Don’t sell, don’t tell… but engage! People like to be social.
The word “social” has two definitions:
1. activities in which people spend time talking to each other or doing enjoyable things with each other
2. liking to be with and talk to people, happy to be with people
The word “media” is a form of the word “medium” which refers to “forms of mass communication.” If you’re a fan of the hit TV show Madmen, you’ll have heard the word medium morph into media as the show enters into the 1970’s era. From there on the word “stuck” and is used today to describe forms of communication to the masses.
When you put Social Media together you should get a culmination of the two words. Most businesses who use social media don’t take into account the definition of the word “social” and instead focus on the masses and getting their word out – any word.
Successful social media is about engagement.
Its sparking an emotional response in the people who see your posts. The objective of social media is to get your posts liked, shared and commented on. This is called “going viral”. The more likes, shares and comments, the more “viral” your post is. The more of your posts that go viral, the more you are growing your viral marketing efforts because other people are sharing your content.
Here are top content topics in social media elicit the highest shares, likes and comments:
1. motivation
2. inspiration
3. humor
4. meaningful giveaways
5. recipes
6. DIY home decor, kid, craft and holidays projects
Search around Facebook for pages that have a lot of likes and look through their posts. Also, begin to notice what posts you are liking and sharing and see what your friends are liking and sharing. This will help you to formulate your own theme or campaign of posts.
When you post always be asking yourself:
“is this share worthy or is this just information I want to blast out to everyone?”
“is this encouraging engagement and if so how?”
“what emotional response is this going to bring about?”
The next time you’re out “being social”, such as having coffee, lunch or drinks with friends. What are you talking about? What are you laughing about? Take notice of the conversation, the atmosphere and then put your creative juices to work on how you can create that same environment on your social media pages.
One final note… don’t be obsessed with the number of overall fans and followers you have. Over time that will grow. There are people and businesses out there who can buy you likes and fans and those are called “vanity followers”. It is far better to have less fans that you have influence over, than thousands of fans you that could care less about you.
In future posts we’ll talk more about social media and creating circles of influence as opposed to high numbers of followers that you’re not reaching.