Welcome to Sociallee Relevant, this is episode one – the very first episode of our new podcast. We’re so glad you joined us today! We are going to kick this off by actually talking about the number one question that I get in my business. Are you ready? It’s “why isn’t my social media producing anything for my business?”
People come to me all the time and say “I feel like I’m doing all the right things,” “I’m posting here,” “I’m posting there,” “I’m tagging.” They name off this entire list of all these things they’re doing and they are not getting anything out of social media. So, today I’m going to go through a few quick things about how I answer that question: why isn’t my social media producing anything?
Number one: your content is too salesy. You’re posting and every single post is saying buy this, do this, click here, book now. You’re literally beating your followers over the head with, buy this, buy now, book now. Listen, people didn’t come on social media to be sold something; they come on social media to engage, to see stuff that uplifts them, to see something interesting, to see something entertaining. You’re sitting here and just beating them over the head trying to sell them something, that’s the number one way to turn them off. That’s the number one way to get people to unfollow you.
Really look at the content you’re putting out there. Are you consistently trying to sell something? Now, I do agree, you need to have a call to action in some of your posts. I call it the 80/20 rule. 80% of your content should be editorial – by editorial I mean, interesting, feel good, non-salesy stuff. Storytelling, right? 80% needs to be storytelling, 20% needs to have a call to action. Though maybe at the end it is “book your stay now” or “buy this candle here,” but 80/20. So really look at the content that you’re putting out there and if you’re beating people over the head with sales, that’s probably why your following is not growing and in fact, it’s probably why it’s dropping.
Here’s a good example: if you’re a candle company and you’re trying to sell candles, your social media content should not be “hey, buy this candle,” “here’s our new candle, buy it here.” Every single post should not be like that. You’re going to talk more about the scent, what the scent reminds you of, and what the scent is made up of. It’s a cool fresh scent that reminds you of being at the beach. You’re going to turn on the emotion with those posts. Occasionally, you can insert something about buy this candle here, but again, most of it needs to be emotionally driven of what the user is going to feel like when they smell this candle, how it’s going to brighten their home office, or it’s going to smell like Christmas morning inside their house. You’re really trying to turn on the emotion there and that will actually sell the candle. You don’t have to say buy, buy, buy. You turning on the emotion is going to drive that user to want that.
Same thing if you have a restaurant or a bar. You don’t always have to say “come sit at our bar,” “come into the restaurant tonight.” Maybe the person following you isn’t even close to your restaurant. Maybe they’re in California and you’re in New York. Maybe they’re following your restaurant because of the amazing food photos you put out, or they had a special moment at that restaurant, or when they visited your area they loved it. They’re not going to keep following your page if you’re posting about “come to happy hour right now.” You have to give them more editorial content. Maybe give them a recipe of a favorite cocktail that is served at happy hour. That’s kind of an editorial twist, rather than saying “it’s happy hour, come up to the bar.” So, that’s number one, your content is too salesy. Don’t forget the 80/20 rule.
Number two: Your content does not pass the inspire, engage or educate test. Everything you post on social media – doesn’t matter which platform, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, anything – needs to do one of those three things to the user. Maybe it’s inspiring them, you’re sharing a heartfelt story; or if you’re at a beautiful rooftop restaurant, you’re sharing a beautiful photo overlooking the city with an inspirational quote. Something that inspires them too would be something that engages them. Asking them a question of “tell us about your first experience at our resort,” or “tell us about your favorite vacation” – something that’s going to engage your user or educate your user.
This is really good for service providers like doctors – we have a functional medicine practice. Always positioning yourself as an expert and educating people. Educating people on the number one food you need to cut out of your diet. Educating people on the newest social media platforms out there. There are so many different ways you can educate your followers. So, look at the content you’re posting: does it inspire, engage or educate your followers?
Number three: You aren’t being consistent. You’re posting once a month. Maybe you’ll go a couple weeks where you’re posting three times a week or four times a week and then you disappear off the map. Not only do you lose your followers, but there’s an actual algorithm change that happens when you go dormant on your social media.
I call it a momentum factor. If you’re posting regularly and then you fall off the map, it’s almost like you are digging yourself in a hole. When you get back to posting – to get back to that organic engagement – you’ve got to dig yourself out of this hole and get back up to where people are engaging with your content again and people are seeing your content again. You have to maintain consistency.
The momentum factor works with your post engagement. If you have a post that crushes it – you get a post and it goes way up and tons of people like, comment, share – your page is on a high. Then the next day, you post something that’s kind of just plain and boring – I call them “Happy Friday” posts – that totally tanks, you just crushed your momentum. It’s better to put out less content and make it better quality content. So, making sure you are being consistent – not only helps your followers consistently know what to expect from you, but it’s actual algorithm stuff as well. So, number three is to be consistent.
Number four: you’re on the wrong platform. So your social media isn’t producing because you are fishing in the wrong pond. I am based out of Destin, Florida, we are the world’s luckiest fishing village and down here our number one industry is commercial fishing. We have over 150 charter fishing boats down here and we catch a lot of red snapper, amberjack, grouper – but not a lot of salmon. This is not salmon country. If you’re coming down here and you’re looking for salmon, you’re in the wrong spot. I mean, we have salmon down here in our restaurants, but what’s native to this area is not salmon. Same thing on social media. If you’re looking for salmon and you’re fishing in the wrong spot, you might want to check that out.
Here’s a good way to know: Facebook is a big boy, Facebook is actually getting taken over by boomers. If you’re trying to reach Boomers and Gen X, Facebook is where it’s at. Instagram is going to be a little bit of the middle of the road. For a while it was a younger audience, but Millennials are all over Instagram. Gen X is on Instagram – not so many boomers – and there’s a few Gen Z on Instagram as well. Instagram is another big boy, just a great place to have presence.
But let’s talk about Twitter. Twitter gets left out of the conversation a lot because people aren’t monetizing it as much as the other platforms; but Twitter is definitely very heavy on sports content, celebrity, and political content. It’s a heavily male audience on Twitter. Same thing for YouTube. YouTube is covered with men, so that’s something to think about.
Also, TikTok. A lot of people write off TikTok as it’s literally just teenagers, but it’s really actually growing so aggressively that TikTok is becoming a thing. A lot of businesses weren’t taking advantage of TikTok for a while because they thought “oh, these kids are so young,” “the demographic that’s on TikTok is too young to spend money,” “they’re not my buyers.” That’s actually kind of changing. There’s a lot of younger millennials – actually all millennials that are all over TikTok – and their audience is growing so quickly. I saw today that 40% are ages 39 and younger are on the platform and then 20% of TikToks’s users are ages 40 through 49 – so something to think about. TikTok’s users are not as young as people used to think. We’re actually going to do a full episode about TikTok and if your business needs to be on TikTok. So, stay tuned, that’s definitely one of our upcoming episodes.
So last but not least, number five: Your social media isn’t producing because you aren’t utilizing the ads. People originally got into social media thinking “this is a free platform” and they got their head so wrapped around free that when the paid aspect of social media came out they thought, “well, I don’t have to do that, I can post for free, why would I pay for it when I can post for free?” But I think we’ve all learned that the algorithm has us in the palm of their hand, of controlling how many people see our posts unless we want to pay to play. So, using the ads are a crucial part of your social media success.
You really don’t have to spend crazy amounts of money on ads. In the past, print ads and TV can be 1000s upon 1000s of dollars and the beauty of it on social is you pick your own budget. I have clients that legit do $5 a day and they see amazing returns on it. Just by people clicking through to their website to book and buy for just $5 a day. Once I finally convince them to pony up with $5 a day – we’re talking about $150 a month – they actually started seeing a little bit of return so they’re like “wow, okay, Whitney, can you do $10 a day?” Now you’re only talking about $300 a month. This is the cheapest advertising you’ve ever done. This is cheaper than a lot of different platforms.
Don’t feel like you have to put a huge budget into it, but I will say this: make sure you’re using Ads Manager. You can boost a post – here comes another episode topic that’s coming at you very soon – but you are missing out on so much opportunity. If you just hit the boost button, you are missing out on so much of the capabilities that Facebook and Instagram advertising can do – those are the two that I’m specifically talking about with the boost button. You are missing out on so much opportunity if you don’t actually get into the Ads Manager and set up your ads that way. They will be so much more successful and we’ll talk about that in the upcoming episode about boosting versus ads manager and what are the capabilities there so just a quick overhaul.
As a quick overhaul: why your social media isn’t producing any results for you?
- One, you’re being too salesy – don’t forget the 80/20 rule.
- Two, your content does not pass the Inspire, engage or educate test.
- Three, you aren’t being consistent – you’re posting hot and cold. Sometimes you’re posting regularly, other times you’re falling off the map for a month at a time.
- Four, you’re on the wrong platform – go where the fish are, go where your fish are. Look at the demographics. Who’s on each platform and whoever your target audience is, go all in on that platform. You don’t have to be on every single platform out there. Fish where the right breed of fish is, what you’re looking for.
- Five, you aren’t using the ads. Make sure you get into ads manager and really take full advantage of all the things that the ads can do with targeting, with interests, with demographics, all of the above.
So I hope this episode has been incredibly helpful for you. Feel free to reach out to me on Instagram @TheWhitneyLee if you have a specific question or topic and I look forward to seeing you on the next episode.