I’ve seen this way too many times: While chatting with a friend about social media, they complained about the lack of engagement their content is getting. They went on and on about how they’re posting often, but everything is “pay to play” or the system is rigged, etc.
There is some truth to this. The system is designed to be difficult to get critical mass, but it gets easier as your momentum builds. On some social media platforms, it can make more sense to pay to play, but if you know your numbers and they work, who cares?
The Key To Relationship Marketing On Social Media
After the complaining, I asked to see their social media accounts and found a major issue: The content sucked. It was all work-related and contained almost nothing personal, so it wasn’t engaging. It was focused on what my friend wanted from social media — more leads — instead of what social media users want: entertainment.
Newsletter content and social media content are similar in this way. I see people who want to talk about their business and sell, sell, sell in a newsletter. But I have to constantly tell them that this isn’t the place for that type of content.
The Social Media Ratio
About 75%–80% of the content on your social media accounts or in your newsletter should be interesting, entertaining, personable, light, and fun. Then, the last 20%–25% of the content can be about what you do.
A limited amount of sales content is all you need. Adding in more won’t help you get more leads or close more deals. In fact, it will actually decrease the odds of all of those things. This may seem counterintuitive, but it is how relationship marketing, like social media and newsletter marketing, works.
As an example, I pulled up the page of another friend of mine, Chelsea Story. She is a local realtor who, after being in the real estate game for only a year, was named the top real estate agent on social media in Idaho. Her accounts are great examples of how to create entertaining, personal content that also connects with information about real estate.
The business content she posts gets the least amount of engagement, but it’s enough to help her sell several million dollars worth of real estate.
Keep It Real
One of the biggest keys to success with content, online or offline, is to just be yourself. Don’t try to be all buttoned up if you’re normally a goofy person. Don’t try and be a goofy person if you’re normally all buttoned up. Let people into your personal life a bit on social media, but don’t share every little deep, dark secret you have. Keep the content light and fun and post regularly so you’re top of mind.
And remember, the piece of content most likely to go viral always seems to be the one you made quickly. Your hair was a mess and the kids were going crazy in the background. It’s not the polished, professional video that took four days and 342 takes to make. So stop worrying! You can’t control this either. Do your best, have fun, and be consistent. The money will follow.
