This is how someone with 70,000 followers approaches social media.
I chewed over this title for a while, because in many respects I haven’t changed my approach to social media from day one.
The 10 points I’m going to be talking about could be from a blog titled “This is how someone with 1 follower approaches social media”. The difference with 70,000 followers comes a little more responsibility, a lot more love from the community and a little more hate from trolls.
Social Media Is The 1st Priority In Morning
Social Media is my 1st priority in the morning.
Tea, toast, Wordle and then Social Media.
Why?
It ensures that I do the minimum levels of posting, engaging and scheduling before the phone calls, emails and client work starts.
Anything else I do throughout the day is a bonus.
I have a non negotiable with social media, just as I have a non negotiable with exercise.
It’s diarised so it happens.
Continually Write Down Ideas Is A Super Power
Ideas come to me all the time.
Rarely in the shower, but in the gym, running, in meetings, in training.
I have a system where I email the ideas to myself with the title “LinkedIn Post” / “Instagram Post” / “Blog”
In the last week alone I have 9 ideas for social media posts and 7 ideas for blogs.
On top of that I have a phone full of screenshots for inspiration.
When people ask me how I post 7x a week across multiple social media platforms, the easiest answer is I document ideas down as they come.
Posted Is Better Than Perfect
If I waited for the perfect photo, perfect graphic, perfect copy I’d never post.
I’m a former journalist, so I’ll be honest the copy is near enough perfect on every post, but everything else goes with the mentality “posted is better than perfect”.
Look at Gary Vaynerchuk, Arnold Schwarnegger, Steven Bartlett, Richard Branson instagram profile or socials and you’ll see that not every post is a perfect photo, not every graphic is the prettiest thing out there.
Posted is better than perfect.
The intent and the message is what actually matters.
Strip Away Any Friction Leads To Consistency
You probably notice I don’t post elaborate Instagram Reels or TikToks.
You know the sort
- Timelapse Videos
- Costume Changes
- Videos with 10 different clips
Why?
Because I want to take away the friction of posting and filming a reel for 30 minutes for it to be seen by 500 extra people isn’t worth the time.
When I can film a headshot video in 2 minutes and then spend the extra 28 minutes engaging or writing a blog like this it’s time better spent.
If you can strip away the friction your output increases.
Consuming Art & Culture Increases Creativity
I don’t spend all day on social media.
I soak up as much culture as possible.
Last year I went to 86 gigs, watched 50+ films, read 27 books.
When you soak up interesting content even if it’s not related to your business, you’re inspired to be more creative.
How much culture are you consuming on a weekly basis?
The Audience Always Comes First
“Does this serve the audience?”
It’s a question I ask before posting.
If I can’t confidently answer a yes, I ditch the idea and move on to the next one.
And equally we’re prepared to remove people from our community if they are going against the positives vibes of our community.
We rarely have to use them but the block buttons are your friend.
Consistency Consistency Consistency
We post 7 times a week on Social Media. On every platform.
That’s a schedule for that works for us.
And yet people are surprised that for every post that goes out there, about 2 or 3 are ditched.
We have a framework in the business to continually generate ideas.
Every training session, client meeting, networking meeting, diary entry, piece of content consumed, social event is potential inspiration for content.
Experiment All The Time (and allow things to fail)
80% of what works.
20% experimenting with new ideas.
Some fail.
Some fly.
Your next best type of post could be the next idea you try.
Make sure you add experimentation to the mix.
Analytical Mindset
Working in marketing for 24+ years I often go with my gut, in terms of content production.
And then I use the data to back up that decision.
The bare minimum every business owner should do each month is to check their top 3 posts and bottom 3 posts and analyse why they did or didn’t work.
It takes 5 minutes to do and you learn so much from that process.
You start to understand what content your audience responds to.
UItra Sales Focused (but sell without selling)
Altrincham HQ is a business – not an expensive hobby!
I’m truly sales and business focused, as this isn’t just a stop gap until a “offer I can’t refuse” comes in and I go into paid employment.
I care about the business growth and I like to know where the £££s are coming from.
I have a strong business that grew in the 2009 recession and survived the pandemic.
The difference between myself and others in my industry is I sell without selling.
I don’t have a sales team, I don’t do sales sleaze in DMS, I don’t run 7 day challenges to harvest emails.
I only do sales posts around 1 in 4 or 5 posts.
And I still generate huge amounts of sales because our content does the selling for us.
And I treated it the same way when I had 10 followers.
NEED HELP WITH SOCIAL MEDIA TRAINING FOR YOUR BUSINESS
Chat to us about Social Media Marketing for YOUR organisation , so we can better understand YOU and what will grow your organisation
We can chat about whether online or Face 2 Face is better for you
We can only find out what is unique to your business by chatting with you
Look at our Social Media Training and Social Media Management services
We offer Social Media Training on
* LinkedIn
* Instagram
* Facebook
* Twitter
* TikTok
* Blogging
We can do this
* 121
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* Face to Face or Via Zoom / Skype
Please call Alex on 07806774279 or email alex@altrinchamhq.co.uk
