Rules of Social Media Survival: a short truth
Born into a generation of tech savvy folks or not, social media has now impacted your life to the point that you don’t even know who your friends and family are. This second life has allowed for people to showcase their life highlights and to never have to miss a dull moment or ever have to even hear of a dull moment.
Though many can choose a selfie that reflects their best features, not many can actually utilize this gift of being about to time when and where people see you and your content. Promoting yourself in various strategies can impact the level of clout, and I hate using that word, you receive on social media. Targeting a certain group of people becomes a psychological game of figuring out how you can fill their missing void by being the sister, friend, wife, boyfriend, uncle, idol, etc. that they want to have on their feed daily.
This is the first rule; to understand who you want to be to your audience. If you’re a health expert, then maybe posting about your nightly McDonald’s runs isn’t the best way to leverage selling your multi-supplement that will help your clients lose 10lbs in one week! You have to promote yourself by showing a perfect version of yourself. It may seem harsh and it is a vile thought to think that you’ll be lying to your audience, but everyone does it!
You’ve probably seen advertisements on billboards and the television showing happy smiling celebrities like Brad Pitt looking astonishingly debonair, or seeing attractive people posing under slogans that say “finger-lickin’ good!” One would ask themselves; who was behind this image and the advertising? I don’t think anyone is all that surprised that it was probably not Brad Pitt himself. You’re more likely to encounter a marketing expert named Phillip in his 30’s who loved Fight Club and has missed his last dentist appointment.
Phillip is you.
Promoting your social media in essence means that you have to showcase the best possible vibe, mood, and appearance for your brand image even if that’s not you all the time. Your goal should always be to capture your audiences feelings and desires when using your product or service.
Let me introduce you to Edward Bernays, this was a man who saw one scary realization; that propaganda has effectively been used during major world wide wars at influencing large populations, Bernays wondered if it was equally likely to work during times of peace. However, most people associate propaganda with negative connotation; it’s a good thing we just call it public relations.
Now that we look back 60, 70 years ago and see advertisements about smoking, we are shocked that people have ever fallen for something that seems like common sense to avoid. This creative approach to advertising sucks on the emotions of the average viewer and that is something that needs to be studied and understand when trying to leverage social media to gain earnings.
Most people know they are being sold something even if an advertisement makes them feel all warm and fuzzy inside, yet they will continue to want that product or service that makes them feel so good just by looking at a social media post. Only caution that seems to make or break peoples social media strategy is breaking that line of ‘authenticity.’
During the Sony Hacks of 2014, emails of all sorts were found exposing celebrities, politicians and business men. One interesting email showed the world that renowned comedian Kevin Hart was being paid upwards of $2 million dollars just to promote his own movies through a couple of tweets to his twitter page with a 14.5 million following. Many people were turned off by this truth and found Hart to be distasteful since he already is being paid to be in the movies he’s promoting.
The lesson from this story is that influencing on social media should be a mirage of the word effortless. Looking authentic is the most important power to hold when using social media as people want to enjoy their browsing and not feel as if they are being swindled into buying your waist trainers and fit teas — even if that is exactly what you are doing.
Marketing has changed drastically in how we advertise and where we advertise, but the idea remains that all you need to remember is two things that your audience wants; authentic emotions.
As explained simply by the expert;
“Men (people) are rarely aware of the real reasons which motivate their actions.”
― Edward L. Bernays, Propaganda
