By Bianca Frank, Creative Director · Bianca Frank Design, Anchorage
Originally published December 8, 2024. Updated October 23, 2026.
Most Anchorage businesses we meet are on four or five social platforms and doing well on none of them. The owner posts when there’s time, the account with the most followers is the one from 2019, and nobody can say which platform brought in a customer last month.
The fix is almost never “post more.” It’s choosing one or two platforms that match where your customers already are, and then being reliable there. This post is our working answer for Alaska businesses, drawn from the accounts we run and the ones we’ve audited.
In short
- For most Anchorage businesses, two platforms are enough: Facebook plus Google Business Profile for local services, or Instagram plus Facebook for food, retail and tourism.
- Google Business Profile is the platform most businesses forget, and it’s the only one that puts you on the map in Google Search.
- TikTok and YouTube pay off for tour operators and visual brands; for a plumber or a law office they’re a time cost with little return.
- A consistent two to four posts a week on one platform beats a burst across five.
- Alaska has its own calendar: PFD week, cruise season and summer PCS moves all change what and when you should post.
Which platforms do Anchorage businesses actually need?
Two, chosen by who buys from you. Nationally, YouTube and Facebook are still the most widely used platforms, about half of adults use Instagram, and roughly a third use TikTok, according to Pew Research Center’s 2025 fact sheet. Anchorage follows the same pattern, with one local twist: Facebook groups still do a lot of the word-of-mouth work here, from neighborhood pages to the buy-sell-trade groups in Eagle River and the Valley.
The table below is how we sort it when a new client asks. It’s opinionated on purpose.
| Platform | Best for in Anchorage | Our recommended cadence | Skip it if |
|---|---|---|---|
| Google Business Profile | Every local business; contractors, clinics, shops, restaurants | 1 post a week, photos monthly, every review answered | Never skip it |
| Service businesses, events, anything sold to people over 35, community groups | 2–3 posts a week | Your customers are tourists who haven’t arrived yet | |
| Coffee, food, retail, salons and medspas, venues, tourism, anything photographed well | 3–4 posts a week plus Stories | You sell to procurement offices | |
| B2B services, professional firms, hiring, government and Native corporation work | 1–2 posts a week from a person, not a logo | You sell to consumers only | |
| YouTube | Tour companies, lodges, trades that can show work, how-to content | 1–2 videos a month | Nobody on the team will be on camera |
| TikTok | Tourism, restaurants, brands with a personality and someone willing to film | 3+ short videos a week or don’t bother | You’d be posting for the sake of it |
| Weddings, interiors, lodges, makers | Batch monthly | You’re not visual |
A few things in that table will surprise people. Pinterest outlasts most trends for wedding venues and interior designers because pins keep sending traffic for years. And LinkedIn matters more in Alaska than its reputation suggests, because so much business here runs through bids, tribal and Native corporation contracts, and a fairly small circle of decision-makers who are all on it.
Facebook or Instagram: which one for an Alaska business?
Facebook if you sell to locals, Instagram if you sell something people want to look at, and both if you’re a restaurant or coffee shop. The two share Meta’s ad system and scheduling tools, so running both costs less than running two unrelated platforms.
For a sign shop or a cabinet maker, both work at once: the install photos go to Instagram because the work is visual, and to Facebook because that’s where the local business owners who order from them spend their time. Running both costs almost nothing extra once the photos exist. What costs something is running them inconsistently, with one feed current and the other showing a job from two winters ago.
If you only have time for one, pick the one where your last three customers would find you. For a heating contractor in Muldoon, that’s Facebook. For a bakery on Spenard, it’s Instagram.
Is TikTok worth it for a small business in Anchorage?
For tourism, yes; for most local service businesses, no. TikTok rewards volume and a person on camera, and it sends very little traffic to a website. That’s a fine trade for a tour operator whose customers are deciding between Alaska and Iceland from a couch in Ohio. It’s a poor trade for an electrician whose customers want a phone number and a review.
The family-owned wilderness guiding company we built a site for is a useful counterexample: they don’t run social media at all, TikTok included, and they book trips anyway. Their product is bear viewing, aurora trips, backcountry hikes and winter fatbiking, which is exactly the footage TikTok rewards, and if they ever decide to film it the platform would earn its keep. But today the bookings come from a site built around travel search: every trip has its own page with duration, group size and price shown upfront, and a traveler in Ohio can compare and commit without a phone call. The lesson cuts both ways. Video can create the want, but a website that can’t close the booking makes social reach worthless, and a website that closes well can carry a business that posts nothing.
Our honest take: if nobody on your team is willing to be on camera twice a week, don’t open a TikTok account. An empty account with four videos from 2024 does more harm than no account.
Why is Google Business Profile the platform most businesses neglect?
Because it doesn’t feel like social media, and it’s the only one that shows up when someone in Anchorage searches for what you sell. A Google Business Profile post appears on your listing in Maps and in search results. Reviews answered there affect whether you show in the local three-pack. Photos uploaded there are what people see before they decide to click.
Google posting is the one social-adjacent task we still take on, because it’s search work. For clients like Emerald Peak Dental and Eagle River Storage, a post to the Google profile goes out as part of the monthly SEO work, since an active profile with current hours, fresh photos and answered reviews is what moves a business into the local three-pack. Nobody follows a dentist or a storage facility for fun; plenty of people search for one in Maps. The weekly Google post can be the same one that went to Facebook. If you want to see how it ties into search, our local SEO work in Anchorage starts with the profile before it touches the website.
Try this before you read on: open a private browser window and search your own business name. If the Google panel on the right shows hours from last winter and a photo from 2021, that’s the first thing to fix, not your Instagram grid.
How often should an Anchorage business post?
Two to four times a week on your main platform, every week, including the slow months. Those numbers aren’t arbitrary. Below two a week the algorithms stop showing you to your own followers. Above four, most small businesses start posting filler, and filler trains people to scroll past you.
Consistency is the whole game. The business that posts twice a week for a year beats the one that posts daily for six weeks and then goes quiet until the next slow Tuesday.
What should change with Alaska’s calendar?
The timing, more than the platforms. Three dates matter here that don’t exist in a national social media guide.
- PFD week. This year’s dividend was $1,200 per eligible Alaskan, paid October 1 and October 22 (Alaska Department of Revenue). Retail, auto, furniture and tourism-booking businesses should have their offers scheduled for those weeks, not announced after the money’s spent.
- Cruise and tourism season. Visitor-facing businesses need to be posting in January through April, when trips are being planned, and can ease off in July when they’re busy serving the customers they already won.
- Summer PCS season. Thousands of JBER families arrive between May and August and have no idea which dentist, daycare or mechanic to use. Facebook, GBP and the military-spouse groups are where they ask. A short “new to Anchorage” post series in June costs nothing and reaches people actively choosing.
We covered the winter side of this in our post on winter marketing for Alaskan businesses, including what to post when the daylight disappears and so do the walk-ins.
Should you run social media yourself or hire it out?
Run it yourself, or have someone inside the business run it. That’s our honest position, and it has changed over the years. We used to manage social accounts for clients and have mostly stopped, because the businesses that do well on social are the ones where the owner or an employee is close to the work and posts about it. An agency writing captions about a job it never saw produces the content people scroll past. The real cost is two to four hours a week, every week, from someone who can write a plain sentence and take a decent phone photo.
Where we do fit is the part that touches search. As an add-on to our SEO work we handle Google Business Profile posting, keep hours, categories and photos current, turn each new blog post or finished project into a Google post and a Facebook post, and set up LinkedIn for clients who sell to other businesses. That support is priced with the SEO plan rather than as a separate social retainer. If you want to compare what full social management costs around Anchorage, we wrote a breakdown in what social media marketing costs.
Whichever way you go, the platform decision above comes first. Paying anyone to post on five platforms is just outsourcing the same mistake.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best social media platform for a small business?
For most small businesses, Facebook paired with Google Business Profile is the best starting point, because together they reach local customers and show up in Google search. Visual businesses such as restaurants, salons and tourism should add Instagram. Choose by where your customers already spend time, not by which platform is newest.
How often should a small business post on social media?
Two to four posts a week on your main platform is the range that keeps you visible without producing filler. Posting the same two days each week matters more than the exact number. A business that posts twice weekly for a year will outperform one that posts daily for a month and then stops.
Is Facebook still worth it for business in 2026?
Yes, for local businesses in Anchorage. Facebook remains one of the two most used platforms among U.S. adults, and in Alaska its groups still carry much of the local word of mouth. It’s the right primary platform for service businesses and anything sold to people over 35.
Does my business need TikTok?
Only if someone will film short video at least three times a week and your customers are the kind who discover businesses there. Tour operators, restaurants and personality-driven brands can benefit. Contractors, clinics and professional firms usually get more from the same hours spent on Google Business Profile and Facebook.
How much does social media management cost in Anchorage?
Full social media management in Anchorage is usually sold as a monthly retainer that scales with the number of platforms and whether the agency creates the content or schedules what you supply. Bianca Frank Design doesn’t sell it as a standalone service; we offer Google Business Profile and Facebook posting as an add-on to SEO plans, priced with the plan.
Pick two, show up, and measure one thing
Choose the two platforms from the table that match your customers, close the rest or leave them with a pinned post pointing to the live ones, and post on a schedule you’ll still keep in February. Then pick one number to watch each month: calls from your Google profile, direct messages, or bookings that mention a post. If that number isn’t moving in six months, change the content before you change the platform.
If you’d like a second opinion on which two platforms fit your business, tell us what you sell and who buys it and we’ll give you a straight answer, including whether you need us at all.
About the author. Bianca Frank is the founder and Creative Director of Bianca Frank Design, an Anchorage agency that has designed brands and websites for Alaska businesses since 2007. She holds a BFA in Graphic Design and leads a small in-house team covering branding, web design, SEO and content strategy, with recent work for clients including Nalaquq LLC, the Native Village of Barrow, Solstice Psychiatry and Alaska Geographic. BFD was named one of Anchorage’s best web designers by Three Best Rated (2025) and received UpCity’s Local Excellence and Best of Alaska awards (2022, 2023).
