I'm getting back from a holiday spent with friends and family, and the other day, I went to a networking event and got to chatting with a fellow business owner about how Instagram is dying. Right after that event, I got on a consultant call about how they want to axe posting to all of the other platforms to move over and focus their digital marketing efforts solely on TikTok because it seems gangbusters.
I'm bringing this up because I KNOW these two people are saying what you're probably thinking, which is why I want to shine a light on the elephant in the cyber room and highlight why it's challenging to grow organically on social right now, and offer some suggestions on how you can fix it going into 2024.
Because I'm right there frustrated with organic growth along with you, all of social media feels like a giant advertising funnel. In the past 3 months, I've blocked, reported as spam, unfriended, and unsubscribed because so many “strangers” I was connected to were coming into my DMs and TEXT cold pitching me their offerings. It's difficult in a scroll lately to find a post about something other than "Here's this cool thing I found; use my code to save 2%." Or " I'm this amazing person who will teach you to find your authentic self."
You know I'm not wrong; if you are one of these people, we need to discuss your Marketing and Sales.
So right now, I want you to step into a time machine and think back to when businesses were beginning to come online- when FB created business pages, when Instagram was for iPhones only, and Pinterest was invite-only. Business Social became an exclusive club.
This was the time when there was less noise, fewer creators, and a limited understanding of the potential and benefits of social media marketing. It was a time when you could've created posts and gotten more likes and engagement on a post than you had total followers. You could've created a bunch of high-quality ads, and it would've garnered a ton of clicks, engagement, and purchases.
Do you remember them now? Is it making you nostalgic?
Me too.
It was a time when the 24-hour speed at which a company responded to users was enough to impress and retain their attention. And because a timely response was such a differentiator, brands leaned on AI created responses for quick replies. Like this:
"Thank you for reaching out to us. We value your feedback and are always here to help. Please be assured that your concern has been noted and will be forwarded to the relevant department. For further assistance, do not hesitate to contact our customer service team. Have a great day!"
So, with these AI-created responses, the focus went to creating more and more content to attract an audience.
But people got smarter with social, didn't they?
Or at least they think they did.
Posts went from being about creating a conversation and to establish relationships to only pitching products, affiliate links and coaching programs.
And I’m here to tell you that…
No one likes being sold to, and every channel is so overly saturated with great content.
These days, you’ve got to create a way of selling without selling.
There’s a question that I can’t stop thinking about what's the point of busting your ass creating great content if no one is there to interact with it?
This isn't something new; this has been the foundation of my business since the beginning, but it's worth emphasizing again for the people in the nose bleeds that the point of being on social media is to be social.
We need to get back to conversations, talking about things that are relatable to a community, creating a community.
In general, for 2024, we need to move away from this broadcast mentality, constantly pitching, and lean more toward a relationship/community building one.
This is where TikTok takes off because people on there appear unfiltered, relatable, a community, all of what Instagram used to be before we only posted perfectly styled photos and videos.
But I’m interested in how your “instant” likes and followers on TikTok are converting to sales, bookings and inquiries to whatever it is that you are offering. Is the conversion rate the same as it is on the other platforms? Are people not converting at all? Because the truth is you can have 100s and 1,000s of likes, but it’s the conversions to sales that pay the bills, not likes and hearts.
It isn't all the other platforms besides TikTok that are dead, it’s the broadcast and energy of, "I'm amazing at everything, buy my stuff" method is dead, and awaiting its funeral.
Looking ahead into 2024, here's an easy tactic for your brand to be memorable: have genuine interactions.
Ditch the AI responses, or at least humanize them. Ditch the styling of what everyone else is doing, stop using all the same songs and talk to your audience in a way that's not so obvious that you're selling to them.
Have a conversation. Be helpful. Be thoughtful. Treat your brand account like a personal one with its identity and personality. BUILD A COMMUNITY instead of a following.
If you need to mediate on how to do that, then mediate on it.
Brand loyalty will grow faster through active engagement than the number of your posts- it’s always been quality OVER quantity. Don't believe me- book a call; I'm happy to chat for 20 minutes free of charge.