Even though half a million users have left the platform in the past three months, Facebook remains one of the biggest social media platforms in the market. It offers unparalleled opportunities for small businesses to communicate with existing and potential customers with 1.929 million daily active users.

But with anything in the social media space, rivals will continue to release new features, functions and offerings in a bid to drive more users away from players like Facebook. These aggressive tactics make it difficult for small businesses to decipher which platforms they should be using and where to focus their marketing efforts toward.

Meta’s plunge on Wall Street is a perfect case study in why small businesses cannot put all their eggs in one basket and use only one platform for their digital marketing efforts. In the last year, SMEs have battled through Facebook and Google news bans where businesses were effectively banned on the platform, changes to privacy limits and iOS updates restricting advertising opportunities, and continued outages across platforms. Social media continues to be a dogfight between all the heavy hitters, but knowing where Australian businesses can operate effectively to speak to their closest customers remains paramount.

It can be easy to fall into the trap of copying what other businesses are doing when it comes to marketing. But, what works for one company won’t necessarily work for another. Small businesses need to be actively monitoring these changing trends to see where they can grow and tap into new audiences on different platforms. Marketers need only look at Twitter’s resurgence since it’s beginning in 2006, with 70 per cent of businesses planning to increase their investment moving into 2022 to see that previously dismissed platforms are presenting new opportunities that could be overlooked.

Using a multi-platform marketing approach will keep your business afloat during these unexpected changes while simultaneously challenging your competitors and capturing customer interest at every touchpoint. Use your customer profiles to understand where they’re interacting and make sure you’re present at these points to interact with customers but to also allow them to evaluate and share their experiences about you.

Creating a plan can be daunting for owners who have minimal resources available for research and development. Start with the most basic, but crucial marketing tool for any business in the world: Creating a Google My Business profile. This not only lets your customers know trading hours, contact details, and location but keeps a constant direct to customer communication where audiences can reach your business for general enquiries.

Despite Meta crashing, Facebook is still an important tool for small businesses to utilise. Keeping in mind a diverse marketing portfolio can ensure they are reaching their customers regardless of what the current landscape looks like.

This story originally appeared in our sister publication, Inside Small Business.