When a Platform Stops Making Sense
Recently, we made the decision to deactivate EXPMG’s TikTok account.
It wasn’t because TikTok wasn’t getting views or because we don’t think businesses belong there. TikTok is a great tool for reaching new people, and we had seen firsthand how quickly content could find an audience there. The bigger question for us was whether we were reaching the people we actually wanted to reach.
We were putting a lot of time into creating content specifically for the platform, but the traffic we generated wasn’t translating into new clients or meaningful interest in our services. Eventually, we had to ask ourselves why we were spending so much time trying to make a platform work just because we felt like we should be there.
If it feels like you’ve been “feeding the machine” without seeing much come from it, it may be worth taking another look at whether that platform is really the best place for your time and effort.
Attention Isn't Always the Right Attention
It’s easy to look at views and reach as signs that your social media is working. Seeing a video take off feels good, especially when it introduces your business to hundreds or thousands of people who may have never heard of you before.
But those numbers don’t tell you much about who is watching.
For EXPMG, reaching a large audience wasn’t as valuable if that audience wasn’t interested in the services we provide or connected to the businesses and communities we work with. We weren’t necessarily struggling to reach people. We were struggling to reach the people who mattered to our business.
That doesn’t make the reach worthless, but it does change how valuable it is when you’re deciding where to spend your time. A business with a product that can be purchased and shipped anywhere may have a completely different experience with TikTok. EXPMG primarily works with businesses and organizations in the Kentucky Lake region, so reaching 10,000 people doesn’t mean as much if very few of them are potential clients.
That was something we had to consider beyond the numbers. If the goal of our social media is to introduce people to EXPMG, show them what we do, and eventually create new business relationships, we need to spend our time on platforms where those relationships are more likely to begin.
Knowing When to Step Away
The other part of our decision had less to do with analytics and more to do with the content itself.
TikTok rewards consistency, and building an audience there takes time. As we tried to maintain that consistency, creating content for the platform gradually became another task on our list rather than a natural way to keep people updated on what was happening at EXPMG.
We experimented with skits and other content that made sense for TikTok, but it didn’t always feel like the best representation of our business. We want our social media to be as authentic and transparent as possible, giving people a look at the projects we’re working on, the lessons we’re learning, and our involvement in the communities we serve. Trying to turn those things into content specifically designed for TikTok sometimes meant we were spending more time figuring out how to fit the platform than communicating what we actually wanted to say.
There’s nothing wrong with skits, trends, or other short-form content if they make sense for your business. Plenty of brands have built strong audiences with them. For us, they didn’t feel like the most natural way to communicate, and the time it took to keep producing them wasn’t resulting in enough value to justify continuing.
That realization helped us look at our other platforms differently. Instead of asking how we could keep up everywhere, we started thinking more about where our time would be better spent.
Go Where The Audience Is
For EXPMG, one of those places is LinkedIn.
We’ve decided to start posting there more regularly because the people using LinkedIn are much more closely related to the people we’re trying to reach. Young professionals, business owners, community leaders, and students preparing to enter the workforce are all audiences we want to build stronger connections with, particularly here in the Kentucky Lake region.
The content we want to share also fits naturally there. We can talk about projects we’ve completed, share what we’ve learned while working with clients, highlight our involvement in the region, publish articles like this one, and give people a better understanding of the work that happens inside EXPMG. We don’t have to create an entirely different version of ourselves to participate.
For us, that’s a much better use of the time we were spending trying to maintain TikTok. We’re not stepping away from social media or deciding that short-form video doesn’t matter. We’re putting more of our effort into a platform where the audience and the way we naturally communicate make more sense for our business.
Focus Where You Fit
The takeaway from our decision isn’t that your business should delete TikTok and start posting on LinkedIn. Depending on what you sell and who you’re trying to reach, TikTok could be one of the most valuable platforms you have. LinkedIn could be completely irrelevant.
What matters is understanding why you’re there in the first place.
It’s worth looking beyond which platforms are popular and considering what you’re getting back from the time you spend on them. Are you reaching people who could realistically become customers? Does the content you’re creating feel like a good representation of your business? Can you maintain it without taking time away from the platforms and marketing efforts that are producing better results?
Social media accounts may be free to create, but maintaining them isn’t. Every video, caption, photo, and hour spent planning content requires time that could have gone somewhere else. For us, deactivating TikTok meant we could take some of that time and put it toward LinkedIn, where we have a better opportunity to connect with the people we want EXPMG to reach.
Sometimes a good social media strategy isn’t about figuring out what else you need to add. It’s about paying attention to what’s already working, recognizing what isn’t, and being willing to put your time where it makes the most sense for your business.
Not sure what’s working or even where to start? EXPMG offers social media management services to help you find the right platforms, reach the right audience, and make better use of the time you’re putting into social media.
