Every successful fast food restaurant has a secret sauce or mystery ingredient that is that little bit special. KFC has the herbs and spices. McDonald’s has that special sauce. Many ‘experts’ will tell you that Social media is no different. Naturally they want to sell tell you about what their mystery ingredient, secret sauce or magic formula is, so that you can be successful overnight on social media.
Want the inside scoop on my magic formula for social media success? Here it is.The magic formula for social media success is… there is no such thing as a magic formula or secret sauce to having a successful social media presence. If you think there is then you have either drunk the kool-aid, or like the miracle cure salesman of times gone past, you are being sold a fake.
Sorry about that.
But there are some strategies that can start you off in the right direction, and with a lot of hard work and time you will definitely see results from your strategy.
1. Start with a strategy. Every house needs a plan before you build it. Same for social media. (Read more about strategy here)
2. Build a team around the strategy. Every house needs the right team to build the house. Same for social media. I have a designer and photographer who develops visual content. A community ambassador that manages our various communities and I plan and map out the strategy and our social media calendar.
3. Experiment. Once a house is being built, often things that look good on paper need changing in real life because they don’t work (My wife and I have built a few houses so we know!) Here are some imaginative posting ideas that we use that I know work.
4. Measure the results. Every building before completed is checked to make sure it is built properly. Your social media is the same, check back to your strategy and see if the results are what you expected and up to scratch. If they aren’t experiment and try something new!
5. Be consistent. Post consistently and often. People are creatures of habit and will seek out your content if it is there on a regular basis. Here’s one example of content we create ever single day which has high engagement.
6. Quality matters. We live in a world where design in the international language. Good design will help your content go further. Bad design becomes a barrier to your message spreading.
The bottom line is that success won’t come overnight. But a key ingredient that can help you get there is by creating consistently high quality engaging content based on a defined social strategy.
What would you add? Agree or disagree? Drop a comment below now.
