Why aren’t we scaling back on the number of social media channels we manage?

“I’m a social media team of one–how can I best manage all these different channels?”

“My team is stretched super thin and now we’re being asked to take on TikTok–how are we going to do this?”

“Social media is just a small part of my overall job yet I’m asked to manage multiple social media channels!”

These are just some of the laments we all hear from our friends and colleagues in social media. In fact, I’m hearing it more and more recently as work and responsibilities pile up. There’s no question: Social media teams are being asked to do a whole lot more heading into 2023 with little to no additions on the head count and resource front.

Many social teams are small. I tried to research this a bit, but couldn’t find much. One Buffer post alluded to 3 as the average social media team size. That sounds about right. Anecdotally, I think there’s also a lot of people who are one-person shows when it comes to social media management. And yes, I realize there are larger teams at companies like Target, Walmart and other Fortune 500 companies. But, those are pretty rare in the larger scope of things.

So again–most social teams are pretty stretched right now. REALLY stretched, actually. This is why we see a lot of repurposing the same content across all social media channels–not a great strategy.

At the same time, we also know the DEMANDS of social media marketing are increasing. There are more channels to manage than ever before. Facebook. Instagram. YouTube. LinkedIn. Twitter. And those are just the primary 5! Many brands are attempting to manage upwards of 5+ social media channels in 2022. Those channels need content. They need community management. And they need to be measured. That’s a lot of work for a team–let alone one person! And that doesn’t even account for: influencer marketing (another huge time suck), employer brand marketing (a growing area of need for social teams); or strategic planning (obviously a must for any team).

So why aren’t we scaling back on the channels we manage?

After all, our companies and clients don’t possibly have to be on every social media channel, do they?

But that’s where we’re at in 2022. Brands trying to maintain 5+ social media channels with limited resources. It’s not a recipe for success.

So, what’s stopping us from scaling back on the channels we manage?

Fear is a big part of it. Not our fear, but the fear of missing out. The fear of not attempting to reach everyone. Which is weird because as any good marketer will tell you, that should never be the goal–you’re always trying to reach a TARGETED audience. But, that fear is pretty powerful.

I think habit is another piece of this. Some of us have been managing Twitter accounts for our companies and clients for 10+ years now! There’s a lot built into that from a habit standpoint. It’s a deeply ingrained part of our professional lives now. Just like email and the internet.

Finally, there’s also risk involved. Very few brands are taking the approach of just using 1-2 social media channels exclusively. Most brands are out there managing it all. So, if your brand decided to scale back, where do you look for an example of a brand who’s doing this and doing it well? There aren’t many examples. As a result, you tend to think you should keep managing all those channels. Certainly it’s the right thing to do because everyone else is still doing it!

However, it’s high time we scale back.

It’s time we take a very hard look at our existing channels and see which ones are performing and which are not.

It’s time we take a closer look at our audiences on each channel. Are we reaching our targeted audiences on all our channels? We need to think about dropping those where we are not.

And it’s time we look real close at our teams. We know they’re stretched. We know they’re tired. So, how can we scale back on channels and give them more time to develop killer content. More time to manage communities. And more time to plan.

That’s my hope for the planning months ahead in 2022. We can’t go on like this much longer, can we?