Do you use social media purely for entertainment and connecting with friends?  Certainly, there are a large portion of the population who do just that and that is great.  For the rest of us however, we are hoping to increase our business with social media activities.  The problem is that far too many people are not utilizing the opportunity we each have to the fullest.  Worse, many are their own single biggest stumbling blocks.

Social media like any other communication method works best when marketing materials are crafted with a producer’s mindset for their target audience.  Further the message has to be delivered where and how the audience will consume it.

Location Location Location!

Location is not only relevant to the real estate market, but also in marketing.  Most people understand this simple concept when they think of ad placement.  The same is just as true with regards to social media.  Let me ask you a question that might hurt your ego.  Are you currently active on the social media accounts that your target audience is using?  In other words, the demographics of your prospects and clients have established preferences that are easy to find and that should help you determine where you are spending your time on social media.

In polls Bowman Digital Media has asked several ways about the social media usage of our audience, only to hear time and time again how people are allowing their personal preference to dictate what platform they used.  Just recently we asked about the use of TikTok as it is the number one most visited website in the world for 2021.  To our surprise over 50% of the respondents on LinkedIn said they were not on TikTok at all.

Clearly as a producer of content, one of the first things that has to be addressed is that if you are not putting your message out there where your audience is, then you are missing the boat.  Identify where your audience is hanging out on social media and then talk to them on those channels.

One Trick Ponies Do Not Win The Race

Do you like to read posts that look like advertisements from people you do not know on social media?  Truthfully not many do and you likely said no here.  The fact is before someone is really going to be interested in what you say about your product or service, they need to know, like and trust you as a person.  Do not create posts that all resemble advertising.  Do not create all of the same type of content.  Instead mix things up and talk about things going on in your vertical market, current events and give praise to others.

A good analogy for social media is the water cooler at the office.  At the water cooler are you more likely to connect with people on a personal level by only speaking to them about business?  Social media is a place people come to for a variety of reasons, including to make new friends, be entertained, learn new things and as an escape from the pressures of their lives.  The water cooler is where people are looking to take a step away from the pressures of their jobs and let their mind relax.  If you talk to people on social media like you would at the water cooler, you might just be amazed at what a positive impact that can have on your overall success.

Rule of Thumb: Try to talk about what you do 20% or less of the time.  The other 80% of the time talk about everything else.  Ask questions, talk about things outside your products and services.  The more human you come across, the more people will gravitate to you, especially if you are kind and engage with them in their posts.

Engage in Comments More Than You Make Posts

Read the last part of my previous sentence again.  Engage with people on their posts in the comments section.  That is something far too many are not doing at all.  Want to catch the attention of your target audience, the key is to find them where they are and to pay attention to them in the way they desire.  People who make posts crave engagement.  Make friends by being present and talking to them in their comments section and you will not have trouble getting them to connect with you.

You can spend forever trying to craft the perfect post and get very little out of it once you hit the post button, especially if you have a very small following.  If the key is to be seen, then not only should you spend more time commenting on posts than creating posts, you should make sure you are making value added comments on posts that were made by either your target audience or large influencer profiles who have huge followings.  Why?  Visibility of course.  Let’s say you have 500 to 5,000 followers and you spend 15 minutes making a post.  Does that post get seen 100 to 500 times perhaps?  Now consider if you made 15 comments, one minute for each comment because you have to read the posts first and make sure to add value to them.  If you picked a few prospects and a few influencers to make the comments on, you might get views in the tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands in the same time period.  Your ROI for the comments would likely be much higher.  Now if you were to do this over and over day after day, imagine what the cumulative affects would be?

Know the Algorithm Preferences and Adjust for Them

Finally, every platform has an algorithm, a set of rules that help determine what users see or don’t see in their feeds as they scroll.  If you know when you make video posts for example, that not nearly as many people see them as when you make a post with a photo, then you should try not to make video posts, even if that is your preference.  Why?  Again this is not about your ego, nor is it about satisfying your own entertainment quota.  If you are truly here to get your message seen by as many people in your audience as possible, then work with the algorithm.

Want to succeed on social media and stop being your own worst enemy?  Follow the advice I gave here in this article.  Make sure you are on the platforms that your audience is already using.  Pay attention to the type of messages you put out.  Engage with your audience in their posts comments section and when you make posts, make sure it’s both interesting to them and algorithm friendly.

This is not rocket science, but it is science.  If you just want to entertain yourself and blow off some steam, keep doing what you enjoy the most.  If you want to win more clients and influence people, follow the clear set of instructions laid out in this article.  You can thank me later.  Make sure you read all of my blogs here on Bowman Digital Media for more advice on all things relating to marketing and social media.