I live and breathe marketing. I love everything about it, from research and deep discovery to strategising and creating quality content, whether that’s for social media, search or email. We always focus on marketing to people over just key metrics which bring and add more often than not no value.
A vast area of confusion for many is social media.
I’ve seen lots of trends come and go, and I’ve also seen crucial components last the test of time. The power of social media amazes me every day, as does the amount of noise it generates. However, filter out the cat memes and what someone has eaten for breakfast, and social media’s networking ability is unrivalled. And it’s all at the touch of anyone’s fingertips.
From understanding the data of a page and day-to-day social listening aspects to how to post and understanding how to increase both our own and our clients’ reach, I face lots of questions.
One of which seems to occur more often than not.
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How Often Should I Post on Social Media?
I could answer this question a hundred ways, but the critical factor always focuses on quality vs. quantity.
There’s no golden rule when it comes to posting content. No secret formula exists to unlock social media greatness.
Every social media channel has a different user base, a different algorithm, and a different set of rules. Therefore, each social network should be treated separately, delivering its own set of quality content and personal goals. What works for some will not necessarily work for others.
Focus on Marketing to People
You know your product or service inside and out — or at least you should. And so, creating a buyer persona should be a reasonably straightforward task for any marketer.
Develop your knowledge and understanding of that persona.
What role do they play in their company?
Who are they as a person?
Are they the C-Level?
A decision-maker?
What do they struggle with on a day-to-day basis?
“How can I provide value to this person?”
The one thing you shouldn’t think about is the sale. It’s very easy at this stage to jump straight in with sales-tactics and jargon that will most likely result in a zero click-through and engagement rate.
Your goal shouldn’t be to sell them on anything. The goal is to gain trust through your content and to focus on marketing to people.
Quality Outranks Quantity
As with most aspects of social media marketing, the quality of your content will far outperform quantity. Lots of vanity elements exist in social media. One of the most common is paid followers and views, and many of the leading networks are taking internal action to fix this.
What would you rather have? A hundred highly engaged, influential followers, who interact with the content you take the time to create and publish, or 10,000 followers with zero interaction?
The overwhelming response is 100 engaged followers.
However, vanity plays a considerable part in a business. Investing in social bots that are just there to make numbers up is an entirely pointless and vain process.
The investment in paying for those followers could quite quickly generate brand awareness, but little else will come from vanity metrics. In fact, it’s reasonably obvious when followers are purchased. This is especially true when a Twitter account has 75,000 followers but no interaction on any of the tweets.
It’s Not Faceless
The best business social media accounts show their personalities. They’ll sometimes offer behind-the-scenes information, or they’ll show the face behind the business. Doing this successfully will generate serious engagement.
“People do not buy goods and service. They buy relations, stories and magic.” — Seth Godin.
Quality Content vs. Quantity
I almost always highlight the impact of posting nothing but URL driven posts.
Social networking is no different from any other form of networking. If you approach with an all-out sales approach, the likelihood is you won’t sell much. The same applies to social media.
Understand your followers, listen to them, and nurture the content you create and share.
In summary, if you’re providing quality content to your social media followers, engagement comes naturally. By having your focus on marketing to people, it’s highly likely that your audience will remember you and your business when they require your products and or services.
If you’re publishing posts in large quantities with lots of links, expect minimal interaction, unless you already have a large following.
The key to any successful social media marketing campaign is remembering that quality content and followers win over quantity every time.
