The Challenge!

[Victor Courville]

The Challenge

 

While social media has added many opportunities, it has also increased the competition for Internet users' attention. There is so much information and entertainment available online now from so many different sources, people are forced to limit their attention. The average Facebook user will have hundreds of friends who will each be posting interesting events in their own lives as well as sharing articles, pictures, video, and audio from a number of different sources. As a result, capturing anyone's attention online is now much more competitive. Even when you do manage to capture someone's attention, holding that attention for any length of time has also become a challenge.

 

For example, YouTube provides "Audience Retention" analytics for popular videos. "Retention" (the measure of how long viewers continue to watch the video after it starts) falls after the first minute or so for most videos. Often, even though people want to watch, they just don't take the time to do so. As evidence for this, I have posted videos on Facebook and received more comments on the post then there were viewers for the video for the same time period. That tells me that some of my friends found the subject matter of the video interesting enough to comment on, but not interesting enough to actually take the time to watch the video.

 

As there is extreme competition for time and attention online now, we must do some research and think carefully to make each and every post we make interesting and attention grabbing. We must go even further and design our posts so that they not only capture attention but elicit responses as well. We want our posts to create conversations. Let's look at some things that will help in this endeavor.

 

Tips For Good Social Media Posting

 

Set Goals. As with any other personal or business endeavor, it is important to have a plan. You cannot have a plan until you identify your goals. So, as with anything else, set your goals and make your plans. Your plans should evolve into a series of tasks that help you reach your goals. For example, your goal at first may be to create a friend base on your personal social media profiles. Then, you can tackle creating a fan base for your business brand page(s). Perhaps you are not concerned about your personal friend base and just want to jump straight into building a fan base for your business brand page. Your particular strategy will depend upon a number of personal factors. The important thing is to know...and always keep in mind...what you are trying to accomplish.

 

Each post should be a stepping stone toward your goal. Each post should fit into your overall plan. If you cannot articulate to yourself how a given post will fit into your plan and help you achieve your goal, then you should rethink the post.

 

Manage Your Identities. 'Identities on social media' is a very broad subject that could take up a whole book. The short of it is that you will likely display more than one identity in social media. Your personal identity, expressed on your personal profiles, may be different from your business identity expressed on a particular brand page. Some people manage to integrate these very well so that they become essentially the same identity. Others like to keep personal and business matters separate. Some people, like myself, have more than one business. I, along with others who have multiple business ventures, struggle to keep identities separate at times...and it is not always easy.

 

This is not to say that your business identity has to be impersonal and staid. To the contrary, it often works best to make your business identity appear quite personable. But, it is wise to keep lines between your personal and business identities, even though both may appear quite personal. As a person, you may want to share your opinion on things that may at times alienate others who have a different opinion. If you are like me, you will find it difficult at times not to do that. But, keep that on your personal profile and away from your brand pages so that you do not alienate potential customers of your business.

 

You should keep the concept of identity in mind when building and maintaining your social media presence and in making every post. You do want your posts, even on your brand pages, to express an identity—hopefully a very likeable one—but not necessarily your unfiltered personal identity. As we have discussed and will discuss more later, your strategy should include knowing what to post where among your social media accounts.

 

Write To Your Readers. Not only is your identity important, but the identities of your subscribers is important as well. As with any communication, always be aware the audience to whom the communication is directed. This was a truism of effective communication long before the Internet or Social Media existed and holds true still in regard to composing social media posts. You have points that you want to make, but you want your subscribers to identify with you first so that they will listen to the points you have to make. Keep your audience in mind and say things that not only reveal your identity, but with which they will identify as well. Post on subject matters that interest your audience and then lead those conversations in your desired direction.

 

Be Witty at Times. For your posts to capture attention, they must often be witty. It is tempting when posting on your business brand pages to always be serious. You are serious about your business and you want your customers and potential customers to be serious about it as well. While you should always be professional in your business identity, that does not necessarily mean you must always be dead serious. Many top Internet businesses have maintained a very easygoing, witty style of communication on their Websites. The Internet, being cold and technical in its structure, is made more human when it bears light-hearted, fun communications. This holds even more in social media. Also, there is a certain honesty that appears to arise from more relaxed business communication. It puts your potential customers more at ease.

 

So, in both your personal and business posts, you should strive for an appropriate amount of wit. Let's take a moment to examine how to do that.

 

"Wit" is a combination of intelligence and humor. To be intelligent, a post should make some clear, incisive, useful observation. To be humorous, the post must have an element of surprise. Both humor and intelligence involve revealing truth. Often humor involves an unexpected twist in a train of thought revealing a very simple truth that was not expected by the reader. Think of these principles when phrasing what you have to say. Identify the truth that you want to bring to your readers' attention and then start out in a way that does not make it obvious where you are headed. Start in a different direction and then take a humorous twist to get to your point.

 

Do not just copy jokes as your status updates. First think of something that you want or need to communicate and then take a moment to think how it could be expressed in a clever fashion. Do not use wit or humor all the time. That would take too much effort on your part and would begin to wear thin on your subscribers. Use wit frequently, but not always.

 

Use Interesting Words and Phrases. Much of what we have discussed in earlier lessons about using strong, attention grabbing words and phrases, continues to apply here as well. Anytime you compose a post, take a minute to think if there are stronger, more powerful words you can use to express the same meaning but with more impact. Also, ask yourself if there is a more interesting way to phrase your thought.

 

Here's a couple of examples of wit and phrasing being used properly:

 

Instead of saying:

 

I really enjoyed that piece of chocolate cake but I shouldn't have eaten it.

 

You could instead say:

 

That delicious chocolate cake I've just eaten is at odds with the thin, sexy me I have planned.

 

Instead of saying:

 

It's that time of the year to get back to the gym, but I'm just too lazy to go just yet.

 

You could say:

 

I would go to the gym, but I'm trying to perfect my 'before picture'.

 

Start a Conversation. Deep down, we all want to be the 'Oracle on the Mountaintop', who sets out nuggets of wisdom that our readers will then contemplate on their own, enhancing their self-fulfillment. As tempting as that is, think of this...people only visit an oracle once or twice in their life, if at all! Even if you could pull it off, it is hardly the way to start or grow business relationships. Social Media is about conversations. In fact, it has been interesting to watch as Facebook has recently pushed things in that direction. More and more, Facebook only makes your posts immediately visible to those with whom you have had recent conversations. As there is commercial value in the ability to broadcast information to large audiences, Facebook is cutting back on your ability to do that as a free subscriber. So, more and more it is becoming important, for a number of reasons, to be more conversational in your social media posts. The more comments you receive on your posts, the more 'edgerank' Facebook gives it, resulting in more visibility.

 

Thus, plan ahead when you make a post. Ask yourself, "what conversation will follow from this?" Ask yourself what conversation you want to follow from a post and compose that post with that purpose in mind. Most importantly, follow up and respond to comments that are made on your posts. It is a conversation that you started, you should help to keep it going. In fact, you should have in mind the direction you want that conversation to go, leading it in that direction with your subsequent comments. Which bring us to our next tip.

 

Know Where You are Headed. Let's say you have a point to make on your personal profile that you believe will enhance your business relationships and will lead people to your brand page and ultimately your Web page. Think for a moment over the techniques we have discussed above. Since you are starting a conversation, you don't have to do it all in the initial post. Think of something that will start the conversation that will lead to the point you want to make. This opens the door for even more techniques, such as being mysterious, creating suspense, using 'headlines', which you can use in building to a point in steps.

 

Which brings us to a good stopping point for this lesson. We have many more tips and techniques for effective social media posting to discuss, but will continue with the discussion in the next lesson. See how many of them you can come up with as well. Creativity is a process more so than it is learning set procedures and techniques. Between now and the next lesson, experiment with the techniques above and see how many more naturally follow. You can then compare your list to ours in the next lesson.

 

Conclusion

 

While social media adds to the tools we have available online, it contributes (by increasing the number of things that people see online each day) to the extreme competition for time and attention online these days. To be competitive for this attention, we must set goals, create plans, and be thoughtful as to how the posts we make will further our plans. Tips for effective posting include managing our online identities while being mindful of the identities of our connections. We should use wit, interesting words and phrases, and start conversations that have a particular direction. The direction of those conversations should ultimately make and reinforce points that will help us reach our goals.

 

What's Coming Next

In our next lesson, we will continue the discussion of effective social media posting. We will add to our list of tips on what to post and where to post it to maximize your social media marketing.

 

Victor Courville

 

 

[Chemical Free Living]

An enjoyable read. Got quite a bit out of it. Thank you for posting.

 

- Dan