The Reality
Even if the "follow, get
followed, spam, and unfollow" technique still works for some people, the
rules have changed. Social media platforms will reward or punish you based on
engagement. If you want an extreme example of this, just look at Facebook.
Facebook used to be a traffic goldmine. Not anymore.
You need a really high level of
engagement to preserve your reach on Facebook. If you get normal levels of
engagement, good luck. That's how bad things are, and that's why I need to take
this time to spell out why this "classic social media marketing" no
longer works.
Other
Failed Methods
I would be remiss in my duty to
educate you on failed social media marketing strategies if I don't also mention
other failed techniques. First, hashtag hunting no longer works. This technique
involves marketers finding hashtags that are trending. They basically would
publish niche-specific content but use unrelated or irrelevant hashtags and
pair them with their content.
They do this because they want to
"hitch a ride" on the upward trend of those hashtags. They know
people are searching for those hashtags. They know that these
hashtag trends are hot, so they want to poach as many eyeballs as possible.
Unfortunately, the traffic that
you get is not going to be any good. People are looking for specific types of
information, and when they see that your content is so obviously unrelated,
they're not going to click through. You might even get reported.
Another failed method you should
stay away from is influencer spamming. There are many influencers in almost all
niches. If you want to see this in action, go to Facebook or Twitter. There are
many specialized pages and specialized Twitter accounts.
Now, constantly mentioning those
influencers on your content is not going to help if your content doesn't really
add any value. There has to be a reason why you are engaging with these
influencers. And drawing their attention is not enough. Getting them to look at
your content because you think your content is hot is a lousy idea.
Instead, you should focus your
engagement tagging based on what they did. For example, if an influencer was
talking about recent trends in athletic shoes, then that person would be fair
game for an article I post regarding the latest trends in athletic shoes and
what they mean in terms of the bottom line of large footwear apparel companies.
That influencer would be directly
interested in what I have to say because I am sharing content that is not only
high quality but is directly related to stuff he or she is already talking
about. Do you see the specificity here? Do you see the direct link? Now,
compare this with an influencer who talks only about forex, and I tag that
influencer when I'm talking about bitcoin.
That person is going to be
annoyed. Do you see the difference? Finally, automated publishing with no
outreach is not going to work. Basically, what you're doing is you're throwing
spaghetti on the wall and hoping something sticks. If you're just publishing
content on an automated basis on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest and other
platforms, it's anybody's guess whether people would actually engage.
You have to do some outreach. You
have to draw eyeballs to your content. You have to find existing pools of
highly qualified audiences and get your social media account in front of their
eyeballs.
Use your very best content. If you
do this right, your automated publishing on social media will be greatly
rewarded. Use a shotgun approach and you're probably going to get the same
results as other failed social media marketers.
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