Why Your Brand Doesn’t Have to Be on Every Platform
Being told you need to be everywhere with your marketing often leaves teams stretched too thin. A focused marketing strategy helps your audience understand your brand so that actually know what you can do for them.
What Happens When Your Marketing Tries to Do Too MuchWhat A Casting Director Taught Me About Being EverywhereThe Simple Alternative to Being Everywhere Focus Creates Recognition Get Clear About Your Focus The average American is on at least 6 different social media platforms. Is your brand?
On the surface, it feels empowering. You’re poised to take over your industry!
But in reality, it creates constant pressure. Your calendar fills up with content to dos. What you post winds up being decent at best. And you never quite settle into a rhythm that works.
Even with AI tools, you still feel like you’re stretched too thin.
I’ve watched this wear down smart, capable teams. The one person on your team — who I’ve deemed the Content Implementer — is constantly trying to keep up. But by being everywhere you’re not really showing up anywhere.
What A Casting Director Taught Me About Being Everywhere and Doing Anything
I learned the lesson myself long before I worked in marketing.
When I was starting out as an actress in New York, a had a meeting with bigtime casting director Bernie Telsey. (I know! The Bernie Telsey.) He asked me what kind of work I could do.
“Everything,” twenty-two year old me eagerly answered.
After all, I had studied acting, directing, musical theater, Shakespeare, and film and TV. Wasn’t being well-rounded the point?
He smiled, thanked me, showed me out, and his office didn’t call me for a few years.
It wasn’t until I started performing in improv comedy consistently that I began getting calls from his office. By then, they had a sense of what I was good at and what audiences liked.
Oh, her? Funny best friend.
What Happens When Your Social Media Strategy Tries to Be Everywhere
When your brand tries to show up on every platform, the same pattern emerges on each on.
You become inconsistent. A few strong weeks turn into missed posts, abandoned platforms, and quiet guilt about everything you said you would keep up with.
Eventually, you don’t want to bother posting anywhere. What’s the point? The algorithm won’t show your stuff to anyone.
But maybe the issue isn’t so much the algorithm, as your strategy. Your focus.
Algorithms reward clarity and repetition, not constant plate spinning.
“You don’t need to be everywhere with your social media marketing. You do need to show up on one or two platforms consistently for your audience, though.”
The Simple Alternative to Being Everywhere
You don’t need a more complicated marketing plan. You need a clearer one.
The alternative to trying to be everywhere is focus. Fewer channels. Clear positioning. A rhythm you can actually maintain.
Here’s how to do that in practice.
1. Choose One or Two Primary Channels
Start by deciding where your marketing actually does its best work.
This isn’t about where you “should” be or where everyone else seems active. It’s about where your audience already pays attention and where you can show up without forcing yourself into a format that doesn’t fit.
If you think best out loud, video or email may make more sense than highly polished graphics. If your ideas need room, long-form writing might serve you better than daily posts. One or two primary channels are enough to build recognition if you use them consistently.
2. Decide What You Want to Be Known For
A simple content publishing plan prioritizes focus, clarity, and consistency over being everywhere at once.
Before you decide what to post, decide the role you play.
What problem do you reliably help people solve? What perspective do you bring that others don’t? When someone mentions your name, what should come to mind?
This decision does more work than any content calendar. It gives your marketing a throughline, so each post reinforces the last instead of starting from scratch.
When you really think about branding (like with cattle, for example) it’s that idea of making an imprint.
You want your brand to make an imprint on people’s mind so they know what you do, how it makes their lives better, and how they can get it.
3. Commit to a Sustainable Publishing Rhythm
Consistency matters more than intensity.
A cadence you can maintain over time builds trust. It trains your audience to recognize you and gives your team something predictable to execute.
In Simple Social Media I lay out an unusual social media publishing cadence:
create 10 posts in a sitting
schedule them to go out once a week for ten weeks
repeat two weeks later
By the end of two months you’ll have built up to posting four or five times a week, have two weeks in the can, and not have changed you’re content creation rhythm at all.
4. Let Everything Else Support the Core
Once your primary channels are working, you don’t need to add more platforms. You need to make your ideas travel.
One clear piece of content can become a blog post, an email, and a few social updates. The core idea stays the same. The format changes.
This keeps your marketing focused and prevents each new channel from becoming another obligation.
Focus Creates Recognition
When you focus your marketing on fewer channels and repeat a clear message consistently, people understand what you’re known for. You give your audience enough repetition to recognize you and enough clarity to remember you. Instead of spreading your effort across too many platforms, you build familiarity over time, and that familiarity turns into trust.
(Bonus: you also get to know your audience better when you’re on few channels. But that’s a topic for another time.)
Get Clear About Your Focus. Schedule a Call.
Clear positioning starts with deciding the role you want to play for your audience.
When your marketing is focused, it feels different. You’re not scrambling to keep up with every platform or second-guessing what to post. You know where to show up, what to say, and how often to say it.
Strategy call helps you get there faster.
In one conversation, we look at where you’re currently spreading yourself too thin, identify the one or two channels that deserve your attention, and clarify what you should be known for. From there, it becomes much easier to build a rhythm you can maintain and a message your audience can recognize.
If you’re tired of feeling scattered or unsure whether your marketing is working, this is the simplest next step.
Schedule a Call and let’s narrow your focus so your marketing can start doing its job.
Annie Figenshu
Annie Figenshu is keenly aware that many companies are pressed for time, and every minute counts. She helps brands make the most of their content marketing so that their hard work is shared with the world. Annie is certified in both StoryBrand and Mailchimp, has two kids with Beatles-themed names, and is afraid to think what a day without coffee would look like.