What is your content worth to your audience?

How often do you like a page or follow a brand because a friend (or friend of a friend) has recommended/liked it? Or because you like to support local businesses? I do this a lot, as evidenced by the 1,007 likes I have on my personal Facebook profile. The same goes for businesses using Twitter, Pinterest and Google+. I connect with businesses on every platform.

However, I see that many businesses don’t understand how to engage or add value to their audience. Here are three ways to tell how your audience (potential customers!) will receive what you have to say.

1) The Value Test

Put yourself in their shoes : Imagine you are the customer and you are following your business. Would you want to read what you’re sharing? How is it solving a problem or offering helpful advice/tips? 

2) The Engagement Test

What is your call to action? Do you include some opening for your audience to respond? Is the content you’re sharing something your customer will want to share with friends/followers?

3) The Sell Test

Social media is about building relationships. By adding value and engaging, you begin to establish a rapport. That rapport leads to a relationship and can ultimately lead to referrals and sales. Start with a sales pitch and you’ll lose your audience fast.

The Bottom Line

Social media isn’t a magic bullet that will solve all your marketing worries. It takes time, effort and careful attention to get results. Put in the time and don’t resort to shortcuts.

What else would you say to a business whose content needs a value boost?

Social media practices that drive us crazy

Everyday we see things in the world of social media that make us a little nutty. It’s nit picky and, for the most part, these things truly don’t matter. But maybe you have similar pet peeves: commiserate in the comments. Or feel free to disagree with us there - we’re good with that too.

It’s a “blog post” (Or just a “post” - that works too.)

You didn’t just write a blog, you wrote a blog post - unless of course you plan to write about the “5 ways to master LinkedIn” everyday.

BTW, would you like to read my latest newspaper?

While we’re talking about blogs and blog posts…

Sharing the link to your latest blog (post?)

Once upon a few years ago, Twitter left links alone. If I put “http://wellmanwilson.com” in a tweet, that’s exactly what you saw! So, many bloggers used that to reinforce their brand or identity. 

What some don’t seem to realize is that for the last two years, Twitter has been obscuring all those pretty, brand-awareness-building URLs to their own link shortener. So, that reason for doing this is gone.

But let’s look at this from the follower’s perspective. They see your catchy tweet intro, they click through two weeks later because they favorited that tweet and it’s GONE! The post isn’t there anymore. And the reason? Because you only shared your blog URL and not the permalink of the clever post you wrote. This is the point where we close your blog in our browser. We’d have to be pretty determined to go looking for the post.

This is a problem on Pinterest too. 

Permalinks are your friend and they won’t annoy your followers.

Thanking followers (especially on Facebook)

We wouldn’t unfollow someone who does this (unless we never see anything else from them), but it doesn’t feel like the personal touch some claim. On twitter, at least you can do it with a mention and you know the new follower will see it (though it works a lot better if you look at their profile and comment on it…hint, hint).

But Facebook? You can’t tag individuals on your page and with that pesky EdgeRank keeping followers from seeing things, chances are most new fans aren’t going to see the message. Beyond that, what value is created for the other X number of fans you have in that post?

Taking semi-private discussions public (Twitter)

A tweet that starts with someone’s handle is only seen by the people who follow both you and the person you were tweeting.  The reason for that is that middles of conversations truly aren’t relevant to everyone.  

Some people take what should have been a reply and change the order of the tweet so that it now goes to their entire feed. Unless there is a reason to broadcast the conversation, keep it as a reply. It makes people’s feeds less noisy and when you do it by retweeting a reply it breaks the conversation thread - something many of us rely on if conversations happen over longer periods of time or if multiple people have been involved.

Posting links in the comments on facebook

Oh, EdgeRank dodgers, there are easier and far less annoying ways to reach your audience!!! 

Consider this, you’re a user and you’re on a phone and clicking to the comments slows you down (A LOT), so you actively avoid clicking through to the comments to click the link. 

What, my dear EdgeRank dodgers, will that do to your EdgeRank? 

The bottom line is that if annoying your audience is the cost of reaching them, then the price is too high. We recommend avoiding that particular problem. A far simpler way to have a text update is simply to click X and close the thumbnail preview. There’s no need to post the link in the comments. 

Linking Twitter to Facebook to LinkedIn to Pinterest 

It’s *easy* to automate posting to a string of networks all at once. It takes no effort at all. The problem is, we’re likely going to unfollow you on all of those networks except for one because we don’t want to see the same thing ten times.

Facebook rule breakers

It’s not the small businesses, bloggers and others who don’t know the rules that get to us - learning everything about social media takes a lot of time. It’s people and entities that know the rules and still don’t follow them. We advise our clients to stay within the guidelines for their own protection. It takes a lot of time and effort to build up a solid following and we don’t want to see that ruined with their Page and content being taken down. 

Do any of these bother you? Are there any we didn’t mention that bother you? Leave a comment and let us know!

Proofread that post, proof it again and proof once more

I recently witnessed a status update from a business page on Facebook that misspelled a key term for its industry. 

What did they use?

“Loosing”

What did they mean?

“Losing”

Think about any industry or business that talks about losing anything - weight, eye sight, hearing, keys, gadgets, etc.

There are so many businesses that may need to use “losing” as part of their messaging and in some cases the competition is going to be fierce.

Losing engagement

After seeing that status update, I can’t remember anything about it other than the misspelled word and I wasn’t the only one. The first and only comment on the post is from someone pointing out the error (no, it was not me). That lone comment has one like. There is no other engagement on that post.

Many businesses may not feel that proofing a short status update on Facebook or Twitter is worth their time, but think about the impression on the audience when key terminology is misspelled:

• Does the misspelling inadvertently change the meaning? 
• Is a competitor making that or similar errors?
• Will the mistake(s) distract from the overall message? 

The best way to avoid this type of situation is to prepare content in advance.

You want to post to Facebook every day? (Yay! You should.)

Plan it out 

Spend two hours coming up with the content for a month.

Proofread that post: Then set it aside for a day and go back to read in detail what you’ve written.

Proof it again: If you can, ask someone else to review it.

Proof once more: Then, when you actually post the content, read through one more time. Out loud. 

Your message matters - don’t let it get lost behind an avoidable error! 

Are you a part of your content?

Social media is about conversations. Hopefully, multiple people will take part in these conversations but even if they don’t, it should still sound like a conversation.

Formal vs Conversational

While formal writing can be seen as a more respectful way of writing, I also think it’s a dryer and duller way of writing.  The only formal texts that *I* read are ones that I have to read. A text written to tell a story, to share your thoughts and insights, to make a person feel like they can hear you talking to them draws people in. The stories, the small personal details, and the personality you infuse into all you write makes people feel like they’re getting to know you.  The more they feel they know you, the more likely they are to start entering into the conversations, and the more likely they are to come back.

People want to feel connected to you

Many of the successful social media accounts for big brands tell you who is manning the accounts. Why? Because they know we know there is someone behind the words, and though every communication doesn’t need to be attributed, when it seems more like a personal detail or a response to a question, we want to know who is talking to us.  We want faces and we want names. 

Where should you start?

For many, giving up the really formal way of writing is hard.  Practice. Can you write a bio without it sounding like something you would have written to apply for a job? Can you tell me something about your business so that it sounds like we’re meeting at an event instead of on your web site?  Play around with texts, read what other people are writing and practice.

Connect with your readers by being you

For our regular readers, can you tell the difference between a post written by Karen as oppossed to me? Have you started to learn how we talk and communicate with our audience differently?

Do you have a hard time giving up old “formal” habits? What about your writing do you feel connects with your readers?

Why I’m friends with George Takei: conscientious content sharing

Content is crucial, right? And with changes to social media channels like Edgerank on Facebook, plus the general speed at which social media travels, constant content seems to be the logical way to stay relevant to your followers—right?

Yes, it’s important to be content-crazy when you have a following, but let’s be thoughtful about it. While I understand that there are a thousand hilarious/cute/funny/incredible photos out there just begging to be shared, does your taste in memes really suit your brand? Are you just ‘talking’ for talking’s sake? Doesn’t that remind you of the dozens of dinner parties you’ve attended where someone just keeps throwing out random anecdotes to the room at large, AND do you really ever find yourself trying to BE that person? So why behave with less sense on the internet than you do when you conduct yourself in person? 

MY CONTENT HERO: GEORGE TAKEI

Take George Takei. George is my friend on Facebook, and I am an avid follower of his many, many daily posts. I’m frankly not sure how George does anything else in his day other than a) find great memes, and b) come up with clever taglines for each of them.

Why is George so worth subscribing to, and why do I find myself actually SEEKING OUT his posts? Because George knows his audience. The majority of Takei’s posts are science or sci-fi related, which shows that he knows his nerdy followers and he knows what they want to hear about.

George will also throw in something personally moving or relevant, like an invite to fund a new play, or a story about same sex marriage. When he does it, people respond with equal fervor and, in the habit of sharing his less meaningful posts, they still click ‘like’ and ‘share’ at an impressive rate. George posts what is relevant to his brand—his personality—and consequently, I actually feel like I KNOW George as a person. That’s pretty cool. (I wish George knew me back. I love him.)

WHEN SHARING GOES BAD

A counter example is a little magazine I used to follow on Facebook. This mag posts photos everyday. They are technically following the rule book of social media: post often, ask questions, get people engaging. Trouble is, their magazine is about…well, I actually can’t tell you because about two seconds after I clicked ‘like’, I forgot; and every day since then, the only content they post are photos of cute puppies and impressive landscapes. I have no earthly idea what they’re selling me, telling me, or compelling me to do. I’m lazy, so I kept following them for a few months, but eventually I took the time to jump through Facebook’s hoops and unsubscribe to their page. I haven’t looked back.

SHARE THIS WITH TEN FRIENDS OR YOUR CAT WILL DIE

Constant content sharing, especially on Facebook, is quickly becoming the modern version of chain-email. Remember forwards? They mutated and took over Facebook. Now, forwards in and of themselves aren’t evil, but when I’d get ten of them a day about hilarious cat photos, sent to me by a colleague who I (heretofore) respected as, say, an expert clinical psychologist…well, let’s just say it’s harder to take seriously a shrink’s opinion on obsessive personality disorders when you can picture them hunched over a keyboard furiously copy and pasting photos of fat persian fluffballs.

I like memes, and I’m okay with you filling up my newsfeed with what you find funny, scary, informative, and stupid. But remember that what you post speaks for your brand and personality. It is a reflection on YOU. So if you’re going to post the ten funniest LOLcat photos of the year on your facebook page for your psychology practice, that’s fine; but I won’t be following, and the only people I’ll be referring to your services is the other three hundred people I know who really need a LOLcat support group.

*****

Jordan Kent-Baas is co-author of the award-nominated blogs Project: Priceless—The Free Wedding Experiment, and Project: NEST (the newlywed experience). The wedding experiment harnessed the power of social media to create a 140-person wedding for virtually no cost, while the NEST chronicles Jordan and Brian’s experience as frugal offbeat newlyweds. She is a social media fanatic who works in marketing and communications, and aspires to one day be a full-time author. Jordan has a dream of one day being a really good cook…in the meantime, she keeps a frozen pizza on hand just in case. You can connect with Jordan via her blogs atwww.projectpriceless.com, on Facebook atwww.facebook.com/projectpriceless, or on twitter, under her handle @projectpricelss.