This article comes from Social Media Today.
If you have an amazing product or service, which has the potential to greatly improve the lives of your ideal clients, then it’s only natural that you’ll want to talk about it in your social media posts with great enthusiasm.
I get it, you’re passionate about what you do, and you want to share it with those who need it the most – but in your enthusiasm, you might accidentally be coming across as a social media spammer.
You Might Be a Social Media Spammer (And Not Know It)
In this post, I’ll share three key tips on how to conduct yourself on social media so that you don’t come across as a spammer, and are instead seen as a professional, trustworthy authority on your topic.
1. Did I make it about me?
The first question you always need to ask yourself before posting on social media or sending out a message is “Did I make it about myself or my ideal clients?”
If it isn’t about your ideal clients, do NOT hit the post button.
Your target customers generally don’t care about you or your business, but they do very much care about their own problems and/or challenges. Remember that everything they see or hear goes through their WIIFM (what’s in it for me?) filter. If they don’t care about it, they’ll see it as spam – and in business, it’s their perception of spam that matters, not yours.
When posting on social media, keep these three questions in mind:
- Does this solve one key problem or challenge of my ideal clients? – If your newsfeeds are anything like mine, they are littered with noise. Do you quickly scroll past posts from people and businesses that don’t immediately catch your attention? And what’s most likely to catch your attention? Something that directly addresses a problem or desire you have.
- Is it relevant to them specifically? – Have you ever been tagged in a post that had nothing to do with you, or anything you are even interested in? Annoying, isn’t it? Never tag people in a post that doesn’t directly relate to them. This is, most definitely, spam.
- Is it easily consumed by them? – If your preferred content is videos, and not blog posts, but a company you’re interested in shares only blog posts, how long will you follow it on social media?
2. Did they ask for it?
How annoying do you find it when the first communication you receive from a person you’ve just followed or connected to is their sales pitch? Yet so many professionals and businesses do this.
I cannot stress enough the importance of asking permission to market. Your ideal clients will often treat anything they didn’t ask for or agree to as spam, which is why even messages with links or attachments to valuable content you send to your ideal clients could be seen as spam by them.
To avoid this, first work to establish some level of rapport with your clients. Begin by having a conversation with them, and about them. Find out what’s important to them, and identify any commonalities you share.
3. Am I engaging in conversations?
Have you ever left a question or comment on a social media post from a business and never got any reply or acknowledgment? How did that feel?
It’s annoying when you hope to have a conversation with a person or business, and they can’t be bothered to engage with you. Think about it this way, would you ever go up to someone at a networking event and say “Hi, nice to meet you. Now buy my stuff!”?
Of course, you wouldn’t. So don’t do it on social media platforms. That is spam.
If you don’t want to be seen as a social media spammer, engage with your ideal clients when they ask questions or leave comments on your posts.
People want to be seen, they want to be acknowledged. Your response can often be as simple as clicking the like button, or leaving a quick thanks.
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