I’ve done a lot of thinking about digital platforms, where my audience is, and how I reach people with content and messages. One thing for certain is that things that happened in 2022 brought a lot of upheaval to social platforms and this is continuing. The answer to this question is not easy and, sorry to break the news, it’s not going to get any easier.

In my job and career, I work with developer communities and this roller coaster of social platforms keeps us advocates and marketers on our toes! We have to stay nimble on where we post content. As we make decisions on platforms, where our targeted audience is getting their information has to be the primary consideration. This is Marketing 101.

There are social posting tools (think Buffer and Hootsuite) that facilitate cross-posting on multiple platforms all at once. You don’t have to be an organization or pay to use these tools. There are free versions of many of these tools that will do the basics for you.

We also need to look at the performance of our posts on our chosen platforms. Are our posts getting eyes and being read? Is our audience engaging positively with our content? Are they reposting our content because they find it helpful and they want to share it with their community? Data is good!

There are many analytics applications from either the platform you are posting or from the social media tool you are using to post that give you metrics such as impressions and engagement rate. On some platforms, if you have a business or organization account, you get more metrics such as audience demographics by things such as job function, industry, and location. Check your analytics periodically and look at trends to see if the audience seeing your posts is the audience you are targeting.