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    Can I Build A Social Media Plan (That’s not annoying as sh**)?


    I want to spend 1 hour per week doing social media, but make it LOOK like I'm posting every single day!
    I enjoy posting on social platforms, but I hate getting sucked back into them constantly. There's just so many of them, and they're all extremely addicting.
    For example it's difficult to go on Facebook to respond to a comment without getting sucked into it:
    Facebook computer sucking up time
     

    My main beef with social media:


    I'll end up spending hours per day getting drawn into the social media world without any longterm rewards.
    I prefer doing work that disproportionally benefit me. Example:
    I might spend 3 hours writing an article on my website today, but over the course of time:

    • Day 1: People read it, even while I sleep.

    • Day 2: People read it and signup to the website, which builds my audience.

    • Day 3: From that article I can make 5+ social media posts, exposing the content to different networks.

    • Day 10: The article starts to rank in Google, sending me more traffic.

    • Day 20: Someone links the article and sends their traffic to the article, growing my audience.

    • Day 50: I am writing an article about something similar, and can reference that old post and use content from it.

    • Day 100: Someone finds the article and shares it to their social media following, growing my audience.

    • Day 500: I still get traffic, signup, and sales from 3 hours of work I did 500 days ago.


    ...basically that article works for me, and builds an asset I own.
    This process happens with social networks too....you can definitely build an asset on a platform. However, the key difference is ultimately the social networks owns the asset, not you. Also as network popularity shifts, you lose much of that benefit.
    But if Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube and Twitter have the eyeballs of damn near every person on Earth.....then it's worth playing their game.
    Starting around February 2020 I want to start posting on a regular schedule to track the activity and see what happens. A little mini-experiment. I'd also love to share the numbers as the experiment goes on!
    So let's first see where we are with baseline numbers:
     

    Current social analytics for all of 2019:


    For 2019 social traffic to Copywriting Course was just 1.62% of all traffic. That is a pretty small number....BUT these numbers are just page view counts. Just because someone didn't visit the site, doesn't mean a social media post wasn't effective!
    For example if someone watches one of my YouTube videos and doesn't click my links, but still enjoyed and liked the video....that is a success! However that success won't get reflected in these numbers.
    With that said, let's take a look at this 1.62% section of social traffic from copywritingcourse.com (Jan 1st, 2019 - Dec. 31st, 2019):
     

    Social Only Traffic For 2019:


    kopywriting-kourse-social-analytics-only
    1.62% of copywritingcourse.com traffic in 2019 came from social platforms.


     

    Social Only Traffic For 2019 By Platform:


    copywriting course social analyticsYouTube and Facebook were the top referring social networks for me, however look at the Instagram stats, they completely stand out even though I didn't post one single thing to Instagram for all of 2019.


     

    Social Only Traffic For 2019 By Platform:


    copywriting course social graphsSocial traffic stayed roughly the same through the year, versus overall site traffic which grew every month:
    copywriting course social analytics graph


     

    Facebook Page Views From ~8,500 Follower Page 2019:


    fb-social-page-stats-2019.jpgI've never looked at these numbers before, and realize they suck ass. 


     

    7 Days Of Instagram Profile Views (Account Not Touched For ~3 Years):


    instagram-stats-bef.pngFor having zero participation for nearly 3 years, Instagram was still sending OK numbers.


     

    Then I Made A Post, Instagram Profile Views After That (Account Not Touched For ~3 Years):


    instagram-stats-aft.pngAfter making a single post in preparation for this post, the numbers shot up.


     
     

    The Plan:


    Just post on social media 5 times a week February 2020 by using automation tools.
    I half-heartedly already do this on Twitter, LinkedIn, and a Facebook Page, but I'd like to put a little bit of extra effort this time and see if the numbers improve (I'll be using principles from this post to boost engagement).
     
     

    Tools:


    Of course posting to all these networks would be extremely time consuming, so I'll continue to use Buffer to schedule posts (I currently use their Chrome Extension for this already).
    I'm totally open to new platforms for this, as I have little experience with any of them.
     
     

    The Hypothesis:


    As a user of social media myself, there's a massive amount of posts I actually read or remember, but I never "Like" or "Heart" or "Share" them or "Click" them.
    This tells me there's a gigantic layer of exposure you get in social media that is never reflected in the stats. It's like an iceberg:

    Iceberg analogy social media exposure and likesIt makes sense that there's a HUGE amount of non-tracked exposure from social media.


    So if I actually got 52,949 trackable clicks to my website through social media, I estimate the number exposures I got is between 10x and 100x that.
    So my hypothesis is that with a larger dedicated amount of time to social media, my social media traffic will obviously go up, but also the amount of total exposure will expand larger than that.
     

    Posts Made:



    Posted Monday, January 27th:

     
    Posted Wednesday, January 29th:



     
    Posted Monday, February 3rd:


     
    Posted Wednesday, February 5th:

     

    Week By Week Stats:


    No updates for 2+ years:
    instagram-stats-bef.png
    Week 1 of experiment:
    instagram-stats-aft.png
    Week 2 of experiment:
    instagram-stats-neville-week2.png
    Week 3 of experiment:
    instagram stat neville week3
    Week 4 of experiment:
    instagram stats neville week 4
    Wow....just over a week of not posting and the stats dropped by over 60X. That's insane. Look at this chart of it"
    instagram-engagement-dropoff.png
     
     

    Conclusion So Far:


    After even a few posts I've come to the conclusion that I am not a big fan of having to post on a reglar schedule about copywriting stuff on my personal Instagram page.
    I also still feel we wasted a lot of time doing/thinking about social media rather than making true "Base Content" that builds an asset:
    base content
    I have far better (and rewarding) time creating the "Base Content" rather than the social media side.
    Also with my base content it keeps returning more and more traffic per month, even if I don't post much. Whereas you can see my Instagram stats dropped by something like 60X less when I didn't post for about 10 days.
    This indicates that social media, for myself at least, is a lot of endless treadmill work that can evaporate if you don't post a lot.

    I will be updating these stats every week, let's see what happens!
    Sincerely,
    Neville Medhora
    Facebook: @KopywritingKourse
    Twitter: @NevMed
    LinkedIn: Neville Medhora
    Instagram: @KopywritingKourse
    YouTube: @Kopywriting
     

    P.S. Do you have any social media tips for me??


    I'm particularly interested in:
    - Tips for using social media without getting too sucked into it.
    - Tips for better tracking analytics on each platform.
    - Different services or software for automating parts of this (besides the content creation).
    - Feel free to ask any clarifying questions!
     

    User Feedback

    Recommended Comments



    Guest Interested

    Posted

    Well you've got me intrigued and I would love to see the results soon!
    Link to comment

    Be careful what you engage in on social media. I follow you and see your political leanings and views on Twitter. I tend to agree with your viewpoints (though I couldn’t care less - I’m there for the copyrighting content), but it could turn some people away.

     

    You may not care. Part of your brand is being provocative. Just letting you know, it *may* turn some users off.

     

    Anywho, I’m excited to see how this goes ^^

    Link to comment
    Guest Neville Medhora

    Posted

    Bahahaha, don't believe I've mentioned anything political on any platform....with the major exception of about 3 recent months where on Twitter (only) we got the Governor of Texas involved in overturning some homeless policies here in Austin.

     

    Once we succeeded in getting him involved, I completely stopped since the goal was accomplished.

     

    For 99.8% of my time on social media I don't think I've ever mentioned politics, not because I fear it, but rather that I'm completely uninterested in those discussions unless I can have an impact.

     

    I'm sure it turned a few people who saw it away, but I surprisingly got only ONE complaint message and 20+ "I agree thank you" messages!

    -Nev

     

    P.S. I made sure that I never actually *posted* on Twitter, but rather just responded to other posts. Not sure if there's a way to keep posts limited to a geographic region (since this was an Austin/Texas specific issue). Kinda shows you the crazy widespread reach social has!

    Link to comment
    Guest Neville Medhora

    Posted

    Hey Interested, I'll probably update this post with stats when cool stuff happens (or doesn't happen), stay tuned!!
    Link to comment

    My intention wasn’t to say you’ve said anything or not. I 100% respect you as a business owner. I’ve been following you for over a decade (well before your first dropshipping course came out) and you’ve given me exceptional advice via email. But the homeless stuff is what I was referring to. It kept showing me your likes, and I just want you to know that.

     

    Again, I’m a huge admirer, and I tend to agree with your viewpoints. Just letting you know. Love you, as always ;)

    Link to comment
    I’m a fan of Pinterest. It’s not a big source of traffic but posts there don’t pop/drop/die like they do on other networks. A good enough info graphic or image, if repinned enough, will continue to make its rounds in people’s feeds.
    Link to comment
    I experimented with various tools and felt Buffer was the best for most social media channels. If you want a specialized tool for Pinterest, you can try Tailwind. Hope this helps!
    Link to comment
    Guest Guillermo

    Posted

    Gary Vee has a nice content model that doesn't require much time or technical skills. Basically, you produce long-form content (mostly for blog and Youtube), and from that, you can make several social media posts with key insights. He also has an article in his blog called "how to make 64 pieces of content in one day". The main insight is to not overcomplicate it and just make stuff.

     

     

     

    I base my strategy on long-form content (articles) and Twitter posts. Twitter basically allows you to tweet almost anything, anytime, without regarding the timing. Then I take snapshots of my best tweets and post them as pictures on Instagram and Facebook. I also take those insights and put them over nice pictures for Instagram with Canva.

    Link to comment
    Guest Nabeel Azeez

    Posted

    What's working on...

     

    Facebook:

    Long-form value posts – essentially a blog, but on Facebook

    Memes with niche-specific copy are working like gangbusters

    Photos with couples

    The only CTA you should be using is "DM me."

    Twitter:

    Tweet-threads – long-form, high value, again virtually a blog post – with a CTA on the last tweet (e.g. download my lead magnet)

    Replying to larger accounts to get eyeballs on your account

    Instagram:

    Carousel presentations – 10 images covering a specific topic

    Vicarious living – giving people a sneak peek into your life

    Using stories to get more DMs and thus, more reach on your feed posts

    LinkedIn:

    Still haven't cracked this

    Link to comment
    Guest Rohan Bhardwaj

    Posted

    Since you are getting the most of the traffic from YouTube and Facebook, my advice is to shun all the other efforts.

     

    Let that Instagram or Pinterest account rot. Focus your energy on the top social media where it brings in traffic.

     

    It will either save you time and not hamper your traffic. Or you will get more traffic from your top contender. Win-win.

     

     

    Link to comment
    Guest Janellea Macbeth

    Posted

    I BOUGHT a social media content calendar, and it has revolutionized the way I do social media. ‘Bought’ is important- because now I have the need to get my $37 worth. (Yay, motivation!)

     

    I PRINTED the calendar and I keep in in a folder on my desk with a pack of stickers. When I have important marketing pushes coming up, or I’m launching a new product I write it on the calendar, old school. Then, when I am working on scheduling my social media posts with my accountability partner (we race to see who can schedule the most posts in 25 minutes), I put a sticker on every day I complete. Take a look at the cool things that are going on here: the calendar is printed, so it acts as a visual cue to prompt behavior, the accountability partner makes it fun to show up AND makes sure that someone will bug you if you start to procrastinate, the race adds mild competition between the two of you (your subconscious LOVES the chance to beat someone else in a game, so the idea of racing makes it irresistible to show up and do your work. The joke is on your subconscious, though, because everyone is a winner in this race, and the prize is sweet, sweet engagement from your audience, and SOARING stats.) But wait, there’s MORE cool things happening here: the race is 25 minutes long, which means we are using the Pomodoro method to work at peak efficiency and focus. The STICKERS on every day you complete a post are also important. First of all, it allows you to see (and track) at a glance how much you have completed and where you left off (in case you get interrupted). Using stickers is even cooler than tracking, though.... it takes advantage of childhood conditioning. If you were a child anytime after 1979, some adult/authority figure in your life used a sticker- either a a reward for good behavior (because scheduling your social posts is EXCELLENT behavior for an entrepreneur) or to indicate that you had delivered high quality work (Your posts are always high quality with the social calendar, and I will explain why in a little bit). So, due to childhood conditioning, every time you pop a sticker onto the calendar to track your progress, you ALSO get a little endorphin hit, because you behaved like a good entrepreneur and you produced high quality work. (If you’re into self improvement, think about how powerful it is to receive approval from yourself, and then realize how empowering it is to BE the authority figure that approves of you!) Yeah.... stickers sound silly and frivolous, but they’re a potent tool to leverage.

     

    Anyway, back to the calendar... once you schedule your first batch of posts, there are two additional factors that will keep you motivated to continue posting long term. Your stats immediately go through the roof- which is really fun and sexy to watch- who doesn’t love it when their engagement goes up 430% in one category, and 1002% in another category? It’s addicting to see numbers like that!!!!  (I didn’t make those up- that’s what my engagement did when I started posting from a social media calendar.) The second thing that keeps you in the social media race week after week... your audience. They immediately begin engaging with your posts, getting active on your page... and that adds public accountability- you HAVE to keep showing up to schedule your posts because people- lots of people- are expecting to hear from you.

     

    Now, let’s talk about the calendar itself. It’s cool for a lot of reasons.... you paid good money for it, so you’re motivated to use it. The calendar TELLS you what to post every day, so you can’t procrastinate‘because you don’t know what to write’ AND the calendar has the right balance of posts: some promotion, some human interest, and lots of prompts to boost audience engagement. The calendar ALSO makes sure that you are relevant- I mean, do you track when national donut day is? I don’t.... but when the calendar tells me that it’s national donut day, then I can figure out a way to use donut day to talk about my brand. (I’m in the quilting niche- so it’s a stretch to relate to donuts.... but the juxtaposition has helped me develop some crazy-Creative ideas!)  This also streamlines the process of hashtags- I don’t get lost down the rabbit hole trying to find popular hashtags that will work for me- I either use what the calendar throws at me, or I skip hashtags for the day, and get back to churning through the work like a boss.

     

    The subject of the posts are fairly generic- which really works for me. Instead of trying to figure out WHAT to post every day, all of my creative brainpower is free to figure out how to adapt this generic subject to MY brand and MY message... Holy cow, it works! EVERYTHING I have been posting with the calendar is on subject, on brand, and actually SELLS my content. I have so much more head space to think about copy writing because the calendar has done the preliminary work: balance the posts, be active in relevant topics, and hashtag research; which means all of your work is higher level: how can I make this brand-consistent? How should I tweak my copy? When is my next launch, and how can I tease my new product?

     

    It doesn’t matter what calendar you use- but I do recommend buying one so that you have skin in the game. There’s a TON of psychology behind my workflow, and I had a lot of fun tweaking my process. Please do feel free to try this for yourself!!!!! It REALLY works on a lot of different levels!

    Link to comment
    Guest Rob Roseman

    Posted

    This is so refreshing to read, Nev!

     

    Good to know there are other people out there who accept the fact there is some value in social (though not as much as we think, to justify the time spent on it), but also don’t want to keep getting sucked into it.

     

    PS. That Facebook Poltergeist gif may be your best one ever!

    Link to comment
    Guest Laurie MICHEL

    Posted

    * Tips for using social media without getting too sucked into it.*

     

    I am using a timer while I need to work on social media.

     

    It helps to be focus on my to-do list I have to go though before the timer expires!

     

    Try it, you will be more productive.

     

    Laurie

    Link to comment
    Guest Constance M Burris

    Posted

    Thanks for sharing! Is there a specific calendar you recommend?
    Link to comment
    Guest Mark Thompson

    Posted

    2 things I highly recommend,  repurpose everything  over the year there is no reason why each piece of content you’ve produced should have been posted over 100 times across multiple outlets.

     

    Secondly, set up lists of relevant twitter users ( who are in your niche) and look at what they are doing and what is getting traction.  This will ensure you are never stuck for  content ideas

    Link to comment
    There is some great info here in the comments! Finding a good balance on social is important and something I have yet to master, but at least for Facebook, my all time favorite way to get in there and do what I need to do is a Chrome extension called News Feed Eradicator. It simply removes my newsfeed and replaces it with a quote about time management or productivity. I can then head straight to my pages or groups and get done what I need to do.
    Link to comment

    1) Don't forget the reason you opened your social media

     

    2) Follow pages only relative  to your content and interests

     

    3)if you want to build more brand awareness you will have to spend some time replying to comments on your posts and also other people's posts

    Link to comment

    My suggestions are to treat social media like a bathroom.

    Do what you gotta doo, and get out.

    Don't fart around - much of it stinks already.

    If you do fart around, make sure to leave something fresh behind (content, value, something useful)

    Not the place for personal attacks and criticism

    Don't force it. If nothings coming out - ideas, content, purpose - you're not ready.

    If you're concerned with how something looks - tell those who can help

    Good luck Neville!

     

    P.S.

     

    Here are some PSAs for using the public restroom:

    knock before you drop - you don't live there

    aim for center when you enter - fellas...hit the water

    wash your hands - if you're not an employee

    Link to comment
    Guest Neville Medhora

    Posted

    Thanks Karen! Yup Buffer has been good to me for a while, and makes everything super simple. Will probably continue with it :)
    Link to comment
    Guest Neville Medhora

    Posted

    Hey Guillermo, that's kinda what I do already! That strategy is great because it FIRST creates your big heavy piece of content you want to point to, then you create little micro-content around it.

     

    That will 95% likely be the exact strategy for this experiment. I actually wrote about similar concepts in these two posts:

    https://copywritingcourse.com/podcast-show-notes/

    https://copywritingcourse.com/blog-content-strategy/

     

    Cool Twitter strategy you've got, I might try it :)

    Link to comment
    Guest Neville Medhora

    Posted

    Dang Nabeel this is great, possibly shirt-worthy!

     

    Essentially anything that nearly replicates the long-form content you make on a blog, but formatted for each platform seems to work best.

     

    That's awesome, but it definitely seems like a large investment in time. We'll see if it's worth it!!

    Link to comment
    Guest Rachael Maher

    Posted

    Use a program to help you post and monitor your social media. I use Hootsuite. I post to all social media platforms from this one location. It will let you know when someone mentions you in social media plus a bunch of other features, such as scheduling your posts.
    Link to comment

    I use social media management tools to post for me, so I won’t go to social media and lose myself. Tools like:

     

    Later, Hootsuite

     

    and SmarterQueue will help also in curating other people content

     

     

     

    good luck ;)

    Link to comment



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