Description

Using Social Media for promotion is essential for any business. But what should you post? How do you motivate fans and followers to SHARE what you post? In this video, Eric Spellmann shares the secrets that social media wizards use to supercharge their social media posts. Remember, viral marketing is not random. See your shares triple and quadruple by watching and practicing the tips in this video!

Transcript

Note from Eric: Below, you will find a word-for-word transcript of this video. I provide this as an aid for the hearing-impaired and for those who might just want to read it rather than watch the video. This conversational style is not reflective of how I write. Be nice!

Hey. I am Eric Spellmann with Spellmann & Associates. And today’s topic is 5 Ways to Get More Shares on Social Media.

When we talk about Social Media, I’ve always told you that the key to Social Media is interaction. It’s not really for advertising. But if you want people to share your post, extending your brand, leading to more interaction, then you’ve got to create your post correctly so that it is more shareable. So, let’s get started.

Number 1, ask them to share. Now, I know that may seem obvious. I mean simply asking them to share what you just posted sounds like a no brainer. Well you would be surprised how often people don’t! Lot of times people see something they just read it and move on to the next item. They’re on the internet and they’re reading and they go to the next thing, reading and they go to the next thing.

You’d be surprised that as humans we have been taught to obey. So when you see those little buttons on the website that say “Shop Now”, why didn’t they say “Please Shop” or “Products”. That’s because marketers have determined that when they ask you to do something, most people will do it, given no other option other than just continue and going. So I know it seems obvious but ask them to share.

Theres different ways to ask. One of my favorites is what I call is the “Share if you” method. In other words share if you agree, share if this is you etc. In other words give it a condition. See if they agree with it. It’s almost like a debate at that point. It’s almost like interaction. And so if you’re posting something, so for instance maybe if you made cookies “Share if you love chocolate chip cookies.” People would say Yeah I like chocolate chip cookies and so they’re more likely to share.

The other way with that is called share with. In other words, instead of creating it conditional for people to “share if”, we’re talking about “share with”. In other words, if you know someone who likes this, share with them. Share with your mom, share with your dad, share with your spouse, share with someone you know who needs this. Tell them who to share it with! So, theres different ways to do it but you can key in on whats going through in their head by connecting with someone they may have a connection with that’s similar to this the share with, or if they meet a certain criteria (like they like the taste of chocolate chip cookies) share if you like chocolate chip cookies.

Number 2, spend time on a title. I’m here to tell you that title is key. People are gonna look at titles. I spend more time on the titles of my videos than just about any other thing. And that’s because people will decide whether to watch my videos based strictly, strictly on the titles themselves.

Use numbers. This is one of my favorite things. A title that quantifies something is always better than one that is vague. And what I mean by quantify? People see more value when they see that they’re gonna get 5 of something, 10 of something, top 10 this, top 10 ways, top 5 ways, 5 mistakes you can’t afford to make etc.

They seem more valuable than if you simply say ways you can be more efficient, ways to do this, ways to do that etc. But if you give them 5 people are more likely to click on it because people put value on numbers. And when you look at a lot of my video titles you will see I’ve put numbers with them, as with this one!

Curiosity. Do something with your title that makes them go What! Makes them double-take, makes them stop. Use language that they would use. Offer them something that they really haven’t thought about that. So use curiosity. Make them want to know what’s going on. Make them want to know what you’re gonna say in that post.

How to is one of the best. Because how to doesn’t come across as advertising. You’ll see a lot of my titles have how to, because most people know when they see how to it’s gonna be some sort of step by step education and not necessarily simple advertising. I love using how to. I get more clicks on my how to titles than all the rest really.

Use fear. Now I know some of you might be wondering why fear? People respond when they have the fear of losing something. A good example. A good title for a realtor post might be “10 mistakes you can’t afford to make when selling your house.” What you’re using is the fear that they’re gonna make a mistake.

One of my most popular videos I ever made was the “Top 5 Legal Mistakes You’ve Probably Already Made”. You see the fear of you’ve already made got a lot of people to watch that. It is true! It’s just a matter of what you title is. Because keep in mind if you have amazing content but your title is so boring, people are gonna skip and go past you! Coz remember what I’ve already told you about the internet is everyone on the internet has ADD and they’re lazy. And they’re only gonna stop and click on things that look interesting. So fear is a great way to do it. Top mistakes you can’t afford to make, things like that.

Greed is the second way to do it. I know these things sound negative but. Greed is I want something that I do not currently have. So, for instance using the realtor example. “Top 10 ways to increase the value of your house 25% in 24 hours.”

You see they desire something and they would like to know that because it brings great value to them. So you can make it positive. Top 10 ways to increase your pay etc. I call it greed but basically you’re offering to bring them value of some sort. Whether it be financial, happiness whatever.

Number 3, tag strategically. Yeah that’s right you’re going to tag your post. Every single post you do on facebook, pinterest, twitter whatever I want to make sure you tag it because therein lies a huge amount of power that a lot of people are totally missing. Let me give you some help though. Whenever you see a hashtag that usually means “about.” It’s like a topic, it’s like a category.

It’s about. And it’s a way for people to group multiple postings based on that hashtag. So if you’re speaking about some current event, hashtag the event. That way people especially the press who are doing searches on that will come across your post very easily. If you make cupcakes, then make sure cupcake is in one of your hashtags for people who are looking for cupcake information.

The @ sign is different, specially in twitter. Whenever you see the @ sign, specially in twitter it means it’s an account. It’s like saying this is to somebody, kind of like an email address where when you post something you want to make sure it shows up in the timeline of that person.

So it will go directly to that person, but kind of in a public format. People can still see it. But it will be made clear that you were directing it at that person, and that person will definitely see it whether they’ve subscribed to you, liked you, followed you whatever they will see it.

Tag a business. This is one of my favorites. If you’re out and about and you sit down and maybe eat at the restaurant or you’re going into a business and you like what they did, tag the business itself and say Hey they did a great job (and tag the business itself). Or if you have a problem like with your airline. I know a lot of people, a lot of friends of mine who when they complained on twitter or facebook about an airline, they made sure that the Social Media account of the airline was mentioned either in a hashtag or directly so that they would see it. And you’d be surprised how many of my friends actually got responses and got help by using Social Media.

Tag a celebrity. You never know. I can’t promise you anything but you never know when a celebrity might re-tweet something you said or start following you or mention you! You just never know, these people are real people. And if you’re tagging them for a reason and not just randomly then you never know you might get a response. A good example. Happened to me just a week or two ago.

I was in Los Angeles on vacation and I went to a restaurant named Sur Restaurant. Now, Sur Restaurant is a really nice restaurant and it’s owned by a lady named Lisa Vanderpump. And for those of you who don’t know, Lisa is onto reality shows on Bravo TV.

And so I was aware of her in that regard and I was aware that she owned that restaurant. And so when I tweeted, while I was sitting there and I had amazing service, I had amazing food and the ambiance and the environment was just amazing. So i just tweeted it. And I basically said what I just said there. But here’s the difference. I mentioned Lisa Vanderpump individually by using the @ sign with her twitter handle. I also did the same for Sur Restaurant.

And they showed up. So I tagged it, didn’t think much about it. I hashtagged but nothing big and it was just something like amazing food etc. So then I didn’t even think about it. Not long later, when all of a sudden when I saw that Lisa Vanderpump had retweeted my tweet! Now keep in mind I only have a few thousand followers, Lisa has over a million! And I was like Oh my Gosh!

She retweeted me, and I got a whole bunch of new followers, I got a whole bunch of new people talking to me that would have never seen or even heard of me before. And so, while I wasn’t going for that, while I wasn’t trying to manipulate the situation, I just wanted to make sure she knew that I, on of her fans truly enjoyed her food and she retweeted it and there was a benefit to me.

Now once again I can’t promise that will ever happen to you but I am here to say it does happen and I’ve had it happen to me.

Number 4, share others’ posts. If you want other people to share your post, you need to be sharing theirs and they’re gonna notice how much you’re sharing them. People see that.

When I’m on twitter or facebook I can see how many people have shared what I’ve done. And if I see that certain people are doing it over and over, well they appreciate it. And they are more likely to do it themselves. You’ll get lots of follows that way. When you share things out and when other people share you, you’ll get follows from people who follow them.

They share and then there’s reciprocation like I always talk about. If you are really just singing the praises of a business or a person, over time the law of reciprocation kind of kicks in and you’re more likely to see some sort of share on their part. So constantly share other people’s stuff, but once again not for the sole goal of getting a share yourself, but because you truly felt that what they posted was valuable.

Number 5, make it visual. I can’t say this enough. You need to have pictures. Almost every post you do should have some sort of picture. Have you ever noticed that when you’re on Facebook or twitter or pinterest or whatever and you’re just scrolling through, many times you won’t stop at just a text pieces.

You will stop and look at a picture. So posting of pictures causes people to pause. And that is something you definitely want. So always make sure that there is some sort of picture in your post.

Memes are a fun way to do it. Comedy is huge, specially if you want to be shared. A lot of times there’s memes out there. And you must be asking what’s a meme? Basically a cartoon or a picture with a funny saying that makes people laugh. You can look them up almost for anything. You can do a search on it by basically typing any industry and then the word ”meme” and then go to Google Pictures and you’ll see tonnes of them.

The more weird and wild the photo, the better! Because once again people are gonna see the photo and if it’s something weird and wild and wacky, they’re gonna go what! They’re gonna stop and pay it more attention, which is your goal. Now once again don’t over do it. And I’m not talking about making something salacious or something inappropriate. What I’m saying is make the photo something people want to stop and look at.

You can use customer shots. This is one of the best things I can recommend, especially if you can have the permission of the customer. I’ll be honest, before you post any kind of picture of a customer, make sure you have the permission to do so.

But when people see people doing business with you, or using your product in a weird way or simply in your store, that’s amazing! If the person is someone people will respect, it could be a local celebrity, a politician, someone in your community like the Chief of Police or even the Mayor, then you can kind of get some fame by association.

The other reason is you include customer pictures is because when you share that post with the customer, they are more likely to automatically share it with their friends, because everyone likes to see a picture of themselves.

Well, as always if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to visit my website ericspellmann.com. I have lots more videos. Or if you need me to speak at your event or at your conference let me know, I’m more than happy to chat with you. Well, I’m Eric Spellmann; I’ll see you in cyberspace.