​I think that social media -- like a lot of things -- comes down to quality and consistency. Some businesses create quality content, but they post infrequently. Others post a lot, but they just seem to throw anything up on the screen. And most businesses just sporadically post mediocre material. 

Occasionally you find a business that consistently posts quality material and it is refreshing to see.

​Although live videos on Facebook bring in what appears to be big numbers, if you dig into the data you find that it is not the viewing fest that it initially seems. For instance, a client recently did a 20 minute live video stream on Facebook. It had a reach of over 10,000 people. 

But when you go into the Insights you can see that only 900 people watched the video for 10 seconds or more. And half of those people never turned on the sound. This means it played automatically, but they were not really watching it. Odds are it fired off while they were looking at something else on their screen or even while they turned away from their screen. 

The average video watch time was 18 seconds. 

​One mistake that I have made and that a lot of people make with social media is getting followers and attention with content that is not yours or that does not address what you do.

First there is the extreme example of businesses and bands that fill their pages with joke memes and fail videos. They get a lot of followers, a lot of engagement, and they can't sell a ticket or a widget to save their lives. 

Then there are the more subtle cases of businesses and bands posting content related to their field or style, but really still promoting the work of others. There are bands that post videos from famous artists they admire. There are businesses that post inspiring videos from famous athletes or motivational speakers. It brings in big numbers and they think they will ride these coattails to a bigger audience for themselves. Then they post one of their own videos and the engagement is no different than before. 

Everyone wants to find that shortcut to a large audience. But really you need to build your own audience. You need to find the people who are interested in who you are and what you do. 

​I have just started experimenting with lookalike audiences on Facebook and am seeing some good results. 

In the Power Editor, you can select a particular audience, such as the followers of your page, and have Facebook create a lookalike audience based on that. In other words, it analyzes the types of people in the audience you selected and creates another audience consisting of people with similar characteristics. It also automatically rules out anyone in the original audience so you are not just putting the same people on the second list. 

You can then target this new lookalike audience with boosts or ads.

I am still learning about this and don't know exactly what criteria Facebook uses in creating the lookalike audience, but in the experiments I have done with clients, the lookalike audience does seem interested in the content we are putting out. 

I should also add that I am targeting the lookalike audiences with pure content posts. In other words, I am not hitting them with a sales pitch. Instead I am targeting them with a song video (for the music clients) or a quote from the clients about their work (music or business clients). 

​Lately I have been experimenting with creating custom audiences on Facebook, specifically the option to target people who have engaged with your page and its content within the last 365 days. 

You need to check your ego at the door with this one because it will not be anywhere near your total number of followers. But there has never been a lot of substance to that stat anyway. 

By targeting just those people who have engaged with your content, you are focusing in on the active followers.

I recently did a small boost (just $1) of a client's post and targeted their content engagement audience. The boost reached an extra 3,000 people and brought in an additional 468 engagements at a cost of less than 1 cent per engagement. 

​What I am not able to figure out is how to see exactly how those engagements broke down. How many were post likes? How many were clicks on "Read more"? How many were clicks on the page name? I am not seeing where I can get a look at that breakdown. If you know how I can access this, please let me know. Thanks. 

"​I've had multiple occasions where it's not just the patient that has this aha moment. It's the third party that's sitting behind them asking them a question. Even if it's, "Where are we going to go eat?" and the patient says, "Well, I don't know. You pick." 

"It's not even connected with the patient in their head that they just heard somebody talking behind them. But then the third party (their daughter or their husband) their jaw just drops. "Oh my God. They can hear me again." That is a very cool thing to witness." - Dr. Fisher of clients Now Hear This Audiology and Hearing Solutions

​I think that one reason I am good at my job is that I am really dull. Many other social media agencies are distracted because their people have lives. They regularly go out to networking events, conferences, and secret parties where you can only get in by knowing a password and a complicated handshake. 

Most of the time I work in my office. When I am feeling wild, I will work at the kitchen table.

One advantage of my dullness is that I am reliable. I spend most of my waking hours with my computer. In some cultures we would be considered married.