Social media planning comes with a lot of questions, and one of those questions often is, “Are we present on enough platforms in the social space?” There’s Twitter, Facebook and others, but now, Pinterest and Tumblr are gaining attention.

There are a lot of tools out there. Some might help your brand. Others probably won’t, but that’s why setting strategy with goals and objectives is so important. It will be your go-to guide when it’s platform decision time.

It’s vital to maintain that level of focus.

Everywhere Can Mean Nowhere

When hearing about the growing popularity of Tumblr or the referral traffic potential of Pinterest or even after seeing a competitor take off with a Facebook Page, it can be difficult to stay focused. Instead, brands can find themselves feeling that they need to present on every platform out there, but that’s not the answer.

Time, money and resources are limited, and every platform must be evaluated through that filter. Maybe referral traffic from Pinterest is really important, but it might be less resource intensive to incorporate more tactics that will drive referral traffic in on an already established platform like a Facebook Page.

New platforms don’t come with new resources, and without the people, processes and tools in place to support them, brands can find themselves with such a light presence on multiple platforms that they’re not being effective anywhere.

Evaluate and Re-evaluate

Social media isn’t stagnant. Brands should always be evaluating their current efforts, thinking about additional opportunities and identifying if what they’re doing is as effective as it once was or could be more effective.

It comes down to a few key questions.

First, what budget, time and resources can be devoted? If there’s just enough for a small number of platforms (or even one), that’s fine. Invest in them to their fullest, measure and prove their value to earn additional investment for more.

Second, follow the customer or prospect. Don’t jump on a tool because it’s new and grabbing headlines. Jump on it because your audience is.

Third, think about the story your brand has to tell and how consumers interact with it. Some platforms are better than others, depending on the brand and the content it has to share. The type of media has a big impact. More visual brands might look to a more niche platform like Instagram (pending the qualifications above, of course), while brands that connect with customers through thought leadership might look at corporate blogging as a potential outlet.

There isn’t a magic formula. Some brands can and should be present across multiple platforms, but brands shouldn’t try this unless they have the infrastructure in place to maximize each of the platforms’ potential. Social media marketing is an investment of much more than money. It takes a lot of time, too. Invest where it matters.

A few weeks ago 12Seconds shut down, adding another platform to a growing pile of innovations and ideas that didn’t quite make it.

12Seconds users are sad to see it go, but one can be certain that another platform will rise up to take its place. How long that platform will last depends on a lot of factors, but if it does fade away, another will be there to carry on.

The Circle of Platform Life

Platforms come and go. What’s innovative one moment is either replaced by something that does the job better or becomes stagnant before fading away.

As far as social media goes, the hot platforms are Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter and a few others depending on brand and audience, but as unimaginable as it may seem, these platforms will likely fade away someday in the future. Social media is just fickle that way.

Focusing on the Platforms Misses the Point

The good news is that platforms coming and going isn’t the problem for marketers. In fact, it refocuses us because we can’t be tied down by one platform. So much emphasis is often placed on the platform that marketers almost miss the point of what social media can truly do for their businesses.

Platforms are tied together by their unique quality to share and connect people. That’s what sets social media apart from other methods of marketing. That ability to share and connect should be our focus. The platform(s) we choose to do that comes later.

The benefits of focusing on sharing and connecting versus platforms has the potential to change the way businesses work. Social media will not change a business over night, but a true commitment to ongoing engagement, talking, sharing and creating through social media channels will likely move a corporation forward on a number of fronts:

Fostering and growing how consumers share their brand experiences
Opening up new avenues to provide customers information
Gaining a deeper understanding of customers
Implementing insights from online engagement in products
Revitalizing customer service for the better
Humanizing the brand

Platforms don’t bring the benefits. Commitment to engage, interact and learn from consumers does.

Who’d want to miss all of that?

When the focus is on the platforms all of those benefits can easily be overlooked, so before thinking about the platform, think about what objectives you want to accomplish, instead of looking at the platform and adding objectives going backwards.

Slowly but surely social media is changing how business is done. Platforms are not the impetus of change. It’s about how businesses use them.