Rock, Paper, Scissors: 5 Digital Marketing Choices That Can Make or Break Your Online Success

When it comes to digital marketing, there are plenty of decisions to make. Should you post more on social media? Focus on growing your followers? Invest in paid advertising? Or spend more time improving your website? With so much advice floating around online, knowing which approach will actually benefit your business isn’t always easy.

You’ve probably seen the Rock, Paper, Scissors trend doing the rounds on Instagram and TikTok, where two hands go head-to-head to reveal the winning choice. Well, we thought we’d give it a digital marketing twist!

As a digital marketing agency helping small businesses grow online, we’re putting five common marketing approaches head-to-head to see which ones come out on top.

1. Posting Randomly vs Having a Social Media Content Strategy

The winner: Having a social media content strategy!

While posting something is often better than disappearing completely, random content without a clear purpose isn’t necessarily helping your business grow.

A well-planned social media content strategy helps you stay consistent, target the right audience, and create posts that support your business goals. Instead of constantly wondering what to post next, you’ll have a clearer idea of what content to create, when to share it, and what you want your audience to do.

2. Chasing Followers vs Building Genuine Engagement

The winner: Building genuine engagement!

Having thousands of followers might look impressive, but what if none of them is actually interested in your business? A smaller, engaged audience can be far more valuable than a huge following that never interacts with your content.

Comments, shares, saves, enquiries, and meaningful conversations are all signs that your social media content is connecting with the right people.

Our advice is to focus on creating content that encourages conversations, answers customer questions, and builds relationships rather than obsessing over your follower count.

3. Hashtag Stuffing vs Optimising Captions for SEO

The winner: Optimising captions for SEO!

While hashtags can still help categorise your content, stuffing your captions with loads of them isn’t necessarily going to get your posts seen by more people.

Instead, social media SEO is becoming an increasingly important part of getting your content discovered. Platforms like Instagram and TikTok use keywords in captions, along with other signals, to understand what your content is about and to match it with relevant searches.

For example, instead of relying on #HairSalon, a caption mentioning “balayage and hair colouring services in Hitchin” gives both your audience and the platform more context.

Write for your audience first, optimise for search second.

4. Boosting Every Post vs Running Targeted Meta Ads

The winner: Running targeted Meta Ads!

Boosting posts can be useful for increasing visibility, but it’s not always the most effective way to achieve specific business goals. A properly planned Meta Ads strategy gives you greater control over campaign objectives, audience targeting, placements, budgets, and performance tracking.

Whether you’re looking to generate leads, increase website traffic, encourage bookings, or boost sales, targeted Facebook and Instagram advertising campaigns can be designed around those goals.

5. Doing Everything Yourself vs Outsourcing Your Digital Marketing

The winner: Whichever helps your business grow sustainably!

As a small business owner, you’re probably already juggling a hundred different responsibilities. From looking after customers to managing your team and keeping everything running smoothly, digital marketing can easily become another job on an already very long to-do list. And while there’s absolutely nothing wrong with managing your own marketing, it can become difficult to stay on top of everything as your business grows.

Outsourcing your digital marketing gives you access to people who specialise in SEO, social media management, Google Listing Optimiser, and more.

The Real Winner? A Digital Marketing Strategy That Works for Your Business

At Local Insights, we help small and independent businesses make sense of digital marketing, identify opportunities, and build an online presence that works harder for them.

Not sure which marketing moves your business should be making? Get in touch with our expert, Kate, today!