Feeling stressed about your social media and the amount of content you feel you have to put out? Do you feel like you are always having to keep up with the Jones on social media? Trying to keep up with others on social media can cause you great stress. It can cause you to get stuck. Here’s some wisdom that just might help you do better and feel better about your social media.
Social Media – A story to illustrate my point:
As I was walking one Saturday morning to a destination, this guy passed me by. And I thought to myself… “I need to keep up and get ahead of him. Why am I not keeping up with this guy?” Have you ever found yourself doing the same thing in other areas of your life?
To add gas to the fire so to speak, my wife is also a fast walker. She has shorter legs but always seems to be faster than me. I always seem to be trying to keep up with her when we go walking or out and about. It must be my competitive nature I guess.
And I think I saw the guy smiling as he passed me by that Saturday morning. That just put me into the zone right there at that moment. In the end, even with me taking a short cut, he continued to stay ahead of me. He just did not want to be behind me.
And when it comes to social media, for many of us, it is no different. So many of us are trying to keep up with others. This can bring a lot of stress into our lives. Stress can rob us of a lot of joy as well.
At this point, I want to remind you that you did not sign up for a truck load of stress. Now please do not get me wrong. I am all about the hard work and working smart; but the days of stressing myself out are behind me. I hope you feel the same. Let’s see what we can do to be better with our social media.
Social Media – The Problem:
The problem: you forget that everyone has their own unique social media foot print. Even if you put out the same amount of effort on social media, you might not see the same results. Working harder does not always produce the same results as others.
If you believe that things would be better if only you could only produce as much social media content as “such and such”, or work as hard as “such and such”; then you would see great results. Social media does not necessarily work that way. Keeping up with the Jones on social media might be the cause of great stress and stomach aches.
What you fail to understand is that they may have a greater level of ability or understanding of social media that really works for them. They might have a great system that keeps them producing content that really impacts.
To truly be successful with social media, you need to find out what works best for you. Start small and work up.
Social Media – The solution:
The solution to stress free social media is to find your social media “Sweet spot” or “Swing”. What do you mean by sweet spot or swing? Simply put, the sweet spot or swing is… “The right amount of social media content required to get the job done. Putting it another way, the right amount and type of content that generates the greatest impact for the smallest amount of effort.”
We need to ask ourselves these questions… “At what level of effort do we make good results for the level of activity we put in? When can we say that what we have done is enough, and be OK with it? What do we have to do that produces the desired outcome we want?”
Some practical things you can do:
- Watch what type of posts get the best responses. Then do more of them. Your community, that surrounds your business on social media, will tell you what they like and what they want more of.
- Stop pushing out social media just to get content out there. This is noise to your community. It is better to post things of value than to post everything and hope it sticks. Post better and post less. Observe what happens and adjust.
- Many social networks give better visibility to those that are there everyday. So try to have one super post at least once a day. Go for a great quality post instead of a bunch of lame posts each day.
- Try to post when you get the best visibility. Most networks have analytics that show you when to post to get the most views. Do your research and find the best time. Then let your best post fly.
- Engage people in your community that surrounds you and your business,and get to know them. When you build relationships with others around you, these people can become people who will share your posts with their friends. Be genuine with these relationships. People matter. People should be valued for who they are.
- Do not rely on apps that post on your behalf to create a social media presence. People know when this happens. What you are really saying to them when you do this is this… “I am really to busy to interact with you, but because I need to create visibility, I will mention your name so you feel like I really just did!” People can figure this out. Be sincere in your interactions.
- Test and check what works and what does not. Do not try to keep up to others for the sake of appearance. How do you really know what they are doing is working? Do what works best for you with the time you have.
- Reach out and say “Hi” to others. You never know what type of opportunity you can start. Conversing with others is never a waste of time.
Summary
I hope you understand that the best social media you will ever produce is based on:
- Creating content that matters and impacts,
- Not filling the Internet with useless noise,
- Producing content at your own pace,
- Thinking about others first by being real, engaged and appreciative.
As a business owner, never be in a rush to get things done. Value the chances you get to interact and build relationship with others. And when it comes to the Jones, let them be stressed out with their social media.
