Social Media Content Marketing

"It's true. I didn't read this. I didn't even bother to read the title before I shared it. In fact, you've already read more of the article than I ever will. That's because many Twitter retweets are done digitally through robots.  Or maybe a service found the phrase "social media" and it "Liked" it under my Facebook profile. I wonder if the author named the article what he did to prove a point?" He did.  Last week, I was checking statistics to see who had retweeted my last article on wanting social media to be less narcissistic . (The irony of that last statement is not lost on me, but I digress.) The great thing about Facebook, Twitter and other social networks is that nearly everything can be tracked and traced. I was pleased to see marketers, other business professionals, as well as plain ol' regular folks, had liked the article enough to share it with others.  But as I continued perusing the list, I spotted a ton of ph...

The precise moment I pulled up to the gas pump this morning, my car chimed and the "Need Fuel" icon light came on. I thought about how great it would be if I could achieve similar perfect timing with my social media to maximize results and reach. To have posts, emails, texts, them appear precisely at the moment they are needed or desired. One of the first things I learned about being a social media professional was that before you spend time on the metrics of perfect timing, it's better to spend more time tweeting and Facebook posting more often. The number one reason social media campaigns fail in my opinion is because businesses get discouraged by a lack of results and stop posting. Or they run out of ideas. Or they just don't keep up with a regular schedule. Instead, first think about your intent. Why do you want your posts to be read? What are your expected results? Is it just to be retweeted or reposted? That's good for the ego but doesn't much hel...

Did you see what I did there? I front-loaded the headline with tried and true triggers to make even the most skeptical reader to click and open. Like you just did. Marketers have known for years that people respond to sentiments that imply easy, free, expert or quantitative points. But social media is upping the ante. We live in a 140 character world that will keep getting shortened until mind reading is a downloadable smart phone app. The bad news is that my Magic 8-Ball says "Chances are good" that several people who will repost this very article will do so without ever reading it. And therein lies one of the most prevalent problems that social media for business is facing today. There is such a frenzy by businesses to share post, re-post, tweet and retweet that few stop to read what they share or know why they're sharing it. Often it's rehashed info we just read --and those are the good posts. More often articles are a few paragraphs seasoned wi...