Why Creators Should Diversify Their Social Media Presence

From Meta’s new Threads app to TikTok’s sister app, Lemon8, it seems like a new social media platform launches all the time. 

Creating content can be a full-time job, and for Creators who are teams of one, there simply aren’t enough hours in the day to have a presence on every social media platform. Yet being a Creator means staying on top of social media trends and joining the newest, hottest platforms. 

The truth is that you don’t need to post on every social media platform, but there are some real benefits to diversifying your social media presence. With the right strategy and mindset, you can make your content work harder across platforms to reap these benefits.

The benefits: Why Creators Should Diversify

Diversifying your social media presence is a strategic move for Creators looking to expand their audience, reduce risk, unleash their creativity, and unlock a world of new opportunities for monetization. 

By wisely navigating the multi-platform landscape, Creators can establish a robust and resilient digital footprint that helps them grow their audience and career. 

Here are four reasons why platform diversification is crucial.

1. It’s a safeguard.

Relying solely on one platform can be risky. 

Tomisin Smith, a social media manager and founder of social media agency, 26 Digital, believes diversification is a smart method of risk mitigation. “I firmly believe in the principle of not placing all your eggs in one basket,” she says. “Diversifying your presence across different platforms…safeguards you against potential platform issues or declining performance.”

Algorithm changes, policy updates, or technical glitches can lead to sudden drops in visibility and engagement. Diversification can help protect you against these unforeseen challenges. If one platform experiences a downturn, Creators can rely on others to maintain their presence and continue building their brand.

2. You’ll reach a wider and more diverse audience.

One of the most compelling reasons to diversify is the opportunity to reach a more diverse and extensive audience, as different social media platforms attract distinct demographics and user bases. For example, a Facebook audience may be older and more primed for shopping great deals, while an audience on TikTok might be younger and more interested in the hottest trends. 

By spreading your content across various platforms, you can tap into these diverse audiences, ensuring that their message resonates with people of various age groups, interests, and backgrounds. Thus, “diversification ensures that you cast a wider net and expose your content to a broader audience as a Creator,” suggests Smith.

Additionally, diversification might help users who follow you on multiple platforms actually see your content. “Even if the same individual follows you on Instagram or another platform, they may not always see your content due to algorithmic changes,” Smith explains.

3. It lets you experiment with different mediums and content formats.

Each platform encourages different types of content, from short-form videos on TikTok to long-form articles on Medium. 

Trying out different platforms and content formats can help you discover new creative avenues. Maybe you’ve always posted static imagery, but you try out TikTok and realize you love posting short-form videos, and your audience loves it too! Or, you start filming funny skits for TikTok and realize you’ve actually tapped into a comedy niche and discovered a new way to engage with your audience. 

Remember—creating content is a job, and there’s strategy involved, but it’s also a creative endeavor. Experimentation and imagination can help keep those creative juices flowing.

4. It provides more opportunities for monetization.

This benefit is pretty simple, but nonetheless powerful; if you have a presence on multiple platforms, that gives you multiple venues to make money. 

Creators can leverage their presence on multiple platforms to negotiate partnerships and collaborations with brands. According to Smith, “diversification grants you the flexibility to pitch not just one platform but two or even three, depending on your efforts to cultivate and diversify your audience.” 

And brands value Creators who can offer exposure on various platforms, as this “translates into a more extensive reach for brands that choose to collaborate with you on multiple platforms,” says Smith. Essentially, the additional platforms and wider audience reach increases the brand’s potential reach and impact, leading to more lucrative sponsorship opportunities.

More platforms means more reach and more ways to amp up your brand partnership packages, which means more money.

The Strategy: How To Optimize your cross-platform content

Are you convinced about the benefits of platform diversification, but not sure where to get started?

With the right strategies, you can seamlessly create content for multiple platforms and deliver relevant, engaging, and platform-specific content for each unique audience. 

Here are four strategies to make your cross-platform content efforts more organized and efficient.

1. Use a hub-and-spoke content model.

Here’s the secret to diversifying your platform strategy: you don’t need to create individual, unique pieces of content for each platform. Instead, it’s about building a content strategy and creating concepts that can work across platforms.

To do this, you can use a hub-and-spoke content model, where you start with one idea, and build branches off of it. “Start with a solid piece of content, like a blog post or a video, as the core. Then, break it down into smaller pieces that make sense for each platform,” recommends Smith. 

For example, you might start with a blog post about your favorite seasonal trends. Then, you can create imagery that goes inside the blog post that you can post to Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest. But, “make sure to adapt headlines, descriptions, and captions to fit each platform,” Smith says.

2. Repurpose, repost, and repeat!

Don’t be afraid to repurpose the same content across multiple platforms. Record a short-form video that’s taking off on TikTok? You can repost it to Instagram Reels, Facebook Reels, and YouTube shorts, “you simply need to fine-tune the tone, design, and perhaps video editing to suit different platforms,” Smith recommends. 

If this feels repetitive to you, Smith has some advice: “Some people hesitate to repurpose because they fear it’s repetitive, but it’s essential to remember that most content is forgotten within days, especially short videos and write-ups.”

Another smart strategy is to repost content that’s performed well in the past. If your video about your favorite easy, healthy weekday recipe has gone viral, you can post it again in due time. Smith recommends Creators wait around three to six months to repost content. As long as that video remains relevant and properly formatted, you can post it every three to six months for as long as you want. Over time, this will help you collect a bank of reusable, evergreen content, which means you’ll always have something to post on all your platforms.

3. Tailor your strategy to each platform.

Each social media platform has its own unique algorithm and audience. If you’re going to leverage the same piece of content across multiple platforms, ensure you have a differentiated strategy that optimizes that content for each platform. 

Make sure you become familiar with the best practices for each platform, engage with your audience on each platform, and adapt your tone, caption, and content to match the expectations and trends of each platform.

The mindset: how to stay focused to avoid overwhelm

The potential downside to posting on so many social media platforms is that it can be overwhelming. Creating content, social media management, and staying on top of each platform’s algorithm changes is time-consuming. 

But remember: you don’t have to do everything. In fact, you can create a process that leverages your strengths, minimizes overwhelm, and focuses on the big priorities. Here are three ways to maintain your focus and prioritize.

1. Use productivity tools to help you keep organized.

Managing content across multiple platforms can become overwhelming without the right tools. Task managers, content calendars, and AI can all be helpful aids for simplifying this process. 

Smith likes to use tools like Later and Facebook Creator Studio to simplify her content creation process. Additionally, she believes that “crafting a content calendar also helps you stay organized and maintain consistency. I’ve developed a helpful one on Notion, which is perfect for Creators.”

With the rise of AI, there are more tools than ever to help you ideate concepts, streamline content creation, edit images and videos for each platform, and write social media captions. 

2. Evaluate your bandwidth and resources.

One of the main ways to avoid content creation overwhelm is taking an honest look at your available time, energy, and resources. 

“In the Creator industry, burnout and content overwhelm stem from the desire to be everywhere, leading to exhaustion,” says Smith. So rather than trying to be everywhere at once, you should determine what a sustainable workload looks like, and prioritize efforts that make the most impact.

Maybe you don’t have the bandwidth to create and edit both long-form and short-form video, so you need to pick one. Or, you find writing social media captions time-consuming and overwhelming, so you look into AI tools or online services that can help you with this particular task. “In instances where you are honest with yourself about your capacity and recognize that taking on a new platform isn’t feasible, it’s perfectly acceptable to pause or delegate,” says Smith. Recognizing your limitations is essential to prevent burnout. 

3. Don’t force yourself to be on every platform.

We gave you a lot of reasons why posting on multiple platforms is a smart strategy. But we know it’s unrealistic for you to post on every single platform, unless you have a team of people to support you.

Some platforms just might not be the right fit for you. “If your audience isn’t present on a particular platform, or if its content format doesn’t align with your strengths, it may not be wise to invest your efforts there. You’re unlikely to see results, and your lack of enthusiasm for the platform will be evident to your audience,” says Smith. Similarly, “if it doesn’t align with your overall goals or the style of your content, it’s advisable to let it go,” she recommends.

Before joining a new platform, take some time to really consider if it will help you reach a new audience that you want to target, or will help you accomplish your bigger goals. “I consistently recommend that Creators carefully weigh the potential benefits against the demands of a new platform. They should consider whether the new platform is a worthwhile investment of their resources,” Smith says. 

If, after careful thought and evaluation, a platform doesn’t feel like the right fit for you, then don’t force it. 

4. Prioritize platforms that best align with your content and audience.

Ultimately, diversifying your content and social media strategy requires making calculated decisions about which platforms will work the hardest for your content, your audience, and your niche.

To help you decide which platforms to prioritize, Smith recommends leaning into your data, and choosing platforms with your ideal target audience. Smith shares, “Start by examining the demographics of the platform’s current users. Are they the audience you’re trying to reach?” 

You can also take a look at what the Creator marketplace looks like on each platform. If one platform is highly saturated with a certain type of content, maybe it’s not the right fit for you. Whereas other platforms may be in need of more Creators with your exact expertise and niche. This marketplace assessment can help you identify platforms where you can stand out from the crowd. Smith agrees, recommending, “Assess your competitors’ presence on the platform and scrutinize their strategies. How can you distinguish yourself from them?”

Ultimately, giving precedence to platforms that are the right fit will help your content strategy remain focused and streamlined. And once you have this targeted approach that aligns with your resources and audience, you can create cross-platform content more effectively and sustainably while preserving your mental and creative well-being.