The Three Pillars of Social Media Marketing! How to Market on Facebook!

Nobody cares…

So many businesses and start ups end up having terrible social media campaigns, simply because they aren’t posting the right type of postings. Social media marketing is such a tricky thing!

They think that because they have a cool product or interesting app, that somehow crowds are just going to flock to their social media postings. Not true, here’s three rules to remember!

Why am I qualified to talk about this?

Yes I know, the official Mock9 facebook page has less then 200 likes at this point. We have been slacking on it! But trust me when I say I have been involved in many social media campaigns, from raising tens of thousands of youtube subscribers to being part of crowdfunding campaigns that raised hundreds of thousands of dollars!

I have a ton of experience with this and I am more than qualified to give you my two cents on how social media marketing should work! And to back it up, I conducted experiments on our own facebook page, that at the time of these experiments had little more than 30 likes on the page.

Rule #1: Nobody Cares About You or Your Business

The reason people go on facebook in the first place, is to look at cute animal videos or enguage in political debates. They don’t go on to actively check what their favorite business is trying to self promote, people just don’t care!

The reason social media exists is to feed the self! People go on because they are bored, because they want to be entertained, because they want to be gratified. This narcissistic behavior can be seen very clearly when comparing different post types. To illustrate, we performed our own social media experiments.

Terrible Posting: No One Cares

terrible post

We posted an animated GIF of our new logo animation! I remember it took our animator like 3 hours to put this together, and no one liked or commented on it! Wow I’m so sad, might as well give up now since no one cares about us!

Why does nobody want to comment or LIKE this post? Simple… Because they get absolutely nothing out of it. The reason people comment on a post is because it makes THEM feel good or happy about it! Nobody cares about our stupid logo animation!

Awesome Post, Everyone Wants In!

Awesome Post

This post is an excellent example of a great social media posting! you asked the user a question, you invited them to participate in a big social media game, and they don’t even have to think about it! Just look at the user above and judge them based on their picture, it’s the ultimate act of online narcissism!

20 shares! (No that wasn’t all us!)

7,000 reach!

Tons of comments! Almost 600 comments on one share!

600 comments

But why? Why does a post like this work so well?

Rule #2: It’s All About ME!

That’s right! The reason the second post is so much more successful is simply because the act of participating in the comments indirectly glorifies the user! The above post was particularly special because the user not only judges another person, but is hoping to see what someone else has to say about them next!

How Can This Be Applied?

Applied posting

Above you can see a successful post that we used to promote our newest anime latte art article! Instead of simply posting a cute coffee cup, we decided to make it a “game,” by asking users to choose which one is their favorite!

We even numbered the options to make it simple! AND IT WORKED!

july 7th sessions

As you can see, almost 1000 sessions, not page views, sessions. The results were immediate! These are very real and tangible results! Of course, it would have been amplified if our Facebook page didn’t have 30 likes….. But we quickly brought that to over 100 in less than a week!

How to make it all about ME

Think about what you are trying to promote? Soliciting feedback from users is the best way to get interaction! You want users to feel like their opinion matters! After all, this is the reason so many political pages and posts go viral, because everyone is bickering in the comments or sharing their thoughts about the matter.

People on social media feel empowered and gratified when they think their opinion counts! you want to create a Facebook page that makes your users feel happy about THEMSELVES! Remember, nobody cares about YOUR business unless it makes THEM feel good too!

And that’s what it ultimately comes down to, if people can identify with your post, if they can really attach themselves personally to your posting, they are more likely to share it with their friends!

Why?

Because if their friends LIKE that post, the person who shared it should feel giddy and happy about it! Come on, admit it, you feel sad when you post a picture to your wall and no one likes it! What does a LIKE do for your anyways? LIKE addict!

Rule #3: Don’t Make Me Think!

This is the last and final rule, but it is so very important! When asking users for feedback, do not make the answer open ended! Your post is likely to perform worse than if you lay out the answers or make it a multiple choice thing.

EVEN if you are posting to a highly technical fan base, your posting will still not be as successful as one where someone could literally comment an answer within seconds of seeing your post.

What’s The Next Step?

Go out and do your own social media marketing experiments! Try to create unique postings that follow these simple rules and see which types of postings your audience likes most!

If you can find some way to link the post to your website or product, even better! However, simply making viral social media postings is also not bad, because it can still build LIKES in your Facebook page.

Just because nobody liked your business’ Facebook posts doesn’t mean nobody likes your business! Your posts just aren’t appealing enough to other people. Change the way you post, and you’ll change the way people view your business!

Continuing This Series

If you liked this series, then be sure to follow us! We will continue this series and document our posting performance as we hit 1000 LIKES, 5000 LIKES, 10,000 LIKES, and beyond!

We will attempt to do this all without spending a cent on Facebook ads! The reason is that if you are able to develop a successful organic post, then the results will only be amplified when you put money into ads.

A lot of businesses end up having very bad experiences with Facebook ads, but what they do not realize is that your Facebook ad is only as powerful as the post you are trying to promote!

Update: But What About Really Awesome Artists Who Aren’t Using These “Click Bait” Posting Tactics and Still get Tons of LIKES?

Great question! There is a point in this process where simply having amazing content, like absolutely stunning content, can really take the post into high gear on its own!

However, this is not something we can recommend to clients or our readers because unfortunately, making amazing content is not easily to replicate. Instead we’re giving practical advice that literally anyone can follow, if your content is amazing, all the more power to you!

But these tactics are mainly geared towards struggling businesses who are trying to get more activity out of their social media campaign!