Some of the key objectives of any social media marketing campaign are to become a top influencer and a sought after leader.
For you to do that, you need to establish a relatively level of authority: to be seen by your niche as someone who is an expert on a given subject.
Once you’ve reached this point, you will be able to win the hearts and minds of your audiences! As the number of audiences grows, you will be able to generate vast amounts of income just by suggesting products and services and even by collaborating with other brands.
But how did you reach this point? The answer is straightforward, but also considerably complicated.
No one else will provide value, but you.
Value is Comparative to Influence
Visiting any web page, blog, or site, you’re doing it because you want to, not out of charity. You don’t see it as a favor from the owner of that blog. Instead, you visit the website for a reason is that for you to gain something from that page.
More on that note is what you’re looking to gain from visiting a site is information or entertainment. We often watch epic fail videos on YouTube because we want entertainment, and we take time reading fitness blogs because we want information that can help us get into our desired shape.
And it’s not only that if we find the quality of its content is highly informative or entertaining, but that will also be leaving us thinking about revisiting the page in the future because the website provided us valuable inputs.
In this event, you eventually find yourself trusting the brand. Now, when that same creator recommends a particular product or a type of service, you will be much more likely to trust them.
It is safe to say that you have received a certain amount of value from that particular brand in the past. Therefore when that company offers something else, you will believe that this will also provide you the same similar level of value.
If you received that much value from that website for free, imagine the kind of deal you can get if you pay for their ebooks, courses, or everything else advertised on that site!
That’s why we’re saying it’s simple. It’s the same reason why it’s difficult to know how to create value that eludes awful business owners, brands, and more.
Adding more Worth on Social Media
What also eludes these awful content creators is the idea that they must provide value through their social media as well.
Many businesses still consider the traditional way of thinking. They are always fascinated with the idea that marketing is something you do at someone in particular.
That is to say that they kept on creating advertisements or messages, and they’re showing these to a lot of people as they are hoping that these individuals will soon be potential customers by raising brand awareness.
But the world has drastically changed, and it’s all because of the web. This kind of traditional way of marketing was only useful when the users were limited about the information and entertainment they can get.
There was a point where the only way we could gain information about a topic or get entertained for an evening rest is to watch a primetime program on TV or to read a fashion magazine. Advertisers do their advertising by placing their ads between pages of a magazine or in a schedule to be aired between television programs. We have no control over it, so we have no choice but to view it.
Thus, through messaging, these marketing efforts will soon be sinking into your recipients, and we would learn about certain brands more than others.
That’s how things worked out in the past. Today, thanks to the internet, we have a lot more options to choose from to get our needed information and even for entertainment purposes. Besides, no one can force you to view any message that we don’t want to open.
And smart marketing has evolved in response to this. As always, every marketing effort has something to offer in return.
The old-fashioned way of using social media is when you need to post a handful of promotional messages and images. Let’s say a company sold an EPOS system to businesses. They might simply send messages like ‘check out the latest features of our EPOS solutions’ or ‘using our EPOS system, your businesses can boost turnover and consumer satisfaction using our EPOS system.’
(An EPOS system is an ‘electronic point of sale’ – software that can save you from a lot of work! not sure if there’s anything else’s more interesting than this) outmoded right? But, this is still what you will mostly see the way businesses are doing most of the time.
Think about this: To whom is this for? What purpose does this benefit from a user’s point of view?
The audiences on your social media would either:
- I already acquired your EPOS system, but I gain nothing from your messages informing me how great it is.
- I don’t have your EPOS system, I have heard of it, but I’m not interested in acquiring it.
In other words, your messages serve no purpose. People won’t see these messages unless they follow you or someone from followers shares it.
The Best Option
What might be a better strategy for a similar industry?
Let’s say that you created a Facebook page and a Twitter account aiming specifically at small businesses. On this page, you would be learning lots of useful tips and information, explaining how they can optimize their business, how they can improve customer satisfaction, getting around budget limitations, etc.
You have established an active community so that small business owners can discuss business topics. You share numerous lengthy posts that provide real insight into the operations and thriving small businesses.
Then, every once in a while, you also share a more marketing-oriented post. People would now be looking forward to posts on your social media account and may even share your posts because you offer genuine value.
How about a Pinterest board where you can share ideas for home decors? On this page, you could post all sorts of unique life hacks and tricks that could make your room look more beautiful.
Homeowners and those that seem to be interested in interior design might sign up and start following you.
And again, now and then, you can post any idea that includes your own products – thereby subtly marketing it to that audience in exchange for providing all those good ideas. There’s a give and take relationship present on this one, and it’s a more demographic and effective way of marketing.
How can you say if you are doing this, right? Ask yourself this one: If you shut down your social media account the next day, would anyone get affected? If they’d genuinely be upset and feel like a beneficial service has now been taken away from their lives, then congratulations! You are useful in providing value!
If no one would notice your disappearance and many people would, in fact, benefit from you pulling yourself out from the spammy feed, well then, something must be wrong with your marketing approach, and you need to think to reconsider this seriously!
Want a simple rule to follow for you to be able to handle the proper approach for this? There’ll be more about this in the future posts but for now, memorize the ‘1 to 7 rule’. This set of rules simply states that one in every seven seats must be about direct marketing, whatever your product or service is. The other six should be about offering value in different unique ways. It should still be on topic.
How Do You Define Value?
For now, let’s take a break for a moment and get slightly philosophical. What is the value?
It is an important matter to consider. So far, you already know that your social media accounts need to be as valuable as much as possible. In this way, we are no longer required to be using every single post to shout about how great our products are!
So now that you add value instead and only occasional with marketing. A considerable amount of progress, indeed! But trying and doing are two various things.
Therefore, what is value, then?
The simplest explanation for this is to state that the ‘value’ comes from improving people’s lives. You have provided value if that person’s life is some way better than it was before – even if that’s just for a fleeting moment (it could also be the case if you make something funny).
The longer the effect lasts, the more people you can affect, the more value you can provide.
But in this segment, a lot of people go wrong: their content isn’t producing an actual value. It’s just pretending that it has value.
These are articles and blog posts that do nothing other than providing tiring and derivative advice. The same goes for social media posts that are doing a similar thing.
Here’s an example:
“How to Uncover your Six Pack Abs!”
This article offers tips on different sit up rotations, states that you should go for long runs, and recommends eating controlled level calories.
What’s even worse than that? It also recommends ineffective routines (in this process, the advice given might only target you to lose fat concentrating only on your abdomen).
Either way, you now have obtained an article you may be tired of because it offers the same thing as the recent 100 articles that is also inaccurate and not helpful. Worst of all, this didn’t make someone’s life better – this made it even worse. You’ve wasted their precious time telling them things that they already knew.
It is the same thing you will read from ‘Top 5 SEO Mistakes’. Come on. You’re better than that! We’ve all read that article already.
Now, what you need to offer instead is something else, something Innovative, something that is genuinely interesting and unique.
A video captioned something like, ‘This one tip routine can improve your abdominal workouts ten times better.’
That sounds like a clickbait article. It’s interesting, unique and it ensures improvement with your life, so you willingly clicked it. But, when you watch it, it does tell you something completely different and useful.
Conclusion
That’s way more interesting than just another post on ‘Top SEO Tips.’ So, what’s the difference here? The difference is their queerness. The writers/presenters have spotted a topic that hasn’t been covered before, they’ve come up with a unique angle, or they’ve researched a lesser-known tip. Either way, they can even provide something that someone else doesn’t have an idea, which is what it defines to have value.
And this motivates you to buy another from them, and it makes you engage more with their channel.
What’s best for you to be able to do that? That’s to take really care of your brand. Understand and love the niche that you’re in and if you hire writers, make sure that they fully grasp the idea of the subject too.
We must avoid creating generic content without giving your full attention and then expecting it to sell right away. It won’t.
Write something about what you are passionate about in a unique but lively voice, and then you will be able to become an ‘Influencer.