We all strive to figure out the right combination of blog posts, memes, graphics, designs, stories and who-knows-what-else to engage our audience on social media at ANY level, right?
We try to let our personality shine through and connect with our readers, while still maintaining a certain level of business decorum and trying to educate our audience, so they’ll see how brilliant we are.
Social media can be challenging for many business owners and I am certainly no exception. It’s hard to know what people want to see, so often times we’re trying many different combinations of material to see what they connect with best.
The general rule of thumb is to post about 80% fun, educational, humorous, informational, etc. and only 20% promotional. And, by the way, the 80% part should include some personal posts about you as well, as it’s really ourselves that we’re selling. When I say personal posts, I mean posts that let your character and personality shine through, not talking about your live life. People want to do business with those that they know, like and trust, and they need to know who you are so they will connect with you and have the confidence to buy from you.
At first, this was a hard concept for me to grasp. I mean, who really cares what I’m doing or what I’m thinking?
Amazingly enough, a lot of them do! Which was much more evident when I had my Cowgirl Confessions posts going strong. People enjoyed reading my stories about life on a cattle ranch almost as much as I enjoyed living it. Life has changed a bit and I have not posted to that part of my blog in quite some time. Maybe it’s time to rethink that!
I have been working harder to share more visual content than in the past, so I save memes with inspirational quotes on them, and then repurpose them using my own images. Last fall, I hit the jackpot on Facebook.
I guess I hit a nerve that week. Within 48 hours of posting this, I had over 6500 shares, so I decided to boost it for 5 days, for $5 per day. At the end of that period, I had a total of 15,623 shares (that number has grown in the meantime), over 4500 likes and a reach of almost 2 million. I also increased my page likes by over 200 in that 7 day period.
Now, generally speaking, boosting a post is not recommended by most marketers over placing an actual Facebook ad. However, when you have an organic post that shows promise, sometimes you just have to run with it because you just can’t plan these things.
My first thought was that I felt bad for the number of people who obviously identified with this and really needed a vacation!
My second thought was that I will most likely spend the rest of my career trying to duplicate this success.
Once I posted this to my page, I immediately shared it on my personal Facebook profile, and in several networking and marketing groups that I belong to. I also shared to Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn & Pinterest, although those shares did not get anywhere near the same response. Beyond that, I just managed to have good timing I think, but this is why I spend the majority of my effort and time on Facebook, as opposed to any of the other social platforms.
Have you had some crazy good success with any of your blog posts or images that you’ve shared? I’d love to hear about them and learn what methods you used to achieve that success, so please share in the comments below.
