Social Media “Quick Wins”
Quick Wins Lead to Long-Term Successes.
When I’m not working, I still spend a lot of time online. One of my favorite topics to browse is behavior modification (or motivation, or habits, or whatever else it can be called). I don’t know if it’s because I have a bunch of bad habits or I just really find that topic interesting; although I admit it’s likely an even split of need and interest. One piece of advice I’ve come across in several forms, but the takeaway is the same, is the idea of “quick wins.”
People respond well to successes; businesses responded well to success; bosses responded well to successes. We’ve mentioned before that success online, whether it be SEO, social media, or your blog, doesn’t happen overnight. A great online presence is the result of the habits, the things you do everyday. But with little to no results in the beginning, will your boss and your stakeholders keep asking you to spend time and money on something that is producing nothing? Likely not.
So how do you make it through the initial unresponsive stages and build a reputable and profitable online presence? You do it with quick wins: small, easy things that have the highest likelyhood of illiciting a response in those early stages and help you gain some momentum.
Here are 3 Quick Wins for you to implement:
Go where the people are.
Looking to build your online network? Go where the people are. If you’re on LinkedIn, join groups and participate in them. Drive traffic to your blog by submitting them to content curators like StumbledUpon. Tweet relevant valuable information and attach it to either topics in the Trends or popular hashtags (#hashtag).
Use catchy blog titles.
Think about how people search. Many people ask Google the question they have (“How do I tie a shoe?”). If your blog title and article can match a question you are able to drive very qualified traffic with a shareable help article.
Use numbers in your title. “3 Lessons From the Facebook IPO“, “10 Reasons Your Customers Won’t Come Back”, “Become 250% More Efficient”, “Save $1000 Per Employee”. I bet all of those titles piqued your interest. Numbers give a concrete expectation and makes the advice seem more tangible.
Be hyperbolic. “2012 Laws for Email Marketing: A Must Read!“, “The Best Business Ideas in Human History”, “The Absolute Worst Things Your Sales Team Could Do”. These types of titles definitely garner a bit of a knee-jerk reaction, but it might make someone click through. However, if everything you write is the “Best of All-Time” or “Worst Thing Since The Plague” you begin to desensitize your audience. So use it sparingly.
Be mean. “10 Reasons Your Website Sucks!”, “Why You Might Be The Worst Boss Ever”. Again, similar to being hyperbolic, use this tactic sparingly. It will get you some extra clicks (by those of us who want to make sure we aren’t doing it wrong), but people generally want to learn to do things right.
Use the drafting technique.
The drafting technique in regards to content (which I learned about from Derek Halpern at Social Triggers), is based on the drafting the racing technique. The short is a car will follow behind the leader extremely closely in order to reduce air drag and gain speed to eventually swing out and pass them.
To do this with content, think about following a hot news story. Is there a breaking development? Something that is dominating the headlines? You can ride its coattails to a few more shares, clicks, and inbound links. I’ve used this strategy in past with “Overnight Viral YouTube Success for Sean Quigley” and “Social Media Content and the Gotye Cover“.
Quick Wins
Once you’ve had a few of these quick wins, you can begin to see the potential. Everything you do won’t be a huge success, but if a couple are, you will have the ground to stand on to keep pushing.
Have fun with it!
If you are really new to social media, take a look at our Social Media and Onlne Marketing Training Program. We can help you get started on the right foot.
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