving a thoughtful response, but you are really trying to show off how much you know. It is the #1 business related social media. If your target audience is business people then that is where you need to go!

How to Choose

So, with all of three options, how do you choose? The bottom line is that you need to pick the platform where your customers are. If you are selling to teenagers then it is time to bounce in front of the camera to the latest trendy song clip while lip synching on TikTok. If you are wanting to reach middle aged men about a profession then go to Linkedin.

Each social media platform has its unique blend of characteristics. But social media is about relationships. The best choice for a social media platform for you is, hands down, the one you enjoy and will be consistent with. You will fail if you do not establish trust and to do that your followers need to be able to count on you to show up. Or, in this fast moving world  of endless digital content, they will move on without even knowing you were or weren’t there.

Each social media platform has its unique blend of characteristics. But social media is about relationships. The best choice for a social media platform for you is, hands down, the one you enjoy and will be consistent with.

Now, I’ll present myself as a test study. This Reptile Entrepreneur is active on Instagram and Youtube and has an outpost on Facebook. Obviously, I have a podcast and website as well, but that is next episode! I chose Instagram as the main hub because the platform gives me the ability to use organic reach to bring in interested parties. Bringing in new ears is a challenge for the Reptile Entrepreneur because there aren’t established keywords that people are searching for. There is really no precedent to do a search on an image based app for help putting together a business. So I need to use hashtags and keywords that would be what my ideal subscriber would be searching for – even if it wasn’t me! The podcast has gotten a very good response if we are to judge by the emails I get. Instagram allows me to have private conversations and Live sessions with followers so that fits in well with my future growth plans. The youTube channel is because I want to be able to put my podcast episodes on with a video component so my listeners get a visual of who we are. I am also in the process of creating tutorials and youtube is the only place people are looking for exactly that.

So, that is my social media reasoning. It has worked very well so far. My strength is in podcasting. I struggle with video. Know your strengths and use them to their full potential. But don’t close yourself off to developing new skills which, when used together, make you even more successful. So I double down where I am strong and build my skills where I am weaker. This isn’t a game to ever stay still.

Know your strengths and use them to their full potential. But don’t close yourself off to developing new skills which, when used together, make you even more successful. So I double down where I am strong and build my skills where I am weaker. This isn’t a game to ever stay still.

If you have any questions about this or the platforms then take a look at the Reptile_entrpreneur account on Instagram as that is where I do my audience interaction. Or else you can send me an email to bill@reptileentrepreneur.com.

Okay, that was the first episode designed to introduce you to the lay of the land with social media. You are welcome to reserve your name on all the different social media platforms you can find. In my early years that was meant to lock in your account name whether you used it or not. I will pass on this tactic. I had no problems so I can’t say whether the advice was unneeded or if the advice averted a disaster. So, it is up to you!

Thank you for joining me here. This episode is actually loosely part of a series where I am talking about what it takes to become a reptile educator. And this episode on social media is part of the tactics training. If you are interested in the strategy then you may be interested in season 6 episode 21 of the Chameleon Academy Podcast. And with that I will close off. This is Bill Strand, and I will see you next time.