Should you start a separate social media account? 6 questions for finding the right strategy for your new creative idea.

Okay so you’ve had a new idea. Now you’re wondering, do I need to start a whole new account on all of the different social media platforms for this? Let’s walk through the series of questions you can ask yourself to figure out if that’s the best strategy for you and your business or not.

Question 1: Is your existing audience quite small or relatively new?

If your audience is quite small or relatively new, then you might be okay to start another profile since you don’t have an existing audience you need to make the most of or keep growing.

If you have got a large, loyal audience of people whose trust you’ve earned and engagement you’ve built up, then it seems a waste not to use that, and it's going to take you possibly a long time to build that up again. In that case you might want to keep nurturing and building the audience you’ve got.

Question 2: Is the content topic significantly different?

If the topic of your new idea is significantly different than your current account’s focus, then it is going to be jarring and confusing to have them together. Instead of having a really clear message for one thing, you're going to have two very diluted, watered down messages.

If the topic’s not significantly different and there is a lot of crossover in the content, then that is okay and that's a tick in the column for keeping them on the same page.

Question 3: Does it target a significantly different audience?

If the audience is different or even if they're a similar audience but it solves a completely different problem, then your message is not going to be clear.

For example, right now I have an audience of creatives and I am teaching them how to build their own brand, but if I decided that I wanted to then branch out and teach designers how to do brand strategy, I might decide that creating a new Instagram profile for that was beneficial because it's a completely different audience with a completely different problem than the artists and makers who are learning their own branding.

But on the flip side, if there is crossover and it's still really clear, then you could be good to go to keep it on the same platform at the same profile.

Question 4: Would it be confusing for someone to land on your page and see it all mixed in together?

This is something you should be questioning about your profile in general anyway, but would it be confusing for somebody to land there and see all the messages, taglines and content ideas mixed in together?

If you landed on your page, what would you think? Would you be confused? If yes, then it probably needs to be separate. If no, then they might be able to be together.

Question 5: Would if offer you different opportunities?

We recently had Penelope from Clammy Heart on the podcast. One of the reasons she set up a new page for her handmade rugs, is because she kept getting rejected from handmade markets since Clammy Heart, her main brand, does too many things and has too many options. So when she launched her handmade rugs as a separate sister brand that made it clear that it was a smaller business that only did this one thing, she got accepted to these different handmade markets.

So if having a separate profile that distinguishes this one thing that you do as a separate project would offer you different opportunities like that, then yes, maybe it is worthwhile separating your profiles.

Question 6: Do you have the capacity for multiple social media profiles?

And the last and almost most important question is, do you have the capacity for multiple social media platforms?

This is something that is very important to consider because, while there might be opportunities for you to cross-post on both accounts, consistently creating content on multiple profiles will require more work.

So you have to think about how much extra work it’s going to be, thought it’s going to require, money, resources, time or energy it’s going to need from you, and whether that's something that's possible or not.

If yes, then great, go for it. If no, then maybe it’s something you’d be best to delegate it to someone else or avoid it all together.

Should you start a separate social media account?

Now add up your answers. If you answered mostly yes, then yes. It’s probably a good idea to set up a new, separate social media profile for your new idea.

If you answered no, then you can likely get away with keeping them together.

However, that was just six questions that I had to make quite general for everyone. There’s nuance to everything. So use your intuition, you’re smart too, follow your gut and do what you think is right for you and your business.

And if you need help, you can always book a one off 1:1 coaching session with me! We can figure it out together and put together a strategy for creating and launching your new idea. My Boost Your Brand Sessions are perfect for something like this! You can book your session here.