Social Media Fail and What to do About It

Every week I get this lovely message from my blog management program, CoSchedule that says;

You published 0 blog posts and 0 social messages this past week. Try to schedule a few more posts this week to grow your traffic. So far, you have 0 blog posts scheduled for next week.

Ugg! So how’s the social media going for you, Beverlee?  Each week I promised myself I’m going to set up my Social Media System and then rock it so that I can help others struggling with the same issue. And every week for the past 41 weeks I have failed to do this.

This is a common dilemma for small business owners: figuring out which social media platform to use. It feels like there are way too many much more important things to do than figure out what you are going to say on Facebook and how that connects to your 9 followers on Twitter who are not gazing with a blank stare at Periscope after accidentally blowing hearts at someone that they don’t even know.

So what is the solution for using Social Media for your business?

I’ve had the privilege to coach my sons in their projects this past year.  Jeff launched ADHD Kids Rock, an online community helping kids with ADHD. And Joseph is building his personal Training Business, Iron Joe Athletics. Each has a different audience and is using different social media tools.

What I have learned is that you have to have a system that is easy to use and one you fully understand how it works.

For 16-year-old Jeff, he didn’t even want to have a Facebook page but months into launching one, he realized that it was not the teens following him it was their moms — and their moms love Facebook. In one year, Jeff’s ADHD Kids Rock Facebook page has grown to over 8,600 likes. When he posts blogs he gets hundreds of likes, shares and comments.   His Facebook is easy to manage on both his computer and phone.

For on-the-go, 28-year-old Joseph is building his personal training practice and he is using Instagram  to  post pictures promoting events and clients successes in real time.

Another sure-fire strategy for Joe has been to follow, engage and promote his prefered suppliers, other teams, events and things happening around him that are important to the clients he wants to attract.  One supplier commented that Iron Joe has sold more bikes using social media than they were able to do on their own.

For Joe, picture posts on his phone are fun and easy to do.  An unexpected bonus happen when he started getting free stuff and picked up two sponsorships from the vendors he was talking about in Social Media

What I am learning is that you need to pick your battles when it comes to Social Media. You don’t have to be on all platforms doing social backflips, trying to be everywhere, all time time.

You do however need to choose something.  Choose a platform that is easy for you to do anytime during your work day and then commit to fully learning how to do it.  

Write down your rules of engagement.

Here’s the system overview:

1. Choose a Social  platform  (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Periscope … + 1000 more!)
2. Learn everything you need to know to be fully comfortable using your chosen platform.  Write it down so you can pass this job onto someone else if you want to.
3. Decide how often you are going to post (hourly, daily, weekly, pick something as a guide).
4. Be strategic in the topics you choose to publicly share.  No one is really that interested in your breakfast unless you are a chef or nutritionist!
5. Choose and use your best device to monitor your social engagement.
6. Have fun!

Here’s my plan.

I’m going to write  blogs that I will post on Mondays and Thursdays and use Co-Schedule to post them on my website, Facebook and Twitter.  These are the Social platforms I am comfortable using.

To increase my success, I’m going to pay attention to the responses I get. I’ll reply to comments I get on the posts, and re-share my blog posts at least once each on each social media platform. I’ll also use the responses I get to help guide what I might write about in the future.

If you could start with one Social platform what would you pick?  What help do you need to get started?  Tell me about it in the comments — and I’ll pick one comment to include in my next post!

~ Beverlee