Small Group Discussion: How to Build Readership Though Social Media, led by Tyron Godwin, SeekingBostonMarathon.com. This session was an interactive session designed to share ideas about what works and what doesn’t in social media and ambassadorships.
This session was fast moving and those in attendance answered questions Ty put out there as he also shared his experiences
Ty began by posing the question: Where do you spend your time? or Where do you effectively spend your time? (in regards to social media)
Audience: Spend time where you enjoy going. Groom areas where enjoy the audience. Know your audience. Can spread yourself to thin.
Ty: Pinterest doesn’t work for me.
Audience: I share recipes for audience to save and go back to later. Share pictures.
Overall the group commented and agreed you need to know where and who your audience is in each format.
Ty commented and asked how the blog life can invade real life. As much as he would like to have this be full-time job, he like many of us also have a full-time job and life demands (family). Balancing the real life demands and also trying to post meaningful, unique content can be difficult. The blog life can get caught up with no time.
Audience: Discussion and comments regarding posting to other channels such as having one feed link to all your other feeds. Some say they do this. Others say you need to tweek your content for each feed. Commented you can take the same image for each outlet but to change the content to fit the audience of that outlet. Again needing to know your audience was important.
A discussions about Facebook algorithms began regarding what is allowed on the newsfeed. Comments where made that FB does not like links in the feed or anything that takes you out of FB. People will now put links in comments. FB will bury you if you use an outside scheduler. One audience member commented that in her research they have found that you need to be posting every 30 minutes and that FB is now a pay to play arena. So the talk went to where else can you go to post. Instagram. Periscope.
Quickly the question came up, what is periscope? Who is on periscope? Periscope is a live broadcast video where audience can instantly interact.
Ty: What about Google Plus? Evergreen?
Audience: content can be searched over and over, now a disappointment. Hard to switch back and forth from personal and to blog content.
Ty: About the algorithms?
Audience: Make it a conversation. Start commenting. Don’t automate. Make a conversation that will build a community- not random.
An audience member commented they had been to a blogging boot camp and gave a few tips. She stated to be consistent. FB likes consistency. You don’t have to post all day. If you do your audience is not going to see you.
Metrics- 2x day- ask questions. Frame original content. Reschedule to post again and make sure you post on weekends. Take your Monday post and reschedule it for Saturday. They people looking on the weekend may not have been looking during the week.
In your post encourage engagement. Wording is important. If you are trying to sell something FB will bury you. Videos are #1 right now. Use a 15-20 sec video and FB will push you to the top. Post the video do not link to it on another outlet.
Ty: Wording?
Audience: Example Here is a recipe go check it out to here is an awesome banana split recipe. Do not word it like a call to action.
Ty: What will raise click through rate?
Audience: anything that will keep people on FB. Pictures with less than 20% words on them. FB doesn’t like working. Audience discussed looking at your insights page on FB. See who the most successful page is of the week. Look at your statistics tab. See best post and engagement. Twitter has the same thing. Use the tools the outlet has. See what time of day more activity is happening. Look at demographics.
Ty: Facebook authorship piece?
Audience: Haven’t figured it out yet. If you have a post and if shared it will maintain author of original post.
Ty: Snapchat? is it just for kids? What makes it valuable?
Audience: No, not just for kids. Maybe particular genre of bloggers. Can post a fitness workout. Be relevant to your audience. May be a younger audience. Does it drive traffic to blog? One audience member stated his sports broadcast uses snapchat to share the high school football action.
Ty: if you are using this outlet, are you spending less time somewhere else? How about Reddit? (many people didn’t know about this outlet)
Audience: it is for 18-25 year olds in silicone valley
Ty: so I may need to play on Periscope and Snapchat.
Ty: How about twitter chats?
Audience: yes, more focused on the audience and main way for some to gain followers. There are chats already sponsored or you can start your own. Takes a couple times doing it before you really get the hang of it. They move fast. There is a moderator and everyone answers the question and then side conversations start up. One audience member says she gained 50 twitter followers every time she does a twitter chat. FitFluential has them. Hard but you pop between tweets. Answer questions. Interactive. Goes very fast.
Ty: FB boost?
Audience: one audience member says they have a gym and they swear by it. Dead on with demographics. Cheap as far as pay to play. Helps a lot.
Want to post 3X day. 1/2 content should be original. 1/2 should be some one else’s. You want to have followers and shares. Have good content and share the best stuff around. Tag people you link. Help each other out. Helps establish credibility. Another person stated the formula is 70% original, 20% other people and 10% promotional.
When boosting you can do $40. Can do $10, 4x or $40 for one time. Boost Thursday-Monday
Ty: Page vs personal FB?
Audience: seems like more people want to follow personal page. Others said no. People want to follow page for specific content and not that you shared that cute animal video. Some said those animal videos are pretty popular and boost views and shares.
Ty: Covering controversial topics? I took my kids out of school to see Boston Marathon. Got negative feedback and have to be able to handle when things turn ugly.
Audience in closing: Go back and interact. Ask questions that don’t put you on the hot seat. We can talk about how to handle a bad day. It doesn’t always have to be all happy and that we are always doing well. Get real with your audience. often get more likes with discussing the struggle.
This discussion could have gone on. It did go right up until time was up and people needed to leave for the next session. Ty gave away three gift cards at the end.