Which Social Media Platforms Should You Use for Local Content Marketing?
Joel Conner • July 11, 2020
Choosing the Right Social Media Platform for Content Marketing
However, even getting your social media presence up and running is a difficult task. Selecting the right social media platform may be a confusing
affair as well, with new social networks popping up every fortnight. The best way to begin is by launching your company’s presence on the most famous platforms, after which it should be fairly easy to narrow down the platform that will give your business the right kind of exposure to the right type of audience, thus fulfilling your marketing goals with ease.
Narrowing Down Your Options
There are numerous social networking platforms available today, which can help people connect with others who have similar hobbies, comparable demographics, interests, and so on. However, a majority of them are mostly junk and will not fetch your business any meaningful exposure. Your time is best spent by focusing your efforts on the platforms that garner the most amount of traffic. As of today, the social media platforms with the most amount of monthly active users are Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook.
Set Your Goals
Social media offers numerous benefits
to anyone looking to market their business. However, you must establish clear-cut goals before starting your journey. Not only will they help you narrow down the platform best for your business, but they will also help you target the right audience and create meaningful content. The most widely recognized benefits of having a social media presence include:
- You can learn more about the habits, wants, and needs of your customers and audience and use this information to increase your website traffic, thus boosting sales in the process.
- Market your services or products to new demographics and audiences who may be potentially interested in them, thus raising brand awareness among the general public.
- Significantly improve your company’s customer service standards by offering a new platform where customers can approach you with their concerns, questions, and complaints. This will allow you to identify new prospects and profitable leads.
Determine Which Platforms Your Audience Likes
The whole point of having an active social media presence
is to help you reach out to your target audience, which is why it’s important not to select a platform that’s unlikely to be used by your audience. Therefore, you need to understand the platforms preferred by people in your target audience and develop your profile on these social media networks.
The most popular method for finding out where to find your target audience online is with a simple customer survey. All you need to do is ask which social media platforms they utilize, where they obtain most of their information, and the influencers they’re prepared to listen to. You can also make use of tools offered by social media platforms to understand more how to market to your audience. For instance, Facebook allows you to input customer profiles, which can help you estimate the total number of people who match those characteristics. Information sources like Pew Research can also be used for researching the audience demographics of various social media platforms, which can help you refine your marketing strategy.
Conduct A Comprehensive Examination of Your Content
Some forms of content
work better than others on certain social networking platforms. It’s important to examine the content you usually create and release them on platforms that have been proven to be receptive to such content. For instance, Instagram users prefer picture-based content whereas LinkedIn may be ideal for your needs if your content consists of long-form text. Create your content after considering numerous important factors, including your brand, your industry, and target demographics. Here’s a list of content types that you can focus on:
- Photographs
- Videos
- Whitepapers
- Ebooks
- Livestreams and webinars
- User-generated content
- Testimonials
- Podcasts
- Blog posts
Ensure Your Content, Target Audience, Goals, and Platform Are In Perfect Sync
After determining your business’s social media goals and target audience, and selecting the content type that appeals the most to them, it’s time to compare different social networking platforms in order to decide which one works best for your requirements. Here’s a brief intro to some of the most popular platforms available today:
- Facebook – With over two billion monthly active users, out of which 61% are American citizens between 25 – 54, it’s a great place to implement lead generation strategies since its ad platform allows you to fine-tune your strategy immensely to target specific groups. It can also help you build relationships with customers and turn your leads into active followers.
- Twitter – This platform is ideal for businesses looking to provide important messages, announcements, breaking news, and other information to their followers in a short period. Most users tend to be aged below 50. Easily digestible text-based content like quotations, listicles, and articles are the best content types for this platform.
- LinkedIn – Primarily used by B2B businesses, it’s a great platform to generate leads and publish editorial content, which can establish your company’s position in the market as a reputed leader, build brand awareness, and gain leads with high chances of conversion.
- Pinterest – This is a graphics- and picture-focused platform used for sharing stunning photographs and images related to travel, wedding, fashion, art, food, and décor. Businesses can post stunning and beautiful photographs on this platform to boost brand awareness and authority.
Conclusion
Any business that seeks to gain positive exposure online and remain relevant to the changing times cannot do with an active social media presence. Apart from helping you connect with prospects all over the world, it can also help you gain important insights about your customers, generate impressive website traffic, find new leads, build brand awareness, and give you pointers to improve your company’s customer service. Set your social media marketing goals, discover the platforms used by your target customer audience, come up with content best suited to the platform’s design – take these steps and you’ll develop a successful reputation for your brand online in no time!
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Discover proven strategies for real estate agents to optimize their content and websites for AI search platforms like ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity. Learn how to dominate AI-powered search results and attract more qualified leads in 2026.
A lot has changed since I published Digital Marketing with Tortoise & Hare in 2017. Back then, the digital marketing conversation was heavily centered on websites, search rankings, social media consistency, and building momentum over time. Those principles still matter, but the landscape has shifted in a big way. Even the way people discover businesses and consume information has changed. My book was published on June 12, 2017, and in many ways, that feels like a different era of digital marketing. One of the newer terms getting a lot of attention right now is GEO , which stands for Generative Engine Optimization . If you’ve been hearing people throw that term around and wondering whether it’s just another buzzword, you’re not alone. But there is something real behind it, and it’s worth understanding. So, What Is GEO? GEO is essentially the practice of optimizing your business, website, and content so that AI-driven search experiences can find, understand, trust, and reference you. Traditional SEO has focused on helping your website rank in search engine results. GEO is more about helping your brand show up in AI-generated answers , summaries, recommendations, and citations. In simple terms: SEO helps you rank. GEO helps you get referenced. That’s a meaningful distinction. Today, people are no longer just typing a keyword into Google and clicking through ten blue links. More and more, they are asking full questions and receiving summarized answers from AI tools. That means your content is not only competing for rankings anymore. It is also competing to become part of the answer itself. Has SEO Been Replaced? No. Let me say that clearly: GEO does not replace SEO. It builds on it. If your website is poorly structured, your content is thin, your service pages are weak, and your business has little authority online, then GEO is not going to magically fix that. The same foundational principles still matter: a technically sound website strong service and location pages clear messaging helpful content consistent brand signals trust and authority In other words, the tortoise still matters. Steady, strategic digital marketing still wins over hype, shortcuts, and shiny-object syndrome. That hasn’t changed. What has changed is that now your content needs to be useful not just for human readers and search crawlers, but also for AI systems trying to summarize the web. Why GEO Matters If AI-powered search experiences continue to grow, businesses that are easiest to understand and trust will have an advantage. That means the question is no longer just: “How do I rank for this keyword?” It’s also: “How do I become the kind of source that AI tools want to cite, summarize, and recommend?” That changes the strategy. Businesses that win in this next phase will likely have content that is: clear direct well-structured specific trustworthy supported by real-world authority The businesses that struggle will often be the ones still publishing vague, bloated, keyword-stuffed content that says a lot without really answering anything.
Most People Think They Understand AI Search. They Don’t. And that misunderstanding is exactly why they’re not showing up in: Perplexity Google AI Overviews (Gemini) ChatGPT web results Let’s break something open that most churches and ministries haven’t realized yet. The Assumption That’s Costing You Visibility You search for: “churches near me” You check Google. You see the top results—maybe even your church is listed. So logically… 👉 Those should be the churches AI recommends, right? Wrong. The Strange Reality of AI Search In many cases, AI-generated answers (especially in Google AI Overviews or Perplexity) recommend churches that: Aren’t at the very top of Google Sometimes aren’t even the most obvious local options At first glance, it feels random. It’s not. It’s a pattern. “Wait… Doesn’t Local SEO Still Matter?” Yes. It absolutely does. Showing up in Google Maps, having reviews, and optimizing your website are still critical foundations . But here’s the shift most churches don’t see: 👉 Your keyword is just the starting point. Not the final query. What AI Is Actually Doing Behind the Scenes AI doesn’t just take “churches near me” at face value. It reinterprets the intent. Inside tools like Google’s Gemini, if you dig a little deeper, you’ll notice something like this: “The user wants a church… but what kind? Maybe they want a family-friendly church… or a Bible-based church… or something with kids programs… I should search for: family-friendly churches near me with kids ministry” 💥 That’s the turning point. Why Your Church Isn’t Showing Up Here’s what happens next: AI rewrites the query It searches using its version of the intent It pulls churches that match that refined query So now… 👉 The churches being recommended are NOT just optimized for “churches near me.” They’re aligned with something like: “family-friendly church near me” “church with strong kids ministry near me” “non-denominational church with modern worship near me” Proof in Action If you take one of those rewritten queries, like: “family-friendly church near me with kids ministry” …and search it yourself… You’ll often see: 👉 The same churches AI is recommending. This pattern shows up across: Gemini (Google AI Overviews) ChatGPT search Perplexity And it’s consistent. The Hard Truth No One Is Talking About Let’s be clear: ❌ Your church isn’t being ignored ❌ SEO isn’t broken 👉 You’re losing interpretation battles. The New Game: AI Search for Churches If you want your church to show up in AI-driven results, here’s what actually works: 1. Start with the Core Search Think: “churches near me” “church in [your city]” 2. Identify How AI Expands It Ask: What kind of church is someone looking for? What concerns or needs might they have? Examples: Families with kids Young adults Spanish-speaking communities Bible-teaching focus 3. Discover the Rewritten Queries These might look like: “family-friendly church in [city]” “Christian church with youth group near me” “church with Spanish service near me” “small church with strong community near me” 4. Create Content That Matches Not just a generic homepage. But pages or sections that clearly communicate: Kids ministry Youth programs Worship style Beliefs Community life 5. Align With How AI Thinks When your church clearly answers those deeper needs… 👉 AI starts including you in its recommendations. This Isn’t About Doing More. It’s About Being Clearer. You don’t need: More complicated SEO strategies More technical tricks You need: 👉 Clear alignment with real human intent—through the lens of AI. Final Thought AI search is changing how people find a church. They’re not just searching… 👉 They’re asking. And AI is answering based on interpreted needs , not just keywords. The churches that will grow in this new landscape aren’t just visible. They’re understood.