Good morning! Do you have one minute to read and one hour to do? If so, you can improve your small business’ marketing in a big way. Each week, we will provide new ideas. Grab your morning beverage and let’s get started:
This Week: Take This Test to See if Your Social Media Posts Are Interesting
Social media posting is more like being a writer for a magazine than about selling a product. Granted, if done well, you will increase sales, but that’s not what it’s all about. It’s about sharing information that helps to form a relationship with our target audience. To do that, you must share interesting information. Here’s a test to see how you are doing.
Follow these two steps to find out if your social media posts are interesting.
STEP ONE
Examine your social media posts from last month. Do too many sound like ads?
Look at posts from your social media page from the last month. How many of them look like a straight-up advertisement? In other words, you are talking about your wonderful product. You may even have a call to action. These should never total more than 30% of your posts. What is your percentage? If it is too high, start trying to post about other related topics and work towards the 30% marker.
Think of the person you meet at the cocktail party that only talks about themselves. With an absence of give and take in the conversation, you probably will not stand there and listen very long. Social media is the same. More often than not, you must give something of value in your posts that is more than just talking about your product.
STEP TWO
Are your posts interesting?
Now, of the hopefully other 70% of posts that are not about your product, how many are interesting? A good test is to see if the following adjectives could apply to the information you imparted in your description: Is the post either entertaining, educational or inspirational? The last two are easy to spot. The first adjective is harder.
I try to think of myself showing the post to a magazine editor. Hopefully they won’t say, “Boring!” As long as you are not putting people to sleep, you have a wide latitude in which to operate. Use your imagination!
Payoff: Do this test regularly and you won’t see those frustrating unfollows in your weekly analytics. Your audience will stay with you and, I daresay, start interacting. At this point, you are beginning to be in a relationship with them and because of that, they are no longer considering buying from others. They are probably even looking at your product posts. Now, keep being interesting and sales will follow!
Want a new bit of marketing each week? Subscribe to the Morning Mark. Like our simple-but-proactive approach to marketing? Visit us at smallbizbrands.com.
