Time To Rethink Your Social Media Marketing

Every single person for the last five years – or at least the last 2-3 – has been trying to crack some secret social media code that unlocks the floodgates to sales on command via tweet, Facebook post, snap, or Instagram video.

The tough reality is that the code was already cracked years ago, and the people who did so have been reaping the benefits since. The only problem is that everyone is so caught up in trying to reinvent the wheel, they don’t take the time to slow down and take a look at the examples of great social practitioners right in front of them.

Why do fitness models do well when they post pictures of their abs on Instagram? Why do comedians do well when they think up hilarious plays on words and send them into the twitterverse? Why do Facebook marketers who caption their videos tend to do so much better than those who don’t?

Read that again, and remember that it does not say “give the people what you want.”

Therein lies the biggest distinguishing factor between people who are successful on social.

Social, at its core, is about finding content that has an interest audience which also overlaps with your target market for your product or service. In this way, engaging content serves as a natural introduction to your ecosystem and positions you as a content creator, or at least a curator, that people in your niche can get behind.

Just this small transition in mindset when approaching your social media can take you from struggling and spinning your wheels to becoming massively popular in a relatively short window of time.

So the next time you go to plan a social content calendar, think about how you might create the most interesting array of content to make your target audience laugh and learn, and leave mention of your product or service completely by the wayside.

In fact, you’d be surprised how often people will actually come check out your profile and the links there when you genuinely interact with them. But that curiosity has to be earned, and a tweet that just says “Sign up this week for 10% off boots!” isn’t going to do it.

Instead, post some seriously creative pictures of the boots you sell, but with no direct CTA to buy them. Find someone who tweeted about loving boots, and just tweet “hell yeah – we do too!” Find an article about how the leather industry is changing to be more efficient in its creation of tanned goods (not sure where we’re going with that one, but you get the idea!).

With any luck, you’ll have found that, before long, you have a regular dialogue with a group of people who are interested in the same types of things your brand represents. Nurture those relationships and continue to give interesting content without the expectation of getting something in return.

Ironically, being so non-demanding tends to skyrocket the number of people who actually will buy something from you or take a desired action down the road.