I’ve been working with a range of new clients over the summer, and also preparing my upcoming social media course for Aberystwyth University. When lesson planning, or chatting with clients, I’ve made a note of some thoughts that popped up along the way.
One of them was – why are we using social media? So often I see clients get really hung up on how much energy and effort is needed to put into their marketing, and I think we often forget why we’re here on social media in the first place.
Going back to basics, yes, of course we’re on social media to market our products. However, what I always point out to clients and I’ve mentioned on my course is – social media is all about being social. I think we can get so stuck in our strategy or content plan (or even, lack of) that we forget this.
Social media is a tool that we use to find our audience, connect with them and hope that they then connect and relate to us. It isn’t as complicated as we tend to make out. There aren’t magic formulas that mean our one post will go viral. There aren’t set rules about what we should or shouldn’t post.
At the end of the day, it’s all about making sure our content is relatable. Do our audience click with us because they have the same problems or challenges, or the same successes? Are we able to relate on the same level about our cooking mishaps, or our shopping disasters?
We’re all human of course, so being that human behind your social media – letting that human shine through, will work wonders on your marketing. It also makes it much easier to plan and think about too, when we remember that we have to be social, be human.
So, next time you’re banging your head against a wall or wailing in despair about social media being too hard or not knowing what to do – just go back to basics. Be you!