I've been working in social media for a long period & tracking the industry at The Social Juice. And recently with all the new changes happening with social. I would like to share my key insights:

 

1. Influencers are not numbers.

Don't work with influencers based on the numbers. Influencers are not media outlets with guarantied exposures.  Don't value them based on numbers, value them based on how verbal and social they are with followers. 

Best advice understand the level of their audience by analyzing the comments section. 

2. Social Strategist vs Social Media Manager

You fail by mixing them up. Your managers job is to be more social with the potential buyers & existing audience. Your strategists job is to share their vision on how to use social media as a marketing channel. 

or you should teach your social media manager pretty well about your OKRs & Buyer personas. 

3. Online Communities are not future 

Every social media company is telling you that communities are future. They frankly aren't based on what I see. I have studied community channels of small businesses, tech companies like Adobe, etc. 

 

many are dead now & few are hardly active. The problem is dictatorship like strategy where company shares their own content & ideas. and that limits the topic of discussions. communities don't work like that, you as the founder want the profit. But communities grow if you listen & respond, not by commands. 

 

Online communities on WhatsApp, Discord or Slack will be key to great brand presence. When you build a better space for discussion.

4. Harsh Truth about Organic reach

With twitter revealing that likes make most impact on organic reach. The same framework is used for other social media platforms.

 

That's why Brands use 80:20 rule is the best for social media content strategy. 80% of the time you should create for people with an intent to increase brand engagement. 20% of the time you should create for algorithms to tap into new audience. This is  achievable through broad content like industry trends, Meme content & broad content. 

5. Why I say social is dead

I see more and more brands making decisions based on the goals of achieving X numbers on social media. Social media is not about that, the essential goal of social media marketing is 

 

Personalization of the average customer experience. And always setting long term goals with your social media strategy. Social Media done right helps you do marketing with people, not marketing to people. 

 

Build your potential community members that spread the word about your business. 

6. Consistency in distribution 

Sick of seeing coaches yell at me to post 365 days. That's for creators that haven't figured out their product market & brand purpose. 

 

As a business, your goal should be tracking what type of queries are being searched on social media. And when they're relevant to your business. Build a distribution strategy to spread your existing content in those spaces. For Social, always create sustainable content that is shareable for many queries. 

 

Then use distribution strategy + Social listening to always be there for your buyers.

7. ChatGPT is changing Editorial Content

Editorial content on social media to help audiences through valuable input is changing. Because most of the editorial content is too basic & one google search away. And now with ChatGPT that type of content might not help you to differentiate your brand from others. 

 

That's why editorial content is getting more personal and successful brands are sharing. "how I" & "Why I" content instead of "How-to" showing an element of real-time experience & knowledge. To make sure the audience finds the content more authentic & relevant.