The Biggest Problem with Social Media

I have said for a while in my training now that the biggest problem with social media is that it is free.  What I mean by this is that brands and businesses vomit content all over the internet, without stopping to think about the content that they post.

If we approached any other medium this way, we likely wouldn’t get results.  The key to success is a solid strategy and a brilliant creative execution of that strategy (this is why ad agencies get paid a lot of money).  The combination of strategy and execution is what leads to successful social media marketing, and successful marketing on every other channel.

The problem is that in social media, there is no cost to post an update, so we just post stuff….. with almost no thought.  The problem is that as social media channels have become more cluttered, breaking through the noise is getting harder, and just posting stuff isn’t good enough any more.

The Social Media 2 Minute Rule

I propose the social media 2 minute rule, like the 2 second rule (or whatever it is) for food to sit on the ground before you are allowed to eat it.

The 2 Minute Social Media Rule would state that a brand/business has to spend at least 2 minutes after initially writing a post/tweet/update improving the “interestingness” or creativity of the post.

One of the things that we know about social media and marketing overall is that good copywriting makes all the difference.  Finding interesting ways to reframe your content or using better words in the post can make all the difference on how people respond to you.  Spending just 2 minutes on each post can dramatically impact the results that you get from social media.

SAT: Stop and Think Before you Post

Respect your audience enough to value their time.  If you can’t spend 2 minutes improving your post (at a minimum) why should they invest the time in reading it?