Social Media Consistency is Key to Growing a Business, Expert Shares

In an exclusive interview with Spotlight, Hootsuite Senior Director of Corporate Communcations Melanie Gaboriault shared her belief that establishing a consistent social media presence is critical for businesses to gain credibility, build trust, generate leads and strengthen reputation.  

According to the Marketing Rule of 7, a brand’s message needs to be “heard” at least seven times before they act. “The more touchpoints an audience has with a brand, the more awareness it will build,” Gaboriault emphasized. 

In building social media consistency, the senior director also explained how cross-posting has evolved, especially with the world’s biggest social media platforms adopting “copycat features” from their competitors, like Instagram did with Reels.  

“[With] the tools being so similar, marketers have looked at this as an opportunity to repurpose the same content for different platforms,” she explained. 

While cross-posting the exact same content into different platforms is easier for creators and saves time, Gaboriault expressed that it can affect results. 

“What marketers sometimes fail to recognize, however, is that social consumers don’t only get different values from different platforms — they explicitly use different social networks for unique reasons... Businesses that don’t spend the time understanding how their audience uses each individual platform, and create content that specifically addresses those needs, will risk losing the interest of their audience,” she shared. 

The seasoned director also recommended businesses to conduct social media audits to find out which platforms their audiences are most active on, before tailor-fitting content for each channel.   

“The pendulum has shifted from the most confident social marketers feeling that they need to be active and engaged on every social platform to drive success,” she said. “Rather, marketers that will be the most successful in 2023 — and those that will drive the highest ROI — will spend less time worrying about which copycat feature to start using next and more time exploring platforms that best reflect their business goals.”