Category: News

Getting Attention on Social Media

Posted on by CMPR

Getting attention on social media can feel like looking for a needle in a haystack. With millions of people on each platform, how do you get the right people to see your content? 

Hashtags

Many people think hashtags are a thing of the past, but they do still have their place on many social media platforms. The landscape around them, however, is constantly changing and every site tends to leverage them slightly differently. It can be very confusing if you’re new to social media or coming back from a long hiatus to find everything has changed. This is why tailoring your hashtag strategy should be a routine part of your social media plan.

First you will want to identify your target audience and search for appropriate hashtags that the audience may be interested in. Get in the mind of your audience. Think about what tags they might search for on social media. If you’re an author, #bookstoread and #bookstagram are popular, community-based hashtags that many bookworms use when looking for new reading material. Complete a search of your own to see which posts get the most traction, and remember to be continually researching as information is changing constantly.

Tags

Potentially the simplest way to get attention on social media is to tag people or accounts that may be interested in your content. Tagging an account will get your post to pop up in their notifications, giving your content a higher chance of being seen by specific people.

Similar to your hashtag research, you will want to find accounts that you think would be interested in your content. Think about your target audience and identify accounts that may want your content to show up in their notifications. Once you have these accounts identified, you can begin mentioning them in your captions. On Instagram, Facebook, and X, start by typing ‘@’ and proceed to type in the account name you want to tag.

For example, if you put @mckinneymediagroup in an Instagram caption, we will be notified and see your post.

The Algorithm

The main way your content will get attention on social media is through the elusive algorithm. Social media platforms will deliver content they think you want to see based on things you have searched for and looked at previously. It looks at content and users and tries to serve the right content to the right people. 

“Beating” the algorithm and getting people to see your content isn’t always so easy and there isn’t one thing or another that you can do that will work every time. What is important is creating consistent, high quality content that you know your target audience will enjoy. Constantly keep an eye on trends in the algorithm on all your social media platforms to make sure that you’re staying up to date on how content is being pushed to users. Check out these 2024 guides to the algorithm on Instagram, Facebook, and X (Twitter) for more information.

What is SEO and Why Should You Be Interested?

Posted on by CMPR

Last month we talked about managing your social media content and audience. Now it’s time to discuss SEO, keywords, and getting people to visit your website. When you hear the term SEO, you may be thinking, what even is that? Or, does that really pertain to me? Everyone with a website should be thinking about SEO.

What is SEO?

SEO, or search engine optimization, is the process of designing your website and content in a way that will increase its visibility on search engines such as Google and Bing. Organic traffic from search engines is one of the main ways a website gets viewed. 

There are three main types of SEO: on-page, off-page, and technical. Off-page and technical SEO refer to the optimizations that occur behind the scenes of a website. On-page SEO on the other hand focuses on aspects of the web page itself such as content quality and how much it aligns with what people are searching. This type of SEO can be the easiest for you to control.

The simplest way to begin optimizing your website is to find out what people in your audience are searching for and then create relevant and optimized content using these popular search terms. Use a keyword tool like Google Trends to research what people in your niche are searching. Once you have this information, create the type of content that your audience wants to see. Blogs, videos, interactive tools and more all work in different ways to serve your audience. Research what those you are targeting want to see and model your content accordingly.

Why Does SEO Pertain to Me?

So why does SEO pertain to you and your website? When people are searching for a product you sell or a service you provide, you want your website to show up at the top of their search results so that they are more likely to see it. A higher-ranking search result is made possible by SEO. 

Let’s say you wrote a mystery novel and you want more people to visit your website and ultimately purchase the book. Writing a blog on a relevant topic, such as a certain type of technology used in the book to solve the mystery, may drive more people from that niche to your website. This in turn gives them the opportunity to see your book on other pages of your website. It is not always about getting people to see the content itself, but also a way to drive them to the website as a whole and see the product or service you are selling without directly searching for it themselves.

Think about it, when was the last time you made it to the last page of your search engine results before finding what you were looking for, or even giving up? Probably never. You want your audience to find your website as soon as possible after searching, or there’s not a very likely chance of them finding it at all. 

If you have a website, SEO is something you should be thinking about, and it is something you can do yourself with a little research. Start by looking for those relevant keywords and begin tailoring your content to what your audience wants to see. The higher the search engine ranking you have, the higher your chance of being found organically.

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Creating Your Social Media Plan

Posted on by CMPR

This month we spent a lot of time going through different aspects of posting about your book and your brand on social media.  Now that you know how to get started, make authentic connections, and discover topics, it is time for the most important part.  We are going to talk about creating your social media plan.

Structure Your Social Media Plan

None of the things you have learned so far will matter without a clear strategy and mapped out calendar.  For people who like to fly by the seat of their pants and hate linear structure, this is going to be annoying.   You may need a plan more than most, because without one you will not keep it up.

The great news is that you can automate some of the tasks.  However, you will need to sit down and make a calendar for each month in advance.  Ideally, you have several months of planned content laid out so you can produce it, schedule it and forget about everything but engaging and having fun with your new followers.  Here is how you put a plan together.

Your Social Media Outline

1.  Find a monthly calendar template that you think will serve you best.  Hubspot has one, and if you click on the link you will go to a page with a free download.  We use a customized version of it that has worked well.

2. Think about the forms of your content.  For example, we like to post a blog every week and our social posts include a feed post on Instagram followed by stories throughout the week based on the blog.  We try to create themed months and weeks, which makes it easier to organize content.  It also provides different formats for people who like to consume content in different ways.

3. Go back to your topics and themes.  If one of your topics is world building because you write fantasy, then think about creating content about your process, articles you find online, different resources you use, people whose work you admire, etc.

4. Now it’s time to get specfic.  Let’s plan a week of content on Instagram that includes a blog post about how you got interested in world building.  You can choose to promote that blog on your website via a feed post on Monday, followed by two stories on Tuesday and Thursday, respectively.  Mark those in your calendar.

You could also add a reel with a visual like a map and a caption that includes a mistake to avoid as you get started with your world.  Maybe you post your reel on Wednesday.  Mark that in your calendar.  Now you have a full week planned for that topic.

Getting Content Ideas Using AI

Many of us have ambivalent feelings about AI.  As writers and creators we worry that AI will take over our specializations and make us obselete.  Although some of this may be true or false, in the meantime we all need to be familiar with how generative AI works.  So, I am recommending that you try ChatGPT, prompting it with your world building idea to see what article headlines it generates.

You could also go to Google.  Type in “world building” and see what drops down from the search bar.  Scroll to see what topics are listed further down the search results pages where it says “People also searched for”.

You Can’t Break Your Social Media

If you are relatively new to social media with a modest following or zero followers, you don’t need to worry too much about how your plan is executed.  You can’t break your social media at this level.  What is most important is that you jump in and try out a system.  If you are stuck or want a bit of guidance, we do offer a free 30 minute social media overview.  You can also search our blogs or look through our Instagram feed for other posts and tips.

Attention Newsletter Subscribers:  In the February newsletter you will find a brief how to video for the ChatGPT process I mentioned above.  To subscribe to our newsletter visit the home page

 

 

Making Authentic Connections on Social Media

Posted on by CMPR

Why Make Connections on Social Media?

There are 4.9 billion people on social media; there are bots and marketing agencies spewing generic content; advertising is cluttering news feeds; and if you aren’t a celebrity, you won’t gain followers by the hundreds. So why does anyone even bother, you ask?  Because there are 4.9 billion people using social media. If your audience was just a fraction of that number, you could be happy. Making authentic connections on social media is difficult, but so rewarding in finding the audience for you.

We are so fortunate to be able to reach out to all of these people directly. But you have to be thoughtful, dare I say strategic about how you talk to them. If you do your homework and start talking to your “people” who want to hear what you have to say, then you will grow, and you may even become an influencer someday.  If your social media platforms are not behaving the way you want them to, it is likely that you are not properly focused on who you are trying to reach and what you need to communicate.

Building Authentic Online Relationships

Relationship building online is about earning the trust and loyalty of your customers and audiences so you can maintain and grow your numbers. But how do you do that? Is it by working with a company that will push out “snackable” content? Is it by talking about how great you are or how wonderful your product is?  Would having a roomful of cats posted on Instagram fit the bill?

Even though we can now hide behind our screens, it doesn’t mean that the skills and needs of human interaction are out the window. If anything, you need to be even more thoughtful about your dialogue with others to practice effective social media marketing. Your content needs to be authentic, and you need to do your due diligence and research in advance to identify an audience that will be interested in receiving your messages. After you determine your audience, you need to figure out how to reach it, what platforms to use, the content you will use, and when you are going to post and share.

It Takes Time

To build an army takes an army and that’s what you are doing. You are setting up a foundation of friends and followers who want to know about your ideas or buy your product. If satisfied, they will help spread the word via reposts, shares, and referrals. And as I’ve said, it doesn’t happen overnight.

Don’t try and take a shortcut when it comes to quality, actionable followers. The ones you end up with are often spam and other ineffective types. You need to put a real engagement plan into action, stick to it, monitor the results, and take appropriate action when necessary.

We all need to accept that making authentic connections on social media is going to take a lot of work. Set up a schedule that works for you. Block out time every day to work on internet engagement and research. Find a tracking program or use the tools that the individual platforms provide so you can see how your content is doing. Someone told me once regarding careers that you start with one brick and soon you will have built a wall. So go ahead and start your construction and you will see how things progress.

Content Pillars Lead Your Social Media Plan

Posted on by CMPR

What is a content pillar?  That’s marketing speak for a theme.  Content pillars lead your social media plan to build an audience.  Once you feel comfortable posting on your social platform, the next step is to identify what you want to write about regularly.  These “pillars” will support your platform and help you create many great things for your followers.

Authentic Content Pillars

Many people are stuck on what to talk about, so they randomly post stuff just to be “active”.  Sadly, that won’t work if you are serious about using social media as a tool to build a following.  You are fighting short attention spans, an overwhelming amount of users, and a mysterious algorithm.  I know it can feel artificial to “create” based on marketing principles and conventions.  However, many people  strike a balance between what comes natrually, and what they need to communicate to grow.

The Content Pillar You Know Best

So here’s what I know from working with artists and writers for most of my life–you are not the best judges of what is interesting to the people who consume your books, music, films, etc.  To authors writing is a purpose, a curse, a discipline, a dream, annoying, easy, difficult, frustrating, and whatever other terms you want to throw at it.  To readers or aspiring writers, your world is a mystery, filled with things they can’t reach on their own.  With this in mind, let’s play with some sample topics around the content pillar of WRITING:

Topic 1: A writing journal, what do you feel like when you write.  Repeat for every day that you sit down at your computer.

Topic 2: Writing advice, tips you provide and those you find from other famous or non-famous writers that you research online.

Topic 3: For fantasy writers, world-building and character-building.  Here you can talk about your process and those of your colleagues, or you can literally talk about the world and characters in your books.   Bring them to life for your audience and talk about what you can’t find between the pages.

Your Goal When Creating Your Content

Your goal is to be able to start with your theme, then take your topics and create a combination of feed posts, stories, reels, or their equivalents on your platform of choice.  For example if you choose to do a journal you could include views that inspire writing as your images.  You could do a reel of something your house pets do when you sit down.  My cat likes (demands) to jump on my lap, then she meows like crazy because I’m typing instead of paying attention to her.  I would put your topic at the top of a page and then jot down all the things that go with it from a visual and an internal point of view.

Cat takes over my work station constantly.
Not mine, but you cat lovers totally get it.

Now, look what you’ve done.  You have some topic ideas that are original to you, and. they can educate and engage your audience.  Ideally it is a good idea to have a couple of pillars that you plan on your content calendar for the month.  Think about who you are trying to reach and what will encourage them to pay attention to what you are saying.  Here are some things we have done for clients over the years that have been successful:

  • For a writer of plausible thriller fiction, we created a tag line for a content pillar that tells readers about Things You Should Know But Don’t.   Every week there are posts relating to something going on in the world that isn’t on the front page, but is important to know.  We organize the posts by topic depending on what is being covered in the news.
  • A male author writing a female character has a platform dedicated to the character who covers her fascinating life, and how to navigate the world as a twenty-something woman.  Her pillars are a regular “Diary” and “Ask Gina”, which is a parody of Dear Abby.  When a new book comes out she talks about what’s happening in her life and teases out aspects to look forward to in the future.

The Simple Things

Once you establish the content pillars to lead your social media planning, you will feel more grounded. It will be easier to generate ideas for different kinds of posts.  As you grow your following, you will learn about your audience and may get suggestions from them.  Sometimes it is the simplist thing that can delight a community.  Recently, an author I met said that she started posting sunrises, because she likes to write at that time.  This took off for her, because, as she said, who doesn’t love sunrises?

For more information and to read more about content creation search “content marketing” on our blog page.  You can also read a recent post Optimizing Your Link in Bio