Most businesses that I consult with, tell me that they are just not having the success that they thought they would on social media. It seems like no matter what they do, their followers are just not reacting quick enough to the posted content. There is a feeling of wanting to give in, and give up permanently. I have heard expressions like “I am ready to throw in the towel” or “the fish are not biting, its time to pull up anchor”. While this could be due to many reasons, one of the things you do not want to do, is to lose patients and give up on social media. After all, there is too many fish in the sea to give up after a failed outing. Come to think of it, there have been many failed attempts for some businesses. But this is still no reason to give up hope.
Let’s use the fishing for example. How many of you will give up fishing, just because you had a lousy day out at sea? Or maybe your favorite watering hole was unproductive. Would you still give up your investment, and throw away your fishing poles, tackle, cast nets, or even sell off your boat? There is no possible way, you would do this. You would just come back another day, try another place to fish, or even try a different type of lour or tackle. Let’s admit, you would use anything that will work, as long as you could get those fish to bite.
Social media is the same thing. The benefit of fishing for humans, over fish is that you have a better chance at hooking a human, than you do a fish. Well, maybe that’s not a good illustration. Who want’s to be considered a fish, or even being hooked? Ok let’s continue. Using the analogy of fishing, we have established that there is no possible way that your going to give up fishing, because you had a bad day. You will keep trying and trying until you can take that selfie of you and this big fish that you caught. No more stories, about the fish that got away. Because you decided to keep pressing on, you landed your big fish, and it boosted your confidence, didn’t it?
WE WANT TO BUILD YOUR CONFIDENCE
Yes, that is our mission. We are going to get you excited about social media again by providing some great tips that you can start using today. So no more sulking because the fish just aren’t biting. Its time to build your confidence back up and try something different. What am I going to say that you haven’t already heard? Well try the top 5 ways for creating excellent content that will engage your fish, I mean audience.
#1. Use a diverse amount of content
If every piece of content you deliver on Facebook has the same look and feel, it stands to reason that your fans will begin to pass them over for content that looks different and more interesting.
To make your Facebook page more engaging, share your content in a variety of forms. Experiment with photos, videos, links and questions, then track the engagement in Insights to see which types of posts do best. Choose your top-performing post types and include a variety of each in your updates.
To avoid creating a news feed that appears to serve up more of the same content fans have already seen, Storify includes both large photos with descriptions and smaller images with linked articles in their updates.
#2. Subscribe to Lifestyle-related Blogs
Does your Facebook content strategy include a lot of lifestyle postings? Then repeat step #6, above, but subscribe to your target market’s lifestyle related blogs. Again, make a list of 10-20 related blogs (search for them on google, or technorati). Create a news feed for them, using a reader.
Regularly reading your personalized lifestyle news will give you tons of inspiration for your business Facebook updates. (Just try to NOT spend too much time reading it everyday! Posting to Facebook is your work, and you do need to keep focused!)
#3. Use #hashtags to generate a variety of distribution
Select hashtags that are specific to your product or services. You can create hashtags that are based upon the name of your company, but you limit yourself to the amount of people that are going to see your content. People are more inclined to click on hashtags that are relevant to a particular subject rather then a particular business.
What is an good example of a hashtag? Let’s say you own a boat repair company. A descriptive hashtag that would be used by multiple companies, and increase the amount of distribution of your post could be #loveyourboat or #loveourboat. Many different brands or services could be tied to this hashtag, and thus expose your brand to a larger audience, that are already viewing those hashtags.
Keep in mind, do not over use hashtags on your posts. As they do get annoying and distract from the content that you have posted. Suggest using up to 3 hash tags per post.
#4. Plan on using video related content.
From time to time, it would be ok to share links from video sites such as You Tube or Vimeo. However, you will want to keep in mind that the amount of views for shared links is limited. Facebook will prioritize video’s that are uploaded directly their platform.
Suppose you do not have video to upload directly to Facebook. Your not good at taking your own video’s and its just way to expensive to hire a professional videographer. Well do not fret. There are companies you can get business related content for FREE.
You may also download video from Pixabay, but keep in mind there is a limit to the types of video you can download. But if you have a little bit of cash to spend there are other places you can download video from. Such as Fotolia and Istock. There is also Getty images. I have had to use video from these places from time to time, and they are quality video’s that will easily impress your audience.
#5 Post articles from blogs or sites that publish content directly related to your product or services.
Let’s admit it, there are times when we just cannot blog or come up with creative content to post to our social media pages. We turn to outside sources for our articles. My suggestion is to read those articles, if possible. Then add a comment to the post, or a question. Then use some type of call to action for the audience to read the post. Make it intriguing and interesting enough that will want your audience to read that article.
Check to ensure that the article shows up well on your page. Not articles have pictures, so you will want to ensure that the article links up well to a photo related to the article. Use fresh and exciting articles from sites like Reddit, Google Trends or Mode. Facebook even has instant articles that you can set up. So you are not without great content to post. Just make sure it is relevant. If its not directly relevant, then figure out a way to tie it back into the product or services you provide.
BOTTOM LINE
Its at the end of your fishing trip and you have found that changing the way you go about catching fish had changed your perspective. You no longer feel like giving in. Matter of fact, you have enough confidence to take up fishing as a profession. Now, this is the type of reaction that we want to see. There is nothing worse then lack of confidence. If you use these 5 tips in your social media watering hole, I guarantee your success. Keep in mind, with anything you have to be consistent, and patient. Do not give up, soon you will find that the fish are biting more frequently. Eventually the big fish will come along, and all your trials and errors will payoff.
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