First things first, there’s no doubt that your business should be on social media, regardless of the industry. The purpose behind having a social media presence, however, may differ from one company to another. As a brand, you need to know where your audience is and start from there. Conveying messages to the wrong crowd will end up in a lot of dissatisfaction for all involved parties.

Bear in mind that some channels are focused on B2B, while others take a B2C approach. The decision depends on the product or service that you’re providing, as well as on your audience.

With that out of the way, the bare minimum includes an account on Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin. The first two are meant for more light-hearted B2C updates, while the latter is mostly used for HR initiatives and B2B relationships. From here on, you can expand to Instagram, Snapchat, Pinterest, Google+, or others, depending on who you want to approach and with what purpose.

1. In short: no. People follow your brand on different platforms for different reasons. This means that you can’t expect to have exactly the same audience across all platforms. That being said, unifying the audience is something you can achieve through storytelling. We’ve discussed this in our Snapchat vs. Instagram comparison. Brands focusing on visual content don’t necessarily have to rely only on one of the two platforms. Instead, they could start a story by posting the “making of” on Snapchat and the more polished photos on Instagram.

Some brands have this common misconception that social media is a place full of negativity. Even if it were so, it’s better to know that there is a place where customers express all sorts of opinions, rather than being oblivious. When it comes to handling this type of comments, you only have two options.

First of all, you can choose to address your customers’ concerns in an attempt to regain their trust. Bear in mind that in some cases there can be no retention if you’re not doing so. Even satisfied customers will start questioning your customer service standards if they notice such approaches.

Secondly, you can turn to the content moderation solutions provided by the social media platforms. Facebook and Instagram are only two of the social networks that provide comment filtering options.