Social media continues to be the town hall of marketing for most authors. It’s a landscape that has pros and cons and is in a constant mode of change. It’s a new year and time to do a review of what you are doing in the wide, wide world of social media.
Below are 5 Social Media Tips to start now … or continue doing. And there are 5 Social Media Oh-Ohs … meaning “be on alert” … change is always in the air.
Let’s start with smart things to do, starting now.
-
Social Media Tip #1: Always be thinking—build your community. LinkedIn and Facebook Groups offer opportunities to engage with your followers, customers, and colleagues in real and asynchronous time. Secondary and niche social media formats and forums offer similar opportunities.
-
Social Media Tip #2: Engage, Engage, Engage. You have opinions, views, ideas, strategies, tips … what are they? Share them. As a result, you surface new perspectives and opinions. Caution: Unless you are writing or positioning in politics and religion—avoid them. Yes, plenty will agree with you … and plenty will take you on. When you enter topics that carry “weight” with them, social media trolls can find you and most are downright nasty—is that what you want? Bet you don’t.
-
Social Media Tip #3: Create and share content beyond your list of readers. That means cross-posting into Pinterest Boards, Instagram hashtag mania, Facebook groups, and like-minded/interested colleagues. Create a blog around a post. Repush it out on your platforms with short, catchy lines to draw attention to it. Tap into using specific hashtags, such as #Weekend for a Friday-Saturday-Sunday post; add an image for Saturday and use #Caturday or a Monday #MeowMonday; for Tuesday posts, use #TipTuesday for an awesome insight you have; or on a Wednesday, add #WisdomWednesday to your sage advice; and don’t forget Thursday—it’s a top day to post on. Use #ThursdayThoughts to coattail on news that might be trending and #ThinkPostiveThursday with a great poster you’ve made.
-
Social Media Tip #4: Target your posts to micro-segments. Create lookalike audiences to tap into social media data. Who are your comparables and competitors? Create posters. Always use hashtags. Discover Hashtagify.me and www.BigBangRam.com to dig up other hashtags that are like your main ones and that have followers.
-
Social Media Tip #5: Respond to comments followers make quickly. That doesn’t mean next week. Do it on the same day—which means you need to at least check your social media channels personally … or have a virtual assistant help you in monitoring—alerting you if you need to respond. Thank them. If appropriate, offer additional info that will be helpful. It’s all about engagement.
There are also pullbacks … factors that could zap and limit your progress. Your 5 Oh-Ohs include:
-
Social Media Oh-Oh #1: The “big boys” can alter their algorithms or guidelines without notice—as in overnight. Facebook has “change” in its middle name. One week, it’s all about the business page; the next week it’s out of favor. changes how it highlights business branded content and advertising in the NewsFeed and other areas without notice. Be aware … and be cautious.
-
Social Media Oh-Oh #2: It’s about money … free turns to a fee. Just a few years ago, your Facebook page was visually in play to all … not now. Unless you have HUGE traffic with comments to your posts, you are lucky to have a dozen who see what you post out in their feeds. To goose, those numbers, get out your credit card. It’s called boosts—pay for it. And paid advertising. If you don’t, your visibility plummets. Each of the major platforms is changing their “games” and adding new tweaks to add to the engagement factor. You can add videos to Twitter; you can create a YouTube channel (it is the #2 search engine—are you one it?)—I’ve added all my podcasts—500 of them—to YT for listening and findability in 2021; if you are on Pinterest, revisit and upgrade. Do this for any platform you are on … and do a Google search: “new strategies for using _______”.
-
Social Media Oh-Oh #3: Are subject to outside manipulation … aka FAKE posts. Geez, social media has been alive with phony posts created by fake participants targeted to profiles based on WHAT you share in your personal information and the types of posts you have used in the past. That means you need to do an ongoing monitor of WHO your friends and followers are. Sigh.
-
Social Media Oh-Oh #4: The top influencer can dive to the bottom of the barrel. Social media comes and goes. Instagram and Pinterest are hot this year. Facebook is still huge but pooh-poohed by many who are betting it will go the way of MySpace and Digg. It’s deep in negative controversies and problems. New platforms pop up all the time to lure you in. the vigilant author needs to KNOW where their readers and customers are hanging out. It changes … sorry about that. It’s all about #2 ENGAGE … you gotta find them, connect with them, engage them.
-
Social Media Oh-Oh #5: Platforms disappear or just dwindle in favor. Google+ shut down in March of 2019 with multi-millions scratching their heads—what the heck happened here? Others’ “sell-by dates” came and users migrated to newer and shinier platforms. It happens. Be on alert.
What say you?
