Everybody loves a good scandal, so I put my sassy pants on for this one, come along with
me as I share five social media practices that I believe are absolutely sabotaging your
social engagement and street cred.
Hey guys, it's Alex, and this week, I'm going to share my honest thoughts on some outdated
social media practices that many people are still hanging onto despite the massive changes
in the way audiences are engaging with brands online today.
Now the first thing I'm gonna say is this, no one you care about, cares about the size
of your following. Yes, I said it. Think about it, who do you care about? Your family and
your friends obviously, they don't care if you're a social media star, and if they do,
you might wanna consider getting some new friends.
But I am talking about your audience, your customers, your devoted fans and your students.
You care about them, right? Hint, you better. But do you think it really matters an ounce
to them whether you have a hundred or a hundred thousand fans if you're adding amazing value
and support?
I mean, sure they might care in like a "Way to go," supportive kind of way, but trust
me, their likelihood to love you or leave you has nothing to do with how many people
smash that follow button.
Follower count is no longer a measure of how successful your social media channel is because
it is common knowledge that you can actually buy followers. Shady! Instead, social credibility
is all about how you engage and interact with your audience.
The truth of the matter is, the only people who care about the size of your following
are other businesses who are actually trying to get front of it. Do you know how many emails
I get every single week from brands and companies trying to offer me a paycheck for a video
review?
And I say no every single time. Why?
Well because I care about you and I would never do a paid review, unless I really really
really believe that it can help you or I've personally used it and have gotten results.
Now I'm not saying that influencer marketing is dead, it's a huge and lucrative business,
but it is not sustainable if it's your only intent or strategy, which makes it even more
important for you to follow the steps that I'm sharing in today's video.
Those of you who know me know I'm all about creating copy that both connects and converts,
and today I'm sharing how this applies in the social sphere. So if you're not already
part of my global posse, join us by clicking the subscribe button below, I release a new
video every single week on copywriting, marketing and branding techniques that are working today.
In the meantime, here are five social media scandals that are ruining your reputation
with the people who actually give a s***.
Scandal number one...
Ah yes, social media in the 2020s, welcome to the world of fake followers. Did you know
that fake followers cost brands over 1.3 billion dollars last year? Which is why there are
tons of tools out there that will actually audit an Instagram account's engagement, growth
and credibility by telling you the percentage of real followers they have, and plenty of
these tools will allow you to run a free report before you need to pay.
So I actually did mine real quick, and you can see the growth of my average likes, followers
and my engagement rate. You can also see my credibility score, which is around 94 percent,
so yes, I do have a few fake followers, it's unavoidable, but for the most part, my account
is fairly squeaky clean.
Now I ran another account through that tool and saw this. Yeah, no bueno. The truth is
there are a lot of ways to get more followers guys, some shadier than others, but if you're
so hung up on these tactics that you neglect to actually show up and engage with your audience
with a genuine personality, that's like basically inviting a whole group of new friends over
to your house for dinner and then staying locked in the bedroom the entire time.
Eventually they're gonna wonder what the hell is going on and leave. The goal of growing
your audience is to create a community and the best, in fact the only way to do this
is to actually engage and connect with your followers. They are real people too.
Now more than ever before, people are seeking authentic experiences and holding grams accountable
for their content. So you shouldn't just be all about selling your product or service
or somebody else's product or service for that matter, you should also inspire your
followers, evoke their curiosity, start meaningful conversations and get them to have more fun.
So mixed up with content that's relevant to your brand and your audience, such as an awesome
quote or an interesting fact, a funny meme or free training. In fact, there are three
ways that you can add value online.
The first is entertainment value, the second is educational value, and the third is inspirational
value. So before you post, ask yourself "What kind of value am I providing, here?" and
if you can't answer that question, you might want to rethink it. When you focus on adding
value first, you make your brand relatable and memorable and that emotional connection
is gonna influence a buying decision more than anything else.
And if you want to incentivize engagement through a contest that's cool, but consider
whether your contest mechanics will actually create a valuable experience for your followers
that will make them wanna check back in with you.
We have all done it, you're scrolling through Instagram, you see some contest online for
a brand you loosely follow, and it tells you to tag five friends, and you'll get entered
to win something. So what do you do, you tag your five besties, you know the ones who have
all implicitly agreed to be each other's Instagram contest tagging crew.
And you know what they'll do anyway, they'll see it and they'll likely ignore it. Now I'm
not saying this isn't a great strategy to get impressions, but how many of you actually
end up following those brands unless they immediately get your attention with something
that you really care about?
Now there is a better way to do it. So take Dunkin' Donuts for example. They used a Halloween
contest to get participants to create a donut inspired DIY costume that they actually had
to take a photo of and post online to enter.
Now yeah, it sounds like it would be a lot of work, but the experience itself really
incentivized their followers to create a fun and creative post that they would have totally
ended up posting anyway, and the results were pretty impressive, look at all that donut-inspired
Halloween art.
How committed do you think those people are to the Dunkin Donuts brand? Yeah, you get
the idea. All right, so moving on to escandalo number two...
Yeah, you were waiting for this one, weren't you?
Now relax. I know, I know, Instagram hashtags can be super helpful especially if you're
just starting out and wanna grow a following. I mean, how else are you gonna get everybody's
attention, right? Here's the problem though. If you do grow a following using hashtags,
most of those people are just gonna pop in and then pop back out again, without ever
really engaging with you because there was nothing memorable or meaningful about how
they discovered you.
Not to mention if you are stuffing your captions with as many hashtags as humanly possible,
you might actually turning off the people who are genuinely interested in hearing what
you have to say. Yeah, nobody likes clicking Read More, only to have that caption expand
into, meh copy and then exactly 30 hashtags underneath.
Now guys, I have been guilty of this too, so if you have done this in the past, don't
feel bad, it used to work a lot better than it does now. And because everyone's always
looking for a shortcut to do everything, many people use hashtag generators that just spit
out a collection of random ass hashtags that literally have nothing to do with the subject
matter.
Yes, we have all seen the left field hashtag pop up under a photo, so no wonder real people
hardly ever search for content using hashtags. It's totally a hot mess. And therein lies
the biggest reason why hashtags suck. They are bot magnets. In fact, they probably attract
more bots than genuine followers.
Bots go, "Great, I'm gonna go follow and engage with every single post with the hashtag...
Then you get all those fake comments like "I love your content,"
and "Great photo," when it isn't even a photo, and you're like, "What?" Yeah, those are bots.
Then most of the time they just unfollow you anyway if you don't follow back.
Now you might be thinking, "Yeah, whatever, I actually am growing a following using hashtags,
so I have a really hard time seeing why hashtags suck." Well in case you weren't aware the
Instagram algorithm now only shows your content to a small percentage of your followers' feeds,
to gauge engagement before showing it to more. So if that initial engagement rate is low,
that content is dead and it is not being shared to any more of your followers.
So if your following is full of bots who actually don't engage with your posts, you are desperately
hurting your chances of your content being seen by real people.
One of the best ways to use hashtags is to use hyper-targeted or hyper-personalized hashtags
that make it easy for people to share and find your content. So use one or two hashtags
that are like, a million percent related to what you're talking about and stay away from
hashtags that everyone is using because it'll just get lost in the mess anyway.
Or you can create your very own hashtag, for example my buddy Mark Groves, the human connection
specialist behind @createthelove grew his audience to now over 570,000 followers without
relying much on hashtags at all. Yet, his engagement levels are through the roof because
he focuses on valuable content that resonates so well with his audience that they absolutely
love sharing it and recommending his stuff. And all he uses is one branded #CreateTheLove
hashtag in every single post, and that is it.
All right guys, next up, scandal number three...
If you expect your followers to leave comments and start interacting with you, you best make sure
you do not leave them hanging. I have seen so many brands make this mistake. They put all this work into
creating a compelling and visually appealing post, and a great caption, but then they pretty
much ghost their community.
You guys gotta take the "me" out of social media. Comments are not a one way street, it is a
two-way communication channel, so unless you're Beyonce and you don't need to follow anybody,
I mean if you're Beyonce, you shouldn't even be watching this, unless, unless you are...
Hey Beyonce. But if you are not Beyonce, you need to actually get in there and facilitate
conversation. You don't just wanna make your users feel
like they can relate to your content, but that they actually belong in the community,
and the best way to do this, is to speak to your followers like they're right there in
front of you. Respond to comments on your post, tap that heart icon and be a real human.
That's it. Make them feel heard and make them feel included and ultimately you will make
them feel valued.
Now I try to respond to every single comment I get on my YouTube channel, Instagram, Twitter,
Facebook and LinkedIn. Try it out guys and put me to the test, comment below and let
me know you're here. To me it feels so great when I get to interact with you and acknowledge
the time that you've taken to give me feedback or show me some support. And it's also the
best way to find out what your audience finds helpful and valuable which is fuel for your
business.
I also take the time to personally welcome every single new follower I get on my Copy
Posse Instagram account, by tagging them in my comments, and yes it does take time, but
to me it is more than worth it to let my followers know that their presence is known and that
I value and support them.
Okay, next up, scandal number four...
Guys, you have heard me
say it before, the future is video. There has been an explosion of growth in video traffic
in the past few years, whether it's a series of Instagram stories, IGTV, Facebook Live,
Snapchat or YouTube, it is no secret that branded video content has become a staple
in our everyday lives, and that's not even taking into account Netflix and Hulu
and Prime and Crave.
Views of branded video content have increased 99% on YouTube and a whopping 258%
on Facebook between 2016 and 2017. Even on Twitter, a video tweet is six times more likely
to be retweeted, compared to a photo tweet. Guys, the numbers are huge and undeniable,
and by 2021, it is estimated that 82% of all web traffic will come through video,
and 13% of that will be live video.
Just take a look at the amount of engagement and shares on the Tasty recipe videos. They're
short, they're sweet, they're easy to understand and you cannot take your eyes off of them.
And then of course, yes, you knew I was going to say it, there is TikTok, the social media
video sharing platform that has become a global phenomenon for interaction and engagement.
It is addictive.
So if you're looking to grow your brand well into the 2020s, you need to be using video
period. And lastly, scandal number five...
If you think you can just curate a perfectly posed, pretty feed and call it a day, think again. Now I'm
not saying you shouldn't put some time and effort into coming up with a cohesive brand
look and feel, but if that is all you care about you are dead in the water.
I mean look at the meme accounts, like @LADBible and @TheFatJewish that do so well. They
provide unlimited value in the form of entertainment and their galleries are messy as hell. You
know what I mean. But the point is that a great social media account isn't just about
the visual appeal, it's also about how you engage and incentivize your audience.
Remember, you need to provide entertainment value, educational value or inspirational
value. While a pretty aesthetic may be inspirational for a hot second, it will lose attention fast
when it's no longer a novelty. The great news is, you have so many tools at your disposal
to help make this a reality and keep your followers' interest.
Platforms like Facebook and Instagram are constantly updating and rolling out new features
and tools to help you with your engagement and marketing, like polls and filters and
Q&A and gifs and countdowns and quizzes and the list goes on and on. Guys, this is
not something they do just for the sake of it, Facebook spends millions of dollars on
market research every single year and creates these tools because they know the users will
use them.
Facebook's entire M.O. is to create a better user experience, so take the guesswork out
of your marketing and use the features that are available. It's also no surprise that
most of these features are being rolled out to the video side of the apps, like Instagram's
stories, and smart brands get it.
Recently, Elle Magazine used Instagram story polls to engage their readers about an article
that they wrote on Netflix's rom-com, "To All the Boys I've Loved Before." In a series
of polls they engaged their readers and provided cues for their followers to swipe up and read
the entire article, it was absolutely genius, so I recommend you check out how brands are
using Instagram stories and related features to engage their audiences.
And there you have it guys, my two cents on what you need to stop doing if you want to
engage your audience and stay relevant on social media. So give me a thumbs up if you
found this video helpful, and if you wanna see what else is in store for the future of
digital marketing, check out my video on the Top 4 Social Media and Digital Marketing
Trends.
You can watch that next right here. And thank you so much for watching and subscribing.
Until next week, I'm Alex. Ciao for now!