Social Media is latest cliché in the realm of the internet, and mythical creatures called “social media experts” are at peak of their fame. I think it’s foolish how some people are tricked by these titles. There really isn’t much to know about social media, and anyone can use it. It’s very easy actually.
The Human Way
I published a post about carpets, nice beautiful Persian carpets. It was a perfectly fine post with plenty of information in it. I lovingly posted it on Twitter and Facebook, hoping to get huge response from my audience. Unfortunately, I didn’t get much of a response at all. Sounding familiar?
Information is obvious. Wikipedia is great at telling me all about carpets so why in world would I come to you? It’s big – information is everywhere. Why should I come to you?
You are the Best Thing About Your Blog
What’s unique about you? You know the answer. You are the answer! You are unique. Your experiences and your life are all unique; your perception of carpets and how to maintain them is even unique.
Because you are you and you have your own unique voice, I will come to you. I will read your blog over someone else’s because I find you more engaging, convincing and even entertaining. But I have to be able to find you first, of course.
FreelanceFolder is great at engaging with their audience. They actually talk to their readers (keep in mind, they have thousands of them) and see them as other human beings. If you tweet them a question, they will answer. Tweet them a joke, they will laugh. I love the work on their Facebook fan page. After promoting their post they will ask you your favourite ice-cream! No human could resist that. Do you communicate with your audience like this?
The Context
Content was king. Too many kings came around, so context took over. Everyone knows what blogging is, and if I want to learn about it, I’ll go to the one who tells me about it in the way I love and I will most likely share it.
The only catch is, you have to show me your blog. I can’t learn from you if I don’t know about you, so that’s where social media comes in. To help me find you and your own unique voice.
Write me (your reader) something funny or something I can laugh at and I will post it on my Facebook and tweet about it. I really don’t mind that I’m promoting for you either. Give me something I can share with my friends. That’s what social media is.
Be funny or clever. These type of posts, updates, and shout-outs work the best:
- Funny: Jim Gaffigan
- Sexy: Megan Fox
- Cute: Sleeping baby, or a pet
- Teaching: Alex Fraiser
You don’t have to be Megan Fox to promote your blog. But, with a little help from her (and the use of clever headlines, images and maybe some Photoshop edits), I see a viral social media post. Put Jim Gaffigans’ humor in your headline, combine it with an interesting topic, and you have a potential Digg homepage hit!
I want something entertaining and if you are that – you are also a Social Media Rockstar.
False Promise of Social Media
If you think you can earn millions from Social Media, forget it! It was never really made as a source of income, but as a source of communication and the start of new friendships. It was built for genuine people who want to talk as humans and make connections. Build relationships and a community around your brand. If you can just do that much, the rest will be taken care of and your audience will see to it.
Does social media promise success and money? No! It promises people. Real people. Now, what you do with them will determine your fate. Treat them like friends and they will respect you. Treat them like a statistic, and they will lost whatever interest they had in you.
So if you are looking for increase in traffic – leave social networks alone. If you are looking for friends who *might* see your new post – you are made for social media.
Entertain Me
I know I’ve said it earlier but since it is so important and so many people get it wrong, I am repeating it. Entertain people if you want to go viral on social media sites. Why do you think the entertainment topics over at Digg flourishes?
Make a funny video and post it. Crack a stupid joke, or ask a question. If you can’t entertain them, they will find someone else to entertain them.
Remember: to you, anything you write on social media sites may just be a mighty campaign to promote your blog product. But to your audience, it’s pure entertainment!
Remember #moonfruit trending on twitter? They were giving away MacBooks. People weren’t interested in MoonFruit necessarily, they were interested in a free MacBook! Bribery works! It’s a form of entertainment, and I know that campaign did wonders for the company.
Tell a story
People love stories. And people love happy stories. Be positive in your approach. You can use dark humor, but at the end – it should make your reader feel better about themselves. Making the crowd unhappy isn’t always the best approach when it comes to marketing a product. However, If I am unhappy and can relate to your unhappy story then I might sympathize. But again, negativity and trying to sell a product do not work at all.
Make me hopeful or happy or passionate and I’ll buy your product this instant.
If you entertain me with sad story turning happy and you tell me that your service/product did that, then I’ll buy it.
It doesn’t take an expert to do this all. Just a Facebook friend with good intents, or a Twitter tweep with a rockin’ audience.
In the End (Err… Beginning)
In nutshell, treat your social network profiles (for your blog) like your personal account. Be friends with your fans, talk to them – make it social. Social media is about building a community, not obnoxiously marketing your blog. Once you become friends with your fans, they will be more likely to spread your content, so it kind of works out for you in both ways there.
These were my tips and take on social media. Now I want to hear from you. What’s your approach to social media?
The Discussion
Leave a Comment Read Again?Yo, Yo, King! You are madly optimistic! The one takeaway that I got from this is that social media is about asking interesting questions. Thanking people for RT’s becomes monotonous… I’m thinking about developing a question of the day to be answered in 140 characters or less. When someone RT’s, I ask that question. It’s like a little bonus for sharing my content.
Nice article, dude!
.-= Nick Tart´s last blog ..Interview: Adam Horwitz, Dude with Two 6-Figure Businesses =-.
To Nick!
Guess what? It’s getting worse! Now I am ‘madly aprriciative’ haha!
Yea man, that really works, asking questions genuinely and un-annyoingly makes other person interested in you coz you are interested in you. That works great for long terms.
I usually engage in coversation with my clients talking about their interests and them, this give me better insight for design and yea, a regular client who brings in more clients (‘advocate’).
Thanks man!
.-= King Sidharth´s last blog ..Why ‘King’ Sidharth – the Secret Behind ‘King’ =-.
What is an RT?
Trust me, If I Made a funny video and posted it, it would be FUNNY! I’m working on an idea to do training videos for my site. But boy will they take a lot of time. It’s basically taking my ebook and turning it into short quick vids. May take off, might fall flat. Who knows?
Hey Richard!
Haha! Let’s see the Funny videos then
It won’t take much time, you don’t have to be perfect … you just have to be. You know what I mean?
That’s a superb idea man! Turn your ebook to video series! Nice XD
Lemme know when you have it up and about.
.-= King Sidharth´s last blog ..Why ‘King’ Sidharth – the Secret Behind ‘King’ =-.
Great article bro !! we should treat our social network profiles as a Personal Profile.
There are many people though who only use social media for self promotion.
If i start using my social networking profiles for self Promotion than i can get thousands of visits but not a single real friend/follower/subscriber.
It’s better to have ten real friends rather than thousands unknown followers/friends/fans.
.-= Dev | Technshare´s last blog ..Twitter Launches ‘Promoted Tweets’ to Make Money =-.
Thanks dude!
I can’t agree more! Friends are always better than pageviews.
.-= King Sidharth´s last blog ..Why ‘King’ Sidharth – the Secret Behind ‘King’ =-.
True if your blog is a personal one.. but I’d rather have 20,000 pageviews a day over ten social media friends.
Trust me, the pageviews turn into buyers… and having 10 friends is great and all… but 10 products sold isn’t the same as 250!
I am active on Facebook recently but I never did use it to promote my site since I thought that my friends would not appreciate it. They may get teh wrong idea that I am just cashing on them.
.-= paul | entertainment tonight´s last blog ..Empress Schuck leading role for Rosalka =-.
Yea, that’s ture. That’s why facebook made fanpage – get a fan page for your blog?
It always amazed me how much people didn’t use Twitter to be social. It is social media after right? I tend to send out a lot of RTs and blog posts, stuff like that, but I’m still more than willing to have a good chat with someone.
I know, right? Instead they think people really want to hear their tweetfeed-ed tweets from top twitter profiles.
.-= King Sidharth´s last blog ..Why ‘King’ Sidharth – the Secret Behind ‘King’ =-.
I also think it is a good idea to provide your social media friends with content that is not included in your site. This gives them something to look forward to and will show them that you value their attention.
.-= Julius´s last blog ..How to Caption Videos in YouTube =-.
Let’s put it this way: Your aim should be to share your passion and good stuff with your social media friends. That includes your and other blog post and anything fun you’d do with your friends.
.-= King Sidharth´s last blog ..Why ‘King’ Sidharth – the Secret Behind ‘King’ =-.
Hi,
This post is really great and tells us the absolute truth. you don’t need to go to those with titles “Social media experts” as this is the raw secret to achieving social media success. So many people think it is easy to make money from social media, they are lost! it is easy to gain visitors who you will then try to gain their trust before they can buy from you.
Thanks a lot for the great post.
BTW: I so much love this new blogussion theme.
I am glad you liked it man.
Yeah! We love all love new theme, thanks to Alex.
Thanks for this great information, I am totally following you on this.
You are absolutely right.. like almost everything in life, it seems to always go back to the relationships. I can’t remember who said.. ‘No one cares what you know until they know you care.’
Wow! That’s a cool quote!!
.-= King Sidharth´s last blog ..Why ‘King’ Sidharth – the Secret Behind ‘King’ =-.
This post reminds me of Chris Brogan’s book- Social Media 101. I’ve always believed in social, which I think is the only hegemon that prevents Google monopoly over traffic (thank goodness). I mostly use Twitter for my blogging because I feel like very little of my friends would be interested in my blog-101 posts.
I guess it’s subjective too to what you’re blogging about in the first place and if you can find the right crowd in those social networking sites.
.-= Liane´s last blog ..Share Your Blogging Blunders For My Free Report (and Win a Prize Too!) =-.
Hey Liane!
Wow! That’s a big compliment. Your friends might not be interested in that, but people who willingly join fan page of your blog will be for sure.
It is! People from different niches are found on different social network.
.-= King Sidharth´s last blog ..Why ‘King’ Sidharth – the Secret Behind ‘King’ =-.
It is a true fact, as you say, that there is NO money in social media, but if you want fame, then social media is your venue!
.-= JR @ Internet Marketing ´s last blog ..How To Secure Wordpress Blogs & Prevent The Hacking of Your Blog =-.
The good idea is to get the fame from Social Media and then encash it.
.-= King Sidharth´s last blog ..Why ‘King’ Sidharth – the Secret Behind ‘King’ =-.
King! Great work man, really.
First and foremost, LOL@mythical creatures; still laughing.
Probably one of the best how to social media articles in a long time; real, not tech, love it!
I feel I definitely have “personable’ down to a science on my blogging, so now it’s time to do social media correctly. This is what I’m doing now starting with twitter and going one by one this time…
I was absolutely one of those goofs that signed up to 40 sites per day with little more then my name and URL in the profile, never to return.
Perhaps you’d like to visit my latest post (Commentluv) and give me a good start.
.-= Dennis Edell | Direct Sales Marketing´s last blog ..YES it is Time for ME to TWEET! What’s my username? Part 1 =-.
XD!
I know, right? People want to put everything in context of graphs and stuff like that.
Nice man, I am sure you will get great success with twitter. Here I come!
.-= King Sidharth´s last blog ..Why ‘King’ Sidharth – the Secret Behind ‘King’ =-.
New blogussion theme v4.0 rocks. I think social media is a great source of traffic and good place to socialize with the community but it seems only you can help you there, no experts can do. I heard about selling friends/followers on different networks but most of them are spammers. Thanks for great post
.-= Tinh´s last blog ..WPWebHost Offers $3.50 Hosting & $0.99 Domain Promo =-.
Yep, many people give social media a try but discount it when immediate success is not achieved. Social media is like everything else in life, you have to learn it and make a commitment to it in order to reap the benefits.
Thank you for this information. I totally agree with you in these points.
.-= Stromanbieter vergleichen´s last blog ..Strompreisvergleich starten und Stromanbieter wechseln =-.
I agree with Zack, we just need to be patient in order to achieve what we want and strive for the success we need.
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