What Social Platform Should You Start With in 2022

One of the biggest mistakes you can make when you are first starting your content creator journey, is taking on too much all at once. There are so much interesting social media platforms, and it is hard to choose where to start - so a lot of times I will see folks trying to run 5+ social media platforms instead of just starting simple and focusing on a couple of platforms they could easily manage. Today, I want to talk to you about the various platforms and which pair well together - so you can be a bit more strategic when making your decision.

Before truly diving in, there are a couple of terms you need to understand, evergreen and timely.

Evergreen content is content that stays fresh and useful, even if it's months or years after publishing. Similar to a forest of evergreen trees, the content keeps growing and gets stronger over time.

Timely content is content that really only lives on a platform temporarily and might be more focused on in-the-moment trends, versus a topic that could be useful later on as well.

These are the two main content types you will see on the various social media platforms. I recommend starting out with one of each. Let’s start by breaking down the different platforms by content type.

Evergreen Platforms:

As mentioned, evergreen content can live on the platform for months and years, and still be relevant. There are a couple of different platforms you can choose from that hold this evergreen content.

➡️ First up, and probably my favorite is YouTube. I am sure we all know what YouTube is, but as a general definition - YouTube is a free video sharing website that makes it easy to watch videos online.

➡️ Next, is a podcast. Podcasts are actually very similar to YouTube, but audio-only. Podcasts are typically hosted by an individual or individuals who lead a conversation, share stories, or report the news.

➡️ Another common evergreen platform is a blog. A blog is a regularly updated website or web page and can either be used for personal use or to fulfill a business need.

Let me share with you why you need to choose one of these evergreen platforms in your current strategy.

Better Discoverability: In general, it’s easy to be discovered on these platforms than it is on a more timely platform. Across all social media, there are really two different ways to be discovered; search and recommendations. Search is pretty straightforward, that is people searching various topics in some sort of search engine and finding your content based on the keywords you used. Recommendations is a little less straightforward. Basically, this means the algorithm gets to know what users interest are and based on that, will serve that person content based on those interests. Now, timely platforms do have their own way of using these discoverability methods, but I truly believe that platforms, like YouTube, come out ahead.

Monetization: The other core reason you should make sure to get on one of these platforms is that they are easy to monetize. Because these platforms are evergreen, that means one piece of content can be providing you an income for years, not just a day or two. Let me explain.

Let’s use a YouTube video as an example.

I actually recently posted a video about why you should start a YouTube channel, so let’s break this specific video down and let me show you how this one video is going to generate me thousands and thousands of dollars.

✅ Since my channel is monetized (which just means you hit the requirement of 1000 subscribers and 4000 watch hours), I was able to sign up for Google Adsense - which just means I have ads placed on my videos. This video specifically blew up on my channel, hitting 47k views in just 7 days, so my ad revenue for this video is already high.

✅ On top of my ad revenue, this video was sponsored by a brand, which means I received an upfront payment for mentioning the brand in my video.

✅ In the description of the video, I also mention my social media agency, Creatorly Media - and during the first 7 days of this video, my client applications skyrocketed and we now have a huge handful of potential clients for my business.

✅ Also in the description, I have linked some of my favorite gear and products, which are affiliate links - and I suspect that my affiliate income with raise due to the success of this video as well.

✅ On top of all of that, there is access to my freebies in my description, which lead folks to be a part of my email list and weekly newsletter - which then advertises more products and services over time.

The point is - this was just in the first 7 days. This video will continue generating more and more views, which will continue providing me additional ad revenue, please the brand - which means they might work with me again on a future video, and continue to be a lead generator for my services, affiliate links, and freebies. The same goes for platforms like podcasts and blogs, once you hit publish - these can live on forever and continue generating results for years to come.

Timely Platforms:

As mentioned, timely content only lives for a short period of time and is usually more focused on timely or trending events There are a couple of different platforms you can choose from that hold this timely content.

➡️ First up, Instagram. At its most basic, Instagram is a social networking app that allows its users to share pictures and videos with their audience.

➡️ Next, is a Twitter. Honestly, Twitter is very similar to Instagram in that it’s a social media site, and its primary purpose is to connect people and allow people to share their thoughts with a big audience. But Twitter is known for the posts to be short snippets of text, versus photos and videos.

➡️ We can’t forget TikTok. TikTok is a social media platform for creating, sharing, and discovering short videos. Some even consider this the short-form version of YouTube, and it has really grown over the last year or two.

➡️ Another platform people tend to forget, but I would definitely lump this in, is Pinterest. Pinterest is a visual discovery engine for finding ideas like recipes, home and style inspiration, and more.

All of these platforms are very similar, but appeal to a different demographic, so that’s something to keep in mind when deciding what platform is the best fit for you and your brand. For example, TikTok, though it attracts people of all ages - per Wallaroomedia - 60% of the users are between the ages of 16-24. Whereas with Instagram (per statistica), Over two-thirds of total Instagram audiences were aged 34 years and younger - 30.5 percent were aged between 25 and 34 years. I will have these articles linked in the show notes, so you can take a look before making your decision.

The benefit of having one of these more timely platforms is the community experience. Let’s take Instagram as an example because this is my timely platform of choice. This platform allows me a more casual way to educate, share information about myself, and be active on a more daily basis through the story feature. This helps build a closer, more active community - that’s building off of my YouTube channel.

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My advice?

Choose one evergreen platform and one timely platform. I think it’s important to choose the evergreen platform that is the best fit for you first, and use this as a way to grow and build your audience. You then select a timely platform that will pair well with your evergreen platform and your audience. My favorite and chosen platform combo are YouTube and Instagram. I post two times per week on YouTube, and then share Reels, graphics and photos throughout the week on my Instagram feed - as well as show up most Mondays-Fridays on my stories, which helps strengthen that community. I also have this Podcast of course, which came after I felt established on those platforms. It’s all about taking it one step at a time. If you have been thinking about starting a YouTube channel, but just feel like you aren’t sure where to start, make sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel, youtube.com/katie - because I am going to be doing more videos about this topic soon!