The title “Social Media Expert” may not be what it seems.
If you’ve spent any time at all on social media, especially as an entrepreneur, you’ve seen this title thrown around quite a bit. Even more over the last year or so.
The thing is, there’s a lot of people out there that will go buy a course on social media marketing and immediately believe that they are a social media expert.
Now, I know that there are statistics that show anyone who does more than 99% of people can call themselves an expert, but it’s really more than that (in my opinion at least).
If you read 5 books, or complete 5 courses, on a specific topic, that’s when I believe you can call yourself an expert.
But, what I see happening a lot is that marketers will go online, spend $47 or $97 on a specific course, and then call themselves and expert and start selling coaching or make a course of their own (which basically is just regurgitated information from the course they just completed).
Don’t get me wrong, it’s all well and good that people want to make money, but what gets me is how these people can call themselves a Social Media Expert and have almost zero engagement on their post.
First, I want to say that I know well and good that engagement does NOT equal sales. I know that all too well.
But secondly, when you see someone who says “I help people get more engagement on their content” and you see that they only have 10 comments and 5 reactions, you should not invest in their course or coaching.
Anyone who doesn’t practice what they preach is just a preacher and if you want to hear a sermon, you might as well go to church.
But, what I really want to dig into today is why engagement IS important and how you can use it to your advantage.
Not everyone realizes what the purpose of engagement is on social media, and that’s okay.
So, we’re here today to go a little deeper in that and see if we can clear a few things up with 4 social media engagement truths.
🚫 Those who engage with your post are not automatically leads.
🚫 Those who consistently show up in your comments are likely trying to sell you, not buy from you
🚫 Those who react to your stories are not usually asking for more info, but merely just reacting because of how it made them feel.
Now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s talk about what is actually some things that engagement is good for on social media.
The level of engagement you get can determine if you’re hitting your target market.
That’s right.
If you are getting high engagement, then it’s likely that you are resonating with those people.
Those that are on your friends list seem to be the type of people that love to read what you write and continuously engage on your content.
Most of them likely have businesses of their own and they are doing a lot of the same things that you are doing.
While they are likely on social media doing the same things you are doing
But, they are also watching you and seeing where you’re going on your journey.
When you post, if they feel like you have a great message and they relate to what it is that you are saying, they are more likely to post something meaningful or talk about how it impacted them instead of just saying things like “Great job!” or “Good morning!”
And yes, you guessed it, if they aren’t posting meaningful comments, then they likely are just going through the motions and trying to get their daily task done.
Let’s look on the other side of things too.
If you have people on your friends list that aren’t engaging with you, it’s likely for 1 of 2 reasons.
Either you haven’t been engaging on their content really at all, so they aren’t seeing your content.
Or, they do not resonate with you and scroll right past your content every time. (or they’ve unfollowed you, but didn’t unfriend you).
So, if you’re ever wondering if someone actually wants to see your stuff, engage with their stuff for a couple days and see what kind of response you get.
High engagement means Facebook see you as a team player.
Facebook loves people who are social.
I mean, it’s not called “Social Media” for no reason.
So, when you are making a post or commenting on posts, what Facebook wants is for the people to engage with each other.
The more that you engage with your friends, the more that they want your friends to see your content.
Eventually, Facebook may even notify some of the more highly engaged friends when you make a post, or when you post in a similar group.
And, when Facebook sees that you are a highly engaging member of their community, they will suggest potential friends who are likely on the same path (or at least connected to the people you engage with).
You get more engagement when you use Facebook’s newest features.
Facebook really wants you to use their new features.
Let’s talk about 3D photos for example.
This is something I avoided for a very long time, and for good reason too.
You can only do it on mobile devices (in the automated fashion. I’m not going to get into how it all works on desktops), and they tend to look weird sometimes.
But, when I decided to make the switch, I noticed that my engagement SKYROCKETED.
The reason for this is because Facebook wants more people to see their new things.
They want people to test out their cool features and they want feedback.
Granted, most people will not provide any feedback, but at least using their newest features allow you to get better reach.
And, when you’re using the newest features, it also shows that you are savvy about how times are right now and you are not falling behind the curve.
I’ve personally tested this and I can say with confidence that using their newest and hottest features works best every time.
I did a post without a 3D photo a couple of times in between those with the 3D photos and they didn’t get nearly the same level of engagement.
Even if I didn’t reply to comments on a new post for an entire 24 hours, they still kept sending it to more and more people and it still got more comments than ones where I did engage.
(Now, please don’t leave your posts for 24 hours without a response if you can help it. The FB algorithm doesn’t like that).
When you show that you know how to be social, you get more engagement, which means you become more attractive.
And lastly, a shameless plug about Attraction Marketing (I mean, do you blame me? That’s what I teach my team lol).
So, when people see you engaging on other people’s content and they see that you also get a lot of engagement, do you know what that does to the people that are following you?
Well, if the previous few lines wasn’t enough of a hint 😉 , you become more attractive to the people who follow you.
And, when you become more attractive to them, they start listening more and reading more.
They’ll start posting more meaningful content and they’ll seek you out, waiting for the next nugget that you’re going to provide.
Not only that, but you’ll start to see them in your inbox and opting into your offers.
“Josh, why is that?”
Well, let’s simplify this the best way I know how…
Authority.
Yep, that’s it.
When you start showing people that you are an authority figure in the online world, they follow you.
When they follow you, they hang on to every word you say and type.
And, when they are hanging on to every word you say and type, they will ask “How high?” when you say jump.
Now, that doesn’t mean that these people are all sheep and will just do whatever you say to a ridiculous level.
But, you’ll most likely see a difference in the people that truly know, like, and trust you vs. those that are just going through the motions every day.
So, there’s some social media engagement truths. I hope they were beneficial to you and I hope that you learned a thing or two about how engagement can be powerful for your business.
Also, when it comes to engagement, you don’t want to be pushing out crap content and using these tips just to get more engagement hoping for more sales.
What you need to be doing is providing true value to people and helping them move their lives and businesses forward. If we aren’t using these tips in a positive way, what’s even the point of being on social media in the first place? (And no, being a scroll zombie does not count as being experienced in social media).
