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the potential influence social media can have on growth and outreach. "Temple had no designated marketing employee before I took over," Cole says. "I was promoted to full-time trainer, but in my spare time I began creating content for the company and slowly made it my own. Eventually, the things I was doing had a measured impact—sales increased, brand-awareness was much more prevalent." Not all social media are the same Social media is an umbrella term for a number of platforms, apps, and websites that connect people digitally. However, not all social media sites are going to do the same work for you and your brand, and picking the right ones to focus on can be tricky. "Videos, hands down, allow us to pass along the most information, accurately depicting whatever scene we are trying to share," Andy of Café Imports says. "From interviews to slice-of-life footage, videos allow for effective documentation all in the same piece. A picture is worth 1,000 words, but there are about 24 pictures per second in a video, and there are also actual spoken words on top of that." Using Vimeo and embedded links, Café Imports' videos have become the hallmark of the company's social media platform. From funny videos to streaming events and content relevant to the entire coffee community at large, videos allow Café Imports to communicate the company's values and beliefs to their consumers. Cafés, however, especially those in the United States and Australia, tend to rely heavily on Instagram, and for good reason. "First, it's the hot social media platform at the moment," says Cole of Temple. "Second, Instagram is a visual-driven medium, which lends itself to beautiful coffee photos, a very pleasing visual product. So that helps. People love its simplicity and minimalism, and Instagram has been pretty good about staying true to that." Andy of Barista Parlor agrees, saying that for company branding, promotion, and exposure, he prefers Instagram to Facebook and Twitter. However, you have to consider your specific audience and remember that different social media sites target different demographics. "If your company is Keurig Green Mountain, do you think the majority of your audience is on Snapchat? No, probably not, because Keurig is a brand that is more successful on the older end of the spectrum, and Snapchat users are on the younger end of the scale," social media expert Jason says. Hopefully, you're not going to use just one social media platform, but it's important to remember that they're not all the same and need to be treated as such. "A big error I see from many brands is trying to use every platform the same way," says Cole. "And I get it. It's a lot of work managing multiple platforms. That's why I suggest starting with two or so platforms and making sure your content suits that platform's strengths." For example, if you get a lot of questions from customers and need to relay information, Twitter might be the platform you focus on. If you want to showcase the visual aspects of your café and incentivize taking photos of your space and reposting them on your account, Instagram's probably the channel you should prioritize. Finally a word about Facebook: Because it's the oldest and most well- used platform out there, it is for that very reason less likely to be used by your younger customers and trend-setters. "Ever since my grandparents got Facebook accounts, I've gravitated away from it," says Sean James, who owns three cafés in Canada, two in New York, two in Seoul, and one in Berlin. "I love my grandparents! It's just that they're not my 105 www.baristamagazine.com