Is your audience captivated by your social media marketing?

I'm going to start with a situational analogy to really paint a picture of a mistake many of us in business make all the time.

Let's set the scene. You are out on a first date with a friend of a friend who you know just a little bit about.  You sit down at a nice restaurant and begin your evening by ordering drinks and start engaging in the typical first date conversation. "What do you do for a living?" or "Where do you work?" would generally be one of the first questions asked, and subsequently probing questions to get a better understanding of the ins and outs of that.  For this example we are going to say this individual is a doctor.  A doctor!  "What kind of doctor" you ask?  "A Pulmonologist" they answer.  "What does a Pulmonologist do?"  Their eyes light up and you can instantly tell they love what they do because over the next 60 minutes they describe what they do, how they do it, and tell you about a few crazy stories and testimonies revolving around their work. Many of the terms they use seem to be standard terms they use every day, but you've got no idea what they mean and there's no way you're going to ask.  This whole time they've somehow missed the glazed over look in your eyes, and haven't picked up on the fact that you've not asked a single question since "What does a Pulmonologist do?".  At the end of the evening you part ways and the other individual leaves thinking this was a great date and there will for surely be a second, while you had been counting down the minutes for the date to be over and not have to see them again. What went wrong here?

The issue here is not talking about what they do, it's that in their passion for what they do, they started data-dumping and going way more in-depth than the person they were talking to cared to know, or could understand.

How often do we do this in our day-to-day conversations with others?  Speaking for myself, I do it all the time because I'm passionate about what I do and know that our service could be beneficial to so many people and I just want them to understand that! The problem is, that if someone isn't interested or they lose interest, then nothing I say will ever be heard.  

Now, let's segway this to social media marketing for your business.  

The way social media algorithms work, is they use more than 1/2 a million different factors to determine what someone likes and what they don't like.  It then uses this data to determine who will see any given social media post from their followers.  If the algorithm doesn't see enough connecting data points to say that the individual will probably like the post, it's not going to show it to them. Not only that, it will only show it to around 10% of the people who have enough data points at first to test if they interact with it or not.  If they don't interact, then it is extremely unlikely to show it to anyone else. If enough people do interact with it, then it will show it to more people, and so on.

The goal with your social media feed as a business, should always be to get as many people seeing your posts as possible.  This means that you have got to take a step back from what you get excited to talk about, and generate content that your target demographic will engage with. You've got to know who you're selling to, why they typically choose to do business with you, what they like about you versus your competition, and what keeps them coming back. Generally speaking, people connect with YOU first, then once that relationship is established they are more likely to use your service. This is why we recommend that most businesses keep a large portion of their social media feed personal, or very relationally based. Some post ideas can be: employee spotlights, behind the scene photos, community involvement, family, pets, hobbies, etc. that can all be used to help generate connections with your followers. I know many business owners have a very hard time with this, especially if you naturally like to keep business and personal separate.  Regardless of your personal preference, social media is not all about business, and if you keep it that way it's not going to do anywhere near as much for you as it should, would, or could.  

Second segway: why having someone outside of your company writing your posts can be helpful. As discussed above, it's extremely easy to get caught up in what you're passionate about and at times really hard to look at things objectively regarding what is being posted on your social media feed. Again, social media marketing is all about building connections and getting people to know who you are, and at times, that means posting things you don't personally like posting about simply because it will build these connections. Having someone who is able to stay objective about the content and strategy will help keep you from slipping back into the data-dumping, boring, business-related posting habit, that ensnares so many business owners. Additionally, having an outside agency manage your social media will help make sure that when you are too busy, or don't have the desire to come up with your own posts, quality, intentional content is still going out.  

If you'd like to learn more about how Manski Media can help with your social media marketing, simply schedule a free consultation or call us at (541) 257-8833 and we will evaluate what you're currently doing, what you could be doing better, and if we are the right fit to help you achieve your goals via social media.  

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