At some point every small business owner gets the advice that they should be posting on all of them. It's bad advice, and it's bad in a specific way that costs more than doing nothing.
Why being everywhere is worse than being somewhere
An account that hasn't posted since 2023 isn't neutral. Somebody who finds it reads it as a business that has either lost interest or gone under. A dead profile is a worse signal than no profile, and most businesses that "get on everything" end up with four dead ones and one alive.
There's also a straightforward capacity problem. Each platform wants a different format, a different length, and a different tone. Posting the same thing everywhere reads as automated on all of them, which is its own signal.
Pick by where your customers already are
The size of a platform's audience matters less than whether the specific people who buy from you already spend time there.
Trades and home services. Facebook is the clear first choice. Local buy-sell groups, town groups, and recommendation threads are where a plumber gets found in Metro Detroit, and they're conversations rather than broadcasts.
Anything visual. Salons, restaurants, landscapers, photographers, anyone whose finished work looks like something. Instagram, because photos of your work are the posts.
Anything where somebody watches you work. Detailing, restoration, repair, anything satisfying. Short video, and it's the one channel where a small business can out-perform a big one.
Pick one, or two if they reach different audiences.
What to do with the rest
Claim the name and leave it. Register the handle so nobody else takes it and so your business name is consistent everywhere. Fill in the profile, the address, the link, and then stop. A complete profile that never posts reads very differently from an abandoned one that used to.
Or delete it properly. If there's a half-dead account with three posts from two years ago, closing it is a legitimate option and it's better than leaving it up.
Keep your Google Business Profile current
Your Google Business Profile is your listing on Google and its map, and it's the single highest-value free thing a local business has. Keep the categories, hours and photos current, and reply to reviews.
A business that does nothing on social media and keeps that profile current will out-perform one doing the reverse, for the kind of customer who searches for what you sell rather than scrolling past it.
How much effort it takes
One platform, posted to consistently, with photographs of your own work, beats five posted to occasionally. Consistently means something you can keep up in your week, in January, when you're busy. For most small businesses that is once a week, and once a week for a year is a strong position.
Pick the number you'll still be doing in six months and then pick the platform, in that order.
If you want a read on which one fits your business, ask. It's a five-minute answer. And if Facebook is the one and you'd rather not post yourself, we can run your Page for you, on a schedule we set with you at the start.