How important is social media?

[Merlina Rodas]

In that case, I'd recommend prioritizing Instagram since content there is very lifestyle- and aesthetic-oriented. Snapchat would be great for showcasing personality but if you don't have the time, Instagram Stories should function similarly for you.

Facebook has largely become pay-to-post. It's unlikely you'll reach your audience unless you do some paid campaigns, and it will continue to grow in that direction as 2017 moves forward (random fact: they're predicted to run out of ad inventory by the middle of this year). I would only recommend being on that platform if and when you have a solid conversion point (i.e. a product/service to sell).

Whether a blog is necessary or not depends on what you're trying to do with your overall strategy. Perhaps if you share some of your content goals and some details about your blog (e.g. where it's hosted, what you've been doing with it, etc.), I could give some advice on how important it is and whether you can leverage it somehow.

Yes, Instaram was always my most used platform... Snapchat, I've always felt to be a bit more personal, and as you mentioned, it takes up a lot of time. Now, the reason I mentioned the blog is that I noticed a lot of health and fitness youtubers such as Blogilates, fitnessblender, fullyrawkristina, just to name a few, all have blogs to go along with their videos. However, I do believe that a blog is something to work toward and not something to jump into right away. It definitely takes up a lot of time to work on and write a blog!

 

[The NotARubicon!]

I think it depends on where your target viewers are.
For the last 2 projects I did, the majority of those people (mostly somewhat older) were on Facebook (nothing else) - we did well there getting a lot of followers, but followers on Facebook alone does not do much good. Trying to get them to leave the comfort of Facebook and driving them to a website or even to YouTube is near impossible.
If your target viewers are younger/on all platforms then get on as many as you can spend time managing..Or, try them all and then stick with what works best for you.

 

[Kristeen]

I think it depends on where your target viewers are.
For the last 2 projects I did, the majority of those people (mostly somewhat older) were on Facebook (nothing else) - we did well there getting a lot of followers, but followers on Facebook alone does not do much good. Trying to get them to leave the comfort of Facebook and driving them to a website or even to YouTube is near impossible.
If your target viewers are younger/on all platforms then get on as many as you can spend time managing..Or, try them all and then stick with what works best for you.

As with any digital marketing effort, it always matters who you're trying to reach so "it depends on where your target viewers are" is always true. Putting effort into all the popular social media platforms isn't efficient for anyone, whether that be small content creators like us or big brands that are trying to sell things.

 

[Bliss Lists]

I found Instagram to be not very useful at all in these early stages. Even liking 250 photos an hour for a few hours a day, and following a couple hundred, I was only able to get one or two views in total from it. And thats with 270ish followers. Maybe for a different niche such as vlogging it would be more useful, but I think it mainly becomes useful when your channel takes off, because you can fill your instagram with subscribers willing to watch your content and it creates a snowball effect.

 

[Kristeen]

I found Instagram to be not very useful at all in these early stages. Even liking 250 photos an hour for a few hours a day, and following a couple hundred, I was only able to get one or two views in total from it. And thats with 270ish followers. Maybe for a different niche such as vlogging it would be more useful, but I think it mainly becomes useful when your channel takes off, because you can fill your instagram with subscribers willing to watch your content and it creates a snowball effect.

I think it really depends on what you're trying to do with it. If you're trying to build your personality and your brand, even if you don't have a lot of followers, Instagram can still be pretty effective for that because what you're simply doing is supplementing your YouTube content with content on another platform. If you're aiming to use it to generate leads to your YouTube account, that's where it becomes difficult because you need to build up your Instagram following in the first place in order for that to happen.

 

[AdmUp]

It's really important. You don't have to be on every platform but I would say Twitter 100%.. it helps form a community, keep your current subscriber base up to date and using hashtags definitely helps.

 

[The NotARubicon!]

You don't have to be on every platform but I would say Twitter 100%..

And if your target audience doesn't do Twitter?

 

[AdmUp]

And if your target audience doesn't do Twitter?

Places like this, forums can help build an audience too..

 

[TylersMagic]

I don't think you need to be active on every social media site. Find one or a few that you like bet and use those. You don't even have to be super active on them, but they can help you reach a larger audience. When you promote online, there aren't a lot of places to explicitly share your videos, mostly just forums and social media. Sure there are other ways to promote, but social media is an easy way to reach people.