The fundamental path to succeeding with social media is to consistently contribute meaningful content. The path to engaging with you you or your brand should make the lives of those engaging with you, more meaningful.
As you think through your social media strategy, here are some unwritten rules of social media that I have found under the layer of best practices.
More does not equal better
Just because you did something great in the past whether it was hit content or a campaign, do not forget that everything in social media has a life cycle of it’s own. That viral video that worked yesterday, may mean nothing today. You must adapt to the ecosystem that is social media.
Activity does not equal productivity
The barrier to create content on a social network is virtually non-existent. So, you can write whatever you want irrespective of whether that content applies to your business or not. Unfortunately, you can then get extremely busy with social media while trying to post anything and everything. In your enthusiasm to share, be careful not to drop the quality of content. Otherwise, people will silently begin to ignore you.
The art of reciprocity
Don’t have the false expectation that someone will reciprocate back because you followed, re-tweeted, liked or anything else. Equal actions don’t create equal impact on social media. Say you have a 15,000 followers and you share something from another person who has 150,000 followers. Expecting that person or company to share something from you would mean you are expecting someone to give back ten times of what you gave them. Have realistic expectations for better results.
Amplification without accomplishment is futility
We can agree that social media is known to be a wonderful amplifier. You must show relevant accomplishments as the foundation for your efforts and social media can help amplify those efforts. Unless your business is to make money with social media, you have to get out of social media and spend time on building some meaningful accomplishments. Once you have them, you can then use amplification to influence and engage on social media.
Engagement without enrichment cannot be effective
Engagement for the sake of engagement will only make you get tired and waste your time. Engage with an intention to enrich and you’ll not only win in social media but you will also make the world a better place. You can only be rich through the enrichment you bring to the world around you. Social media provides a wonderful opportunity to bring value to you business and enrich people’s lives.
Access does not grant entitlement
When you connect with someone on a social network and engage with them, you have access to them, as well as their engaged followers and friends. Don’t assume that they owe you something because you are now engaging them on social media. Create and give your connections great content, something of value and watch the access grow.
Connection does not grant permission
Many social networks make it easy for you to connect with anyone. You can follow someone on any number of the top 5 social media platforms, without requesting their permission to do it. A small percentage of those you follow might follow you back. If they do, you have a two-way connection. Don’t confuse the two-way connection as permission to interrupt them, spam them or blast them with unnecessary content. You must build a relationship through engagement and there is no shortcut for that endeavor.
Do you have any thoughts or additions on these unwritten rules? I would love to hear them!
@RikWalters
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