755 – There is good in being social online: Tom talks Social Media Success

Episode 755 – Social Media Success
[00:00:08] Welcome to Screw the Commute. The entrepreneurial podcast dedicated to getting you out of the car and into the money, with your host, lifelong entrepreneur and multimillionaire, Tom Antion.

[00:00:24] Hey everybody, it's Tom here with episode 755 of Screw the Commute podcast. Today, I'm going to talk about social media success tips. Now, many of you know I consider social media a necessary evil. You have to have it. But for most of you, it's a waste of time business wise, because you may not understand some of the basic premises of how social media companies operate. I'm going to clear that up for you on this episode. All right. I hope you didn't miss Episode 754. That was fast recurring cash. This is a way and you know, I'm all for working for yourself, but you can get some cash from other people that won't take the time to learn this stuff and get a nice recurring income. So that was 754 episode and two way to get to the back episodes or screwthecommute.com, slash, then the episode number. That was 754 and today 755. Make sure you follow me on TikTok at tiktok.com/@digitalmultimillionaire and make sure you grab a copy of our automation book. It's screwthecommute.com/automatefree. You will thank me because this book will save you hundreds of hours if you just do a few of the tips in the book. So grab your copy at screwthecommute.com/automatefree.

[00:01:45] Now let's get to the main event. So here's my overriding principle when it comes to social media and as you just heard to me, it's a necessary evil, especially in the beginning of your business, because prospective customers will check you out there before they take a chance buying from you.

[00:02:05] I get that I'm in a different position in that I've spent my time on social media getting people off their on to a very substantial and lucrative email list. I don't really look that great on social media, but I don't care because I have this email list, so that's what I want you to shoot for. The bulk of the money made by people like me is from email. There's no exception to that. The only people that dispute that are people selling social media training. All right. So start thinking about that every time you post on social media. How can I get them off of the social media onto an email list that you control so you don't control any of your social media? It's all controlled by the platform you're on. They can make a change and you disappear off the face of the earth. But not so with email. All right, let's have a lesson on the business model of all the social media. It boils down to one major revenue stream for them selling ads. That's it. That's the main revenue stream. So how do they get more people to advertise and to spend more for the ads? That's where you come in. It's called UGC or user generated content. They depend on you to provide content for the site and to grab people to consume your content.

[00:03:34] The more people you grab and the longer they stay on the site, the more ads the social media platform can sell and the more they can charge for the ads. Simple as that, you might think. How can they afford to cancel someone who has a million followers? Well, besides the censorship issue by the nutcases that run many of these sites, they must keep a modicum of reasonability or the people that come to the site will be put off and not come back. Guess what? If they leave, the social media site can't sell as many ads. So I told you that's what it's all about. So for you to be successful and use these sites to your advantage, you have to play their game. They aren't going to play yours. They are giving you free access to all their technology so that you can bring people to their site so they can sell ads. Are you getting this yet? Okay, that's a fair trade. But most small business people don't see how to maximize the advantage of being on the site for their own benefit. In other words, you are helping the site, but you aren't getting the benefits they offer. Well, let's fix that. All right. The first major topic. We got to talk about his engagement. I'm sure you've heard that term engagement. Is social media. In social media terms are things like likes, comments, shares and saves. So let's talk about them now.

[00:05:11] So a like is the lowest form of engagement. It's easy for someone to click a button and say they liked your post. The next highest form of engagement is a comment. And comments even have varying values. A comment like Nice post isn't as valuable as a comment. Like here's another comment. What you said here is something I've struggled with all my life. I'm a compulsive overeater and this tip on how to consume more water could be a game changer for me. See, that's a more valuable comment. It's a serious and longer and so forth. Then you have a share. A share sends the message that the post was so good, the person looking at it wants other people to see it. And then a save sends the message that the post was so good, the person looking at it wants to look at it again later. Now, why is engagement important to your success and to the success of the social media site? Well, there are two main reasons. One, engagement to the social media site means that that person that's engaging with your content is staying on the site longer. Here we go again so they can show and sell more ads. Right? And number two, engagement to you means the social media site will show your post to more people. So let's go in to that now and talk about micro tests. What's a micro test? A micro test means that in the first hour or so after you make a post, the social media site watches to see if the post is getting any engagement, likes, comments, shares and all that.

[00:07:00] If it is, then the social media site shows the post to more people. If it doesn't get engagement or some engagement or very little in the first hour or so, guess what? That's the end of it. You did all that work to make the post, but the social media site doesn't show it to anybody. From their perspective, why should they waste their bandwidth? Showing your post to more people if no one appears to like it? They aren't going to do it. And you just wasted your time making the post and putting it up on the site. In other words, you failed your micro test. And as a sidebar, it's kind of interesting. In the beginning of these social media sites, Facebook in particular begged you to get likes and reach a bunch of people and then eventually only gave you two ways to reach those people. Either get massive engagement or pay to advertise to them. I think it's less than 1% of people see your posts unless you get massive engagement or advertise. And there's that word advertise again, isn't it? So what should you do to, quote, beat the system? Well, what you don't want to do is post anytime you feel like it. Most of the social media sites will tell you if you know where to look when most of your followers are online.

[00:08:26] Post in that time frame that gives you the best chance of most people being there. And most top pros in the social media field will tell you to post less and make the posts you do. Post really great. Not mundane like what you ate for breakfast. Unless of course, you're a health and nutrition poster, then you should do whatever it takes to beg your friends, relatives or whomever you can get hold of to agree to engage with your posts almost immediately after you post them. This helps you pass the micro test and the social media site will show your stuff to more people for free because it looks to them that you have a pretty good post and that post will keep people longer on the site. So guess what? They can show and sell more ads. Now if you do have an email list, you can be a smart marketer by sending out an email telling of a new post. This sends a great message to the social media site. They can see that someone came from outside their site directly to one of your posts and they love you for that. Now, another part of this you've got to keep in mind is that the social media sites like you more if you do things that keep people on their site, for instance. And by by by the way, many of the things I'm telling you would never be admitted to by the social media sites.

[00:10:04] All right. It's just observations from experienced people who have figured these things out. But anyway. If you have a posting that has a link to another posting or something on the same site, that posting is looked upon more favorably than if you link to somewhere out of the social media site. Now, that doesn't mean that posting will go anywhere if it has no engagement. It just means it's another thing to keep in mind when trying to get the most people to see your stuff. I mean, I link out all the time because if I determine the value of some people linking out of the social media site is worth more to me than if more people happen to see the post, then I'll link out. For instance, I might be linking to something that makes me a big affiliate commission. Next topic is that of Deadwood and vanity metrics. When I talk about engagement, I'm really talking about engagement rate. This is the percentage of people that engage with your content compared to the number of people that follow you. Now, here's a very simple math example. Now, if you have 100 followers and one person engages with your piece of content, that would be a 1% engagement rate rate, one out of 100. Now, if you can get two people to engage with your content out of 100, that would be a 2% engagement rate.

[00:11:40] In other words, you just doubled your engagement rate. Makes you look good. Now let's look at it another way. Let's say you got rid of non engaging and fake followers out of that hundred and got down to 50 followers. If one person engaged out of those 50, that's already a 2% conversion rate. You just doubled your conversion rate by getting rid of worthless people that never engage with you or fake people. Let's say you did that and you also got two people to engage. You now have a 4% engagement rate. That's two people out of 50. See, this concept is extremely important on Instagram, and that's where I first learned it when I took advanced Instagram training. So if you get rid of people who aren't engaging and get more people to help you pass your micro test, remember in the first hour or so, you can make great leaps in engagement rate. And guess what? The social media platform loves you for it and shows your stuff to more people so they can sell more ads. I know this. This means you might have to get rid of off your list your best friend from grade school. Okay, that's on your Instagram list. But when you look at it, they never engage with your content. And so even though they're on your list and you know them personally, they're hurting you. They may not mean to hurt you, but they are hurting you.

[00:13:16] And if you have to tell them that you've removed them and here's why, maybe they'll they'll understand that or maybe they might start engaging to help you out better because they didn't realize. They didn't know. So you got to get rid of the fake followers and the dead wood off of your list. See, most people get enamored with what we call vanity metrics, which means they brag about how many followers they have. Well. But when you look at their post, no one is engaging, which means their channel will not grow. And I know, I know it can hurt to get rid of people and knock down your numbers. Your overall numbers go down and it hurts and you don't want to do it. But see, in the long run, it's the only way to grow your channel with real people that might buy something. See, you can brag all you want about big numbers of followers, but if it doesn't turn into cash, what's the point? And those big numbers are actually hurting you from growing and making money. See just the nature of the beast. You might have to listen to this again to see how these social media sites think so that you can best take advantage of it. So to recap. If you post less with better quality posts, beg everyone you know to engage with good with good comments, shares and saves within the first hour or so. So you pass the micro test and get rid of dead wood in your accounts.

[00:14:52] You'll be much better than you're doing now. And don't forget the overall principle of getting them the heck off of there onto an email list. Right. So if you want help with this and the thousand other things you need to be successful online, check out my mentor program at GreatInternetMarketingTraining.com. And also I have a new program on being a great podcast guest that screwthecommute.com/greatpodcastguest and I can show you how to impress the heck out of podcast host, not just with what you do on the interview, but how you get the interviews because there's loads of people wanting these interviews, but I'll show you how to get at the top of the list by all the things you do before, during and after the podcast episode, so it can put you in front of hundreds of thousands of people with a warm introduction. Of course, my mentees get this for free. So if you want to get in the mentor program and get a real comprehensive and unique training, that's I mean, it's the longest running ever in the field of Internet and digital marketing mentor program, and it's the most unique by far and most successful. So check it out. GreatInternetmarketingtraining.com. But if you just want the podcast stuff, screwthecommute.com/greatpodcastguest. All right, we'll catch you all in the next episode. See you later.