Pet Peeves Your Audience Isn't Telling You About
Your audience isn’t telling you, but I am … this is why they aren’t engaging. The first thing to know is that if they aren’t telling you anything at all - it’s time to change things up!
Social media is all about chasing the elusive like or heart. Or at least it used to be. With so many things changing (yep I’m talking about algorithms) it can be nauseating trying to keep up. In fact in the last year Instagram has taken away the ability for others to see how many people “liked” your post. While this sent many people into a tailspin, I was so excited! This change was a huge adjustment in the “vanity metrics”.
Vanity Metrics is what so many people think Instagram or Facebook is all about. If you’re one of them, the next few paragraphs may be hard to swallow, because I’m about to get really blunt! Like and follows are like puppy cuddles and kisses. They may make you feel good at the moment, but they aren’t paying your bills. Customers pay your bills.
The best thing I ever did for my Instagram account was to go through and eliminate all of the ‘followers’ that looked like bots and not my ideal customers. By doing this I have shed hundreds of followers that don’t serve me and my mission. By doing so the engagement and reach of my posts have increased. I’ve also attracted so many more of my ideal customers, which has led to an increase in sales and workshops.
But back to the topic at hand. Your audience wants to have a conversation. They want to be social and feel a connection with you. While pretty pictures are nice, it’s the words and content that get them to engage. They want a reason to say something to you. BUT more importantly, they want you to respond to them when they do.
There is nothing more frustrating than commenting on a business profile - especially when you’ve asked them a question and THEY NEVER ANSWER. Okay, I might be getting a little heated. I’ll simmer down. But seriously, I see an ad on Facebook for business. They’ve been running that ad for nearly seven months trying to drum up business… but they’ve never answered a single question that has been asked on the post. These are questions from people who are enquiring about the services available. They are a warmed up and primed audience and the business did NOT respond. Do you think they are earning new business this way?
The exact same thing is happening on the everyday posts too. I’ve seen many posts where someone has commented, and it was something quite engaging. Days have gone by and still no response from the business. People don’t comment or engage easily so when they do… RESPOND!
The next big pet peeve they have is that you aren’t consistent. I have pages that I love their content and they will be really good for three or four days and then go months and months without a peep. My favorite is when that same business comes to me and says I use social media but it’s a waste of time no one is engaging… well it’s been 5 weeks since your last post, what do you expect? Customers won’t do the work for you. Your customers want something to engage with. They want something that just shows up.
Customers are lazy. I mean that in a good way. If you give them something worthy of connecting with and put it right in front of them, they will do the work, but they aren’t going to go and search it out. Consistency in marketing will always win. It doesn’t matter if your product or service is better than your competition if you aren’t putting it out there for the world to see, but your competition is, they are going to win.
The next pet peeve is that they don’t know what to say. No one wants to be a socially awkward person at an event. The one that doesn’t know what to say so blurts out a joke at an inappropriate time. Give your audience something that they can relate to. Something that they can converse about.
Every post should contain three things:
A hook, this is a snappy sentence to capture their attention in the first two lines so that they will click on the read more. Things like “I can’t believe I’m saying this” or “OMG I’m dying to tell you something”. Something that is going to make them engage.
Content, this is something that they are going to connect with. Whether this is about behind the scenes, your newest product, your why or an assortment of so many other options for content
Call to Action, every post needs a call to action. People need to know how you want them to respond. How you want them to interact with you. Do you want them to tell you about their favorite vegetable or their biggest pet peeve? Do you want them to drop you a DM? What is it that you want them to do? Overall people are quite obedient and as long as the content is good, they will play along.
When someone takes time out of their world to interact with you - connect back. Thank them for taking the time to comment. Continue the conversation. Welcome them to your community. Whatever it is do something so that they know they matter - and try to do it as soon after they post as possible.
I typically check my socials three times per day to make sure I don’t leave people hanging. PRO TIP: When you respond use at least four words. This helps the algorithms to identify your comments as rich engagement and pushes your posts in front of even more people.
Want more conversation on your posts, go have conversations on other people's posts. Want more engagement, give them more things to engage with. Want more sales, give them more reasons to say yes to buying from you - just don’t make every call to action a buy now CTA.
The final pet peeve, don’t treat them like they are putting you out. If you are using an automatic push from Instagram to Facebook STOP IT!! Don’t serve them the leftovers because you’re too tired to get out a clean plate. They can tell it isn’t done on the right platform. There are hashtags on Facebook (by the way Facebook doesn’t use Hashtags so don’t ever put them there) and broken @ links that lead nowhere. Put in a bit of effort and let them know you can afford the extra 13 seconds it takes to copy and paste from one platform to the other and make the adjustments to the post for each platform.
Finally, if you want a healthy social media following where people aren’t peeved off, show up! Show up authentically. Show up to have fun! Nobody wants to be at a boring party.
