Back when I worked in radio, an older DJ gave me the advice, "Start out like you can stay out."
That advice works for social media as well. You have to be able to endure over the long haul. So many bands and businesses create one great post and then have no idea what to say the other 364 days of the year. Anyone can post quotes from famous dead people. What can you personally contribute to the social media conversation?
Post reach and post engagement do not go hand in hand. This screen shot shows the stats for two posts that ran on the same Facebook page. The orange bar and corresponding number show the total reach of each post. The numbers in the column on the far right show the total number of post reactions, comments, and shares.
The first post was just text. The second was text with a photo and some tags of other pages. If you believe that social media is only about gimmicks and knowing the "tricks", then the second post should have gotten way more engagement. After all, it apparently made the Facebook algorithm happy and was thus shown to many more people. But it seems that what you post matters just as much as (if not more than) how you post it. Hence why the first post, which was shown to fewer people, had way more likes, comments, and shares than the second one. Despite the algorithms, hashtags, and boosting options, you are still communicating with people. We have a special needs child. He has multiple physical and mental disabilities. The arrival of teenage hormones made his disorders even more complex. On top of that our local school system does not know what to do with him, so right now we don't even have that help. I used to avoid mentioning any of this to current and potential clients, even when they asked about family. Not out of shame, but because I thought I needed to project the image of the perfect businessman, the guy who is so on top of things that his life is problem-free. But recently I decided to just say screw it. For one thing, any kind of façade is tiring to maintain and a waste of energy. Secondly, I am thinking that my experience with my child shows I have more than a little grit. I have been both figuratively and literally smacked around caring for him, but I am still moving forward. I have been calm and persistent even in the most difficult of times. And theoretically, those are traits you want from someone you work with. Because despite the best intentions, problems will happen. There will be bumps in the road. Meanwhile I've known business people who completely lose it when their beverage order is not right. Trust me. You don't want to work with those people. So yes, my wife and I have a special needs child. Yes, this has meant we've had some really challenging times. But this also means I can handle a challenge and keep moving forward. Cris: What do you think that a lot of marketing people are missing right now? Michael Hourigan of Shoeboxed: In terms of being a good marketer, especially for a tech company like Shoeboxed, the most important thing you can do is be a data-driven marketer. You'll get a lot of marketers who understand the theory and understand building brands, which is exactly what you need to be doing. But at the end of the day, you have to have quantifiable results of the ad campaigns you're running or the social media campaigns you're running. You have to have numbers to back it up. And even before you start them, you have to have projections and hypotheses of what you are looking to accomplish. Instagram launched a feature they call "Instagram Stories". Theoretically this sounds better than "Snapchat Ripoff". Essentially Instagram has added Snapchat functions to their own platform. Thus you can now use Instagram as you would traditionally or as if it were Snapchat.
Snapchat distinguished itself by becoming home to some of the most boring content on the Internet. Insurance seminars are more exciting than most of the material on Snapchat. A select group also liked that your posts disappeared after being viewed on Snapchat. This was a big draw for people who posted obscene hand gestures and occasional nudity, but did not like being sued. Of course, then it came out that all of those disappearing posts were being stored on the company's servers. So the company has a different definition of "disappear" than most people do. Something to consider: While everyone else is chasing perfection, imperfection might be how you stand out from the crowd. - Cris
One of the big trends in social media right now is live video. Mainly this has enabled a number of people to bore their followers in real time. "Yesterday we live streamed these drapes for two hours."
The world is filled with interesting bands, businesses, and individuals. But when you give them the ability to broadcast to the entire world, all most of them can think to say is, "There's Carl. He has trouble digesting dairy." Live video can be great, but first make sure you have something worth broadcasting. - Cris I repeat some mistakes. One is thinking I can increase the quantity of posts and not lose any of the quality. "This time I have a system that works!" But I don't. Instead I return to the same realization: When you try to crank stuff out in assembly line fashion, the quality is going to suffer. Not that every post has to be the equivalent of a culinary masterpiece that takes days to prepare. But it also doesn't have to be like a fast food meal where the frozen burger patty is microwaved, slapped on a bun, and fired out of a drive-thru window. Part of it is the allure of faulty math. One day I get great engagement numbers. Then I think that, if I can double my daily output, I will also double my engagement numbers. But it doesn't work that way. That is like reasoning that if something needs to bake for one hour at 300 degrees, then you will get the same result in just 30 minutes if you dial up the oven to 600 degrees. Put it in a pottery kiln and you can serve it in just 5 minutes 10 seconds. This thinking leads to a disappointing entrée and possibly uncontrollable vomiting. Faster is not always better. - Cris |
AuthorCris Cohen Archives
March 2021
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