|
I STILL suck at social media…but this time it’s different…
In my first newsletter this year I opened with the line “I suck at social media”.
Even though my businesses have done well over the last 8-9 years, not once has social media ever been part of the driving force.
Yet when I speak to most early stage entrepreneurs, the only thing they think about when it comes to marketing is social media.
I also have enough self awareness to know that what works for me, may not for others.
There are many others that have the complete opposite view to me.
Where social media is their entire strategy. And they’ve crushed it.
There’s no right or wrong.
But there are nuances.
And you need to know the nuances if you want to be successful.
But MOSTLY, you MUST know YOURSELF.
I want to be better at social media so I can be a more rounded entrepreneur.
Plus, I expect to build brands for the rest of my life, and having an audience makes it so much easier.
But the hardest thing to get over is being bad before you become good.
It’s like starting all over again from the beginning. Which is tough.
In this post I’m going to share 18 insights I’ve had from the last 5 months of posting content on YouTube and social media.
Spoiler alert, 99% of the posts I’ve created this year have bombed and were a waste of time.
But the 1% that did well generated more revenue in 2 months than I ever expected to make this entire year from my personal brand.
So not all of it sucks…
Let’s go:
1. You need to know yourself and your personality.
Most people who do well on social media have a magnetic personality. For us introverts, it’s harder. We need to plan more, edit more and push ourselves way out of our comfort zone.
For many of us, it’s unnatural and hard to show up every day. It does get easier when you have team members around you to help.
2. Understand what platform is best for your business.
After months of testing and learning I’ve boiled it down to this: if you’re a D2C business, then short form content on socials is probably the best place to focus. If you’re a B2B business, then long form content on YouTube and newsletters is probably best.
B2B requires more trust building and demonstration of expertise. Much harder to do with short form content. This is a guideline not a rule.
3. Focus on one channel.
You hear this everywhere. But without doing some testing you have no idea where to start. I’ve posted everywhere in the last 5 months to get a feel for what works best for me. By far the best for me is YouTube.
Moving forward this is pretty much the only place I’ll focus plus the occasional newsletter until I begin to reach a much larger audience and can afford really high quality team members to help drive the other platforms.
4. Frequency doesn’t matter for the algorithm.
When I got started I posted 3-5 times per week on Youtube. I did this on purpose mostly for myself to build a new habit but to also follow the little nudges of what content is doing best. I don’t think this is avoidable when you get started.
The thing is, none of those videos did that well. Most of them were around a few hundred to a few thousand views. All of the biggest creators are saying the algorithm doesn’t matter. It’s purely down to how good your content is.
5. Frequency DOES matter for you, however.
Again, to reiterate the above, you need to get in the habit of posting frequently in the beginning to build that muscle. Otherwise it just gets pushed down the to-do list and never gets done.
Plus, you need to be bad in the beginning. It’s unavoidable. The more you post the better you get.
6. Find your point of difference.
Of all the testing I did there was 1 stand out video. It was 2.5 hours long, providing more value than what other people are charging for in their courses and communities. The smart thing I did in this video was create an irresistible offer. This is the video that drove most of the revenue.
Hint: these are the types of videos I’ll be doing moving forward. Which means less frequency, but better quality.
7. 95% of creating content is getting over yourself.
Whether it’s your fear of what others will think of you, fear of failure, fear of success, unworthiness, etc. Even after 10 years of failing time and time again I still feel it. I don’t think it ever goes away. You just feel the fear and do it anyway if it’s important enough to you.
8. Creating content without an offer sucks.
If I didn’t see sales coming in by now, I probably would have given up. You need to see a pay-off as quickly as possible. However, only if what you are selling has an outsized return for those buying it. Also, without an offer, creating content is so much harder. The offer helps determine the content.
9. Most of the big influencers who grow quickly are using super advanced strategies and investing heavily in growth.
Unless you have hundreds of thousands to invest in your audience don’t create a goal to grow quickly. Just focus on showing up each day or week and focus on the long game.
Some of the strategies they use are internal video editing competitions with offshore editors, engagement pods, comment seeding, and paying big dollars to be on top tier podcasts. If you have the dollars it’s probably worth investing in those strategies.
10. The biggest influencers are also masters at selling the desired dream of their audience.
Some sell the rich life, like Tate and Gahdzi. Or spiritual influencers sell balance and connection. Automation experts want to automate everything, even when it’s unproductive.
Biohackers sell their 3 hour morning routines that they rarely do. Fitness influencers who show off their ripped bodies are influencers BECAUSE they have good genetics, not because of their programs. Health influencers promote extreme diets. The extremes capture attention.
Everyone leans into selling unachievable outcomes for 99.9% of people in order to get views on social media. I wish I could say this strategy will be a thing of the past, but so far, history tells us it will never disappear. We’re wired in a weird way. While I don’t suggest misleading your audience, you should still learn to tap into these desires in an ethical way.
11. People will come out of the woodworks to tear you down.
The first few times it will hurt. But realise this… the engagement helps your posts be seen. Fight back and cause chaos in the comments. There are many big influencers purposely doing this on their own posts with fake profiles to drive engagement.
Your growth will be capped by the amount of hate comments you can tolerate. Tolerate more hate, make more money. It’s as simple as that.
12. Longform content on Youtube attracts way higher quality people.
Some of the people who have purchased from me are doing exceptional things in business. They don’t hang out on social media. YouTube also attracts less trolls.
Most people are on YouTube to learn. And most people on social media are there to escape from their lives.
13. While you should never rely on external validation, having quality people around you who cheer you on does help.
When I first started 10 years ago I had no one. It was lonely. And hard. These days I have incredible friends who are the biggest cheerleaders. This will come in time as you reinvent yourself.
The best way to find these friends is to invest in programs where these like-minded people are, help solve their problems and network your way in.
14. High quality video editing doesn’t matter when you’re getting started.
You can easily make hundreds of thousands of dollars by doing the editing yourself. Don’t waste your money on high quality editing until your hourly rate is much higher than that of the editor.
If you have no desire to edit videos at all, just find a VA for $5-10 an hour to do a basic edit.
15. Branding and font has no impact on your results in the beginning.
Just start with anything. Some of the accounts growing the fastest are purely black and white branding.
16. More views or engagement isn’t always better.
For example, some of the best business content on Youtube has only a few thousand views and no engagement. In this space many high level entrepreneurs will watch your content but never engage.
So if your content is targeted towards those people expect less views but you’ll still make the same amount of revenue as others doing entertainment content with high engagement and views.
17. Thumbnails matter more than you think for videos.
The first 3 seconds matter more than you think. The first line in text posts matter more than you think. I still need to focus more time on all of these things myself.
18. Don’t waste your money on courses for creating content.
I bought a bunch of them and learned nothing that couldn’t be found on YouTube or TikTok. Plus it changes rapidly. DO invest in software and tools that help you make content more efficiently.
19. Most people will get tripped up by trying to copy others who have completely different personalities and traits. Know thyself!
This time it’s different because I’ve spent 5 months testing, iterating and learning.
I know without a doubt the next 5 months will be even better.
Hope this helps!
What does this mean moving forward?
Well a few things…
- I won’t be doing weekly newsletters or YouTube videos. My focus will be on long form videos that are more valuable than courses (multiple hours in length).
- I won’t be doing any shorts content. No reels, or posts. Besides the occasional one when I’m inspired.
So while you’ll see less from me, know that all future content will be worth your time.
Mitch.
|
Whenever you’re ready, there are 3 ways I can help you:
Content Repurposing System: If you’re looking to get started with your own custom AI Automation Workflows, I turned my personal workflow in a template that you can use as a starting point to increase quality and productivity in content creation. Learn more about it here.
1-1 Marketing Growth & Automation Consulting: If you’re doing over $25k/month and want help to build and scale your marketing engine, including custom AI automation workflows, I can help with strategic plans, growth strategy and optimizing workflows. Learn more about it here.
5 Free GPT’s for Marketing: I’ve put together a few GPT’s that are built on the exact templates I’ve used to generate over 1 million leads. GPT’s like:
- Customer Insight ReportPromotional Email Copywriter (Statistics Angle)
- Promotional Email Copywriter (Pain Points Angle)
- Promotional Email Copywriter (Pain + Future Pace)
- Detailed Podcast Summary Generator
- Promotional Email Copywriter (Podcast Epdisode)
- Voice Activated Slack Bot (JSON file for Make.com)
Get access here.
|
|
