Stop Making Social Media Content for Yourself

A Social Media Manager's real answer to growing social media engagement… and it isn't posting more.

Everyone has social media… so everyone is probably telling you how to run yours, right?

Brian from tech will tell you to post one thing, the CEO will tell you to post another, and the Marketing Director (the one that's told you he doesn't know anything about social media) well he'll tell you to go in a completely different direction, as well.

But nobody knows social media like you, the Social Media Manager.

My Biggest Mistake as a Social Media Manager

A few years ago I joined the Bodybuilding.com social media team… and I was flyin' solo. Have you ever been there? It can be very exciting, but also a little daunting.

In the interview process I was told every WoW (week over week) number was in the red, and my job? To put everything back in the green.

I wasn't new to the role of a Social Media Manager, but this was my first time in the world of health and fitness. So I took a step back and leaned on the teams I'd be working closely with. My boss was the VP of Brand & Creative, and she was incredible! I met with her and two others on the Influencer Marketing team every week, and they gave me a little insight into what they were doing. So I took their advice and posted what they suggested.

But wait… weren't they the ones running the accounts previously and their WoW numbers were in the red? So why was I listening to them? That's not meant to be rude, but I'm the Social Media Manager and I know what needs to be done.

Then the light clicked. The right person to give me advice was never in those team Zoom calls. You know who gave me the best advice on what to post? Our audience.

Let Your Audience Guide Your Content Strategy

From there I took the reins and shifted what we were doing entirely. I was blessed because my boss trusted me and gave me every green light needed. At first, I was posting anything and everything… that whole "throw spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks" thing, ya know? And I did that for a couple of weeks. Some weeks the numbers were up, some weeks they were down. But I had to stop looking at the weeks as a whole, and start looking at each post individually. What was the content topic being posted? What did the comments say? I read each and every single comment. I responded to a lot of those comments too. I listened. I talked.

The hard part about this… it wasn't fast. It was long. And it was slow.

How to Listen to Your Social Media Audience

Learning your audience can't be assigned to you in the morning marketing huddle and reported back by EOD. If it was, let me take a guess, you probably just BSed the whole thing and didn't truly learn who your audience was.

I'm a big believer that your best friend isn't the person you've known the longest.. but did you just meet them this morning? Did it take hours, weeks, months, to build that connection with them? Why is your social audience any different? They're yours. They follow you. They want to know you. So take the time to get to know them. Don't post a video, see them leave a comment, and quickly respond to one or two people saying "thanks girlie 💅" and move on.

We've truly lost touch with the idea that "social media" means being "social" with others.

A majority of us post once a day (mayyybe twice) to our brand's social media accounts. And let me tell you, that can be rough when you've been given the freedom to do whatever you want to help your channels grow. I was so excited to be doing something new and different, and to be building these relationships with our audience that I just wanted to post more and more. But sadly, you can't.

While I was eagerly waiting each day to post the next piece of content I had to do something… So I took my own advice and decided to be social with our audience.

After I posted something I would see how people responded. Did the views go up when you talked about something specific? Did the comments seem positive? Talk about it again in a different way. Was it a one off topic or did the views and comments go up again? If it's positive then we see that your audience is trusting you with this topic.

Your audience is trusting you, so you need to trust them.

Social Media Engagement vs. Vanity Metrics

Have you ever posted a piece of content and it totally flopped? If you said "no" then I salute you and would ask you to send me a DM so we can talk more.

Well I sure have… many times… just like so many other Content Creators and Social Media Managers before you have too. We've all had that feeling of "oh this is going to absolutely pop off!!" Sometimes we've seen someone do the exact thing so we follow a trend.. and nothing. A major flop. How embarrassing?

But even in the flops there's a bit of a golden opportunity that we may pass up because we are disappointed in ourselves.

The great thing about that piece of content flopping is sometimes it reaches fewer people.. but it reaches the right people. I can't tell you how many times I've had a low view video where the comments were up, and I was able to really engage with those people. Not just with a simple one comment response, but with a full conversation with them in the comments. Honestly, that has happened to me more times than not. That’s genuinely one of the biggest lessons I’ve learned about how to grow social media engagement…it was never really about the reach, it’s about who actually shows up.

And those people will return over and over again with your future posts.

I know that because it happened to me in the most unexpected way possible.

I once quit my job and told myself "I know how to do this social media thing, let me give it a shot!" So over the course of three months I did what I needed to build an audience of 35,000 followers. But I started a new job, stopped posting, and my audience went cold.

A few months went by, I was scrolling through social media, and a content creator friend of mine that has the same audience as me posted something. I went to cheer him on in the comments and something unexpected happened. Someone responded to my comment on his video and asked me when I was going to start making content again.

The relationships I formed with my audience outlived my content and my own platforms.

The Real ROI of Social Media Relationships

I'm a Social Media Manager and a content creator at heart, so hey I get it when all those numbers are green. And I think that's totally fine to admit.

But always remember the real wins are the relationships and loyalty that you're able to build with your audience… and that's something you can't track. Have you ever reported to your Director of Marketing the returning names in your notifications? Most likely not. But make sure those names matter to you, because your name matters to your followers.

We live in a world where people are craving community, so give it to them. You and your audience. Give to them everything they need from you, be there for them, and I promise you they'll be there for you too.

Be Social, Not Just Present

So go out there and do something new, something different. Have fun. Listen to your audience… but make sure you're talking back to them. Nothing is going to change as a Social Media Manager if you don't learn to be social.

If you're tired of guessing what to post, that's exactly the kind of work I do for brands. Let's talk! :)

Gotta blast!