The world of marketing and the world of social media are changing. Social media marketers have been looking at the changes for several years now and the drastic decline in organic reach. It’s not a myth, it’s definitely happening. Facebook’s goal is to keep the user experience as good as possible. With the amount of businesses trying to promote things through a page, and people doing promotions on the organic news feed, Facebook has begun to penalize people for it. They have been for quite some time. Everything is going to algorithms. Google has had its algorithm for many years, and now Facebook has an algorithm. The purpose of the algorithm is to make sure that there is good content that’s out there for people to read, and to not have constant promotions in your face. They want to make sure people are putting together good content.
So, I just listened to an amazing podcast from Amy Porterfield and Michael Feldner from Social Media Examiner, in which they were discussing the changes that are happening. One of the things I’ve been sharing with people that I work with for some time now is, stop putting promotional content (if you have a sale going on or you want to discount or promote something) in your organic posts. As I said, marketers have seen a drastic decline in organic reach and we have for quite some time. If you want to do some kind of a promotion, look into a Facebook ad or a Google ad. Right now, if you’re looking at Google ads, Facebook ads, or Instagram ads, you have the ability to do something that’s more promotional and advertise a sale quite easily. I’ve been doing Google paper clip ads for a very long time. They are probably the most expensive to do, but they work. Facebook ads are probably the most reasonable. I’ve seen high success with them, but you have to be willing to invest.
As marketers, what this whole thing comes down to, is your content. Planning out your content becomes so, so important. The other thing that becomes extremely important is your email acquisition campaign. And if you don’t have one, you’ve got to create one. What that means is your ability to use social media or your website to collect more email addresses, so that you can send out good quality content to people via email. As I said, your email acquisition campaign and planning out your content a couple months in advance becomes so key. Because that’s what’s going to give you an edge.
When you have content planned, ready to go, you can educate people, get them excited about something, pique their interest, and get your message out there to the masses. If you plan your content out on social media and figure out a way to get them from social media to something where they can register and sign up by giving you their email address, then you have the ability to market with them later on.
Lastly, it’s important to take a look at your frequency, understand who your ideal customer is and who you’re trying to serve. A lot of marketers have always put so much weight on the amount of likes they’re getting on their posts or the amount of people that they’re attracting to their page and, what we’re finding now is, that doesn’t matter. What matters is, the good quality people you’re attracting that are converting. They are sharing, interacting with your page, watching your videos, buying your programs, and even coming into your store and purchasing online.
Fully understanding who you’re trying to serve and who your ideal customer is just so key. Once you have that intel and knowledge, with how marketing has been changing, you also need to keep your finger on the pulse of things, because your ideal customer may have shifted. So, constantly going back into the metrics in social media and looking at the emails that you’re sending is going to be important. Seeing what’s working and what’s not working. That was one thing that Michael said in the podcast. They thought they were appealing to one segment of people, and what they found out they were appealing to somebody completely different. Once they started focusing on these people, people listening to their podcasts and reading their articles and spinning it in their own way, that ended up becoming their ideal customer, instead of who they originally thought.
Again, what this comes down to is really understanding who it is that you are trying to serve, and having your message and understanding what it is they are looking for. If you are looking for more great tips, like this, jump over to Instagram or Facebook and follow me. Coming soon I have a whole new series, on how to brainstorm out all your ideas, how to set your goals and stay motivated!
