We are all on social media all the time. Not only are we creating and consuming content but we’re trying to connect with our audience. Beyond tracking your views and interactions, when was the last time you stepped back and did a health check of your overall social media strategy?
This past weekend I had the pleasure of speaking to the Hustle Hunnies group about doing their own social media health check. There isn’t anything terribly groundbreaking about social media in what we covered during this exercise. It was specifically meant for social media enthusiasts to sit down and really think about how and why they were using social media. SO if you like, you can download the PDF and follow along the workshop we did. If you want my best advice, print out the worksheet and write (yes, with a pen) your ideas down. That way the next time you do a social media health check and you can look back on your previous one.
QUESTIONS
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Who do you follow on social media and why?
— Ask yourself this because it helps you better understand why you are on social media. This will later lead us to ask yourself why would someone follow us?
— My answer to this question would be that I follow Jaci Marie Smith on Instagram because I think she is a good photographer that balances brand deals and day-to-day content well. I follow BBooks because I think she has a funny personality that really comes through in her stories.
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How many people are you following?
— This question may be better categorized as a hard look in the mirror. There are two reasons we’re thinking about this. #1 if you are looking to work with brands. Brands are smart and if you have 2,000 followers but you are following 3,000 they’re probably going to wonder if those 2,000 people are only following you because you follow them. #2 if you’re following a crazy amount of people, are you really able to keep up with them? At Adobe Max a few years back I heard someone speaking and saying that you can really only keep up with 117 people at one time.
— Every few weeks or so I go through who I am following and think about if they’re still worth it to me. This isn’t to be mean or that I think my follow is a privilege to someone but people fall into two buckets for me: 1. I know them IRL and 2. I like them enough to engage with their content. The algorithm is so bizarre recently that you aren’t doing anyone any favors by following and not interacting.
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Does your bio represent your content?
— This may seem super obvious but a lot of time it can be a hard pill to swallow. If you describe yourself as an adventurer and free spirit but all of your content is of your dogs or you at home that isn’t accurate. People want to know what they are coming and staying for. If you read the summary of the back of a book and it painted it as a comedy but by the time you read it you realized it was a romance you might not be so keen to continue reading. Let your audience know what to expect. Are you living your bio?
— On the same thread, don’t make it hard for brands. If you want to work with brands don’t hide who you are. Make it easy for them: include your last name, where you live and an easy way to contact you. You can read more about all that in a blog post I wrote for FYI here.
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If Instagram disappeared tomorrow would your followers still find you?
— Don’t rely on one platform for your entire social media business. Instagram is obviously the most profitable and recognized platform but it is just one platform. Over the last few months Instagram has been down for several hours and people have been lost as to how to connect with their followers. Don’t let this be you. Invest your time in other platforms including something less dependent, like a blog. Let your followers know where else they can find you.
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Is the content you’re creating made for the correct platform?
— It’s not that I’m bagging on Instagram but it’s important to remember that there are a variety of social media platforms because they all have different purposes. I’ll list some examples below but the moral of the story is evaluate what you are posting and the audience you want to reach.
— ex. This Instagram traveler posted a long caption listing all of her favorite places to go in Scottsdale. Although people can save posts and revisited later this list doesn’t benefit her visibility to people who might want a list of places to eat in Scottsdale. Something like this would be more suited for a blog post so that it is searchable when people are looking up places to eat in Scottsdale.
–ex. If you are spending a lot of time making quotes or designs it can go on Instagram, but that kind of content would thrive on Pinterest. Pinterest is made for the creative and a lot of the times people (myself included) just spend hours looking up quotes or designs. Because people can save content the content becomes more visible to other people more quickly than it would on Instagram.
WORKSHEET
This section of the PDF is meant to help you workshop out some things that you might have thought about before or maybe this is your first time. Either way, it’s a good exercise.
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What is your mission statement?
— A lot of people are scared by mission statements because it feels like an end all be all. In reality your mission statement should keep you grounded in what you believe. This is a great article to help you in the process if you need to stir up some inspiration!
— ex. My blog’s mission statement is: Page Nine will take a realistic view of the existence of a 20-something navigating life. We aren’t at Coachella every week, we don’t have the perfect boyfriend and no, do not try to sell me that over-priced skin care because I can’t afford it. Page Nine strives to find a useful balance between Instagram perfection and I-R-L boredom.
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What should you bio say?
— This can be a glanced over subject but write a few bullet points of what people can expect from your content. Some ideas can be: Where do you live? Do you have kids? A dog? Where do you work? What are you passionate about? What do you post about?
— Ex. My good friend, @chelseabirdd has a great bio that captures her content. Check it out and see if you agree!
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Who is your ideal follower?
— This one may be difficult to define at first but give it some thought. Give your ideal follower a name and make them someone you’d want to hang out with.
— Ex. For Page Nine: My ideal follower is named Sophie. She is in her early-to-mid twenties. Sophie lives alone with her dog, is single and is currently spending time thinking about herself. She drinks coffee sometimes but is on a green tea kick because she read it was better for your (this phase probably won’t last long). When she isn’t working she likes a good nap and to catch up on what she missed from the week (from YouTube to laundry.)
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What platforms are you on?
— You don’t need to have an active presence on every platform (although it is good to claim the handle so someone else doesn’t have it). But are you over stretching yourself? Are you posting to enough?
— For Page Nine we want to be present everywhere but active only where it matters. For this reason we utilize our blog, Pinterest and Instagram. We have twitter but it doesn’t make a ton of sense for us at this point. Check out this article for a quick overview to see where you time is best spent.
Is social media guidance something you’re interested in? I wrote this blog to re-cap a presentation I gave with Hustle Hunnies, an Arizona based goal-setting group! If this isn’t really your thing you can go check out my many other lifestyle blogs. If it IS your thing let me know on Instagram!
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