Social Media is like a Relationship
Social media is like having a relationship with your kids. You may not always like what they do but you love the idea that they’re here in your life.
And for those of us who have been using social media for a few years, it feels more like seeing our kids move into the teenage years. Every day is a surprise with the unexpected ups and downs.
You miss those moments when everything was new, simple and easy – you could just post up a marketing message and by lunchtime, people would start commenting, liking and sharing.
But now you have to have a social media strategy. You need to create a content calendar for posting. You have a to find a way to show up in your fans’ home feed so they see your posts and that image you spent an hour creating.
All of this stuff can make social media feel more like a chore instead something that you want to do every day. And so you find an excuse about why you don’t want to log into Twitter and post your tweets for the week.
“I’m too busy. I’m too overloaded to get in there and really do the work. I mean if I can’t do this right, why bother?” You say to yourself.
I know what you’re feeling. You’ve fallen out of love with social media.
How to get the romance back
When you’ve lost that loving feeling with social media, it’s time to turn off your phone’s notifications and take a break. Give yourself some non-social downtime – pick up that book that’s been sitting on your bedside table, take your dog for a walk around the block or spend some time with your kids { and be sure to take their phones away so everyone gets a break! }.
After you’ve had a chance to unplug, spend a little time thinking about when you first started using social media.
Remember the first time someone commented on your Facebook question? Or the day when your blog post was retweeted by one of the big names in your industry?
You were like, “Holy crap! She’s got like thousands of followers and now they’re going to see my blog post!” You might have even done your version of the happy dance in your chair.
And now you have a thousand followers { or more! } on Twitter. Your blog posts get shared on Pinterest and every week, more people want to join your Facebook Group.
Thinking about where you were and how far you’ve come can be an amazing feeling. Just remembering those first early days when a comment and share could brighten your day will help you bring the romance back with your social sites.
Some things have gotten easier like knowing how to schedule a post { can you believe that we thought we had to post everything manually? } while some of the other stuff like creating strategies still has you scratching your head.
Maybe you still get freaked out when no one Likes your latest blog link that you post up in your Facebook group. Or no one is repinning that branded image quote that took you 2 hours to make.
I get it. Been there, done that, felt that feeling like I’m invisible.
There’s been a few times when I’ve posted a question and tagged the group’s owner and never got a response. It made me wonder – does anyone even see me?
I see you
Take a look at this passage from The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook by Peter Senge:
Among the tribes of northern Natal in South Africa, the most common greeting, equivalent to “hello” in English, is the expression: “sawu bona.” It literally means, “I see you.” If you are a member of the tribe, you might reply by saying “sikhona” or “I am here.” The order of the exchange is important: until you see me, I do not exist. It’s as if, when you see me, you bring me into existence.”
Sometimes I think we fall out of love with social media because we feel like no one sees us in the Twitter feed or notices our posts in our Facebook groups. We know we need to do this marketing stuff because it’s good to grow our businesses but our emotions get in the way of doing what we need to do.
We want others to see us.
We want our fans to comment when pull back the velvet curtain and share our story. We want the coach in our group coaching program to give us their feedback about our offer ideas and tell us we’re heading in the right direction.
We want people to respond to our questions about their challenges. We want the conversation, the connections.
We want the people in our social sites to say, “I see you” so we can respond, “I am here.”
Fall back in Love
The problem with social media marketing isn’t that it doesn’t work. Because you know it does. You’ve seen the web traffic happen from a Pinterest pin. You’ve seen your followers go up when you’ve posted in a Facebook group.
You know it works but it only works when you work it.
The problem is that you’re getting bogged down in all the details of the work it takes to get everything done. And it’s starting to feel like work because you’re not focusing on doing what you love.
Maybe your thing is answering questions for the other members in your groups. Maybe you get a kick out of meeting new people, getting to know more about them and chatting about something that connects you.
Whatever it is that you love to do when you log into your social sites, do that first. Before you spend any time working out what you’re going to post, set a timer for 30 minutes and just get in there and do what makes you happy.
Another way you can start to bring back that loving feeling is to be more positive online.
It’s OK to share your personal business story and tell us about your latest big fail. It helps us to see you’re just as human as the rest of us. We all make mistakes and hearing other people’s stories that we can relate to connects us to each other.
Go ahead and tell your story but don’t forget to let us know how you got back up.
Think about it like this – Disney movies are successful not because there’s an evil person doing bad things to the princess. The movies work because even though we send the hero up a tree and throw rocks at her, something or someone always finds a way to get her back down.
And then they all live happily ever after.
My last piece of advice to find your joy again is to get some help with all that stuff that just feels like work. Find a good social media scheduler {even if you have to pay a little bit of money every month} or hire a VA.
Create a better process to get the technical stuff done so you can focus more on what you love to do when you’re in your social sites.
I look at the idea of participating in social media in the way it makes you happy as an opportunity to connect with your customers on a relationship level versus just making another sale. It means you put people first and you use your marketing message to let your customers know more about who are rather than what you’re selling.
You may think you’re benefiting from posting a ton of sales messages on your Facebook fan page and then tweeting them out to anyone who will listen. I’m here to tell you that you’re wrong. What you lose in volume of sales promotions, you’ll make up with deeper connections that will yield long term relationships.
Yes, it takes time to reply to those Facebook comments and to engage in conversations with your customers in Twitter. That time has a value but the end result of connecting can lead to more loyal customers.
Want to be more productive in your social sites?
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