An Important (Albeit Slightly Drunk) "Secret" about Social Media.
Trigger Warning: I am slightly inebriated so this is not the most diplomatic post. Please try to hear
the sincerity in it, though. Also, I might be rambling a bit... but don't stress. It's good info if you let it click.
Hey Warriors.
I haven't been around the forums much but, it's the New Year and I was having drinks and reminiscing
with two business partners about how I got started. They just left and I decided to check around the
forum.
It's still a great source of information. Not surprised at all.
However, it is also a great source of disinformation. I'm not going to sit here and theorize on whether it is
spread on purpose or through ignorance, all I am going to say is that there is a lot of misinformation
being spread, which we all know.
One post I just saw was spreading a "great method" to make money using Twitter. Again, I'm not going
to sit here and argue whether or not that post was made maliciously for gain or was just someone
thinking up an idea and assuming it would work. Frankly, that doesn't matter to me.
What matters to me is that loads of people are seeing posts like that, getting excited, and spending
money following through with what they are told... and they won't make a single cent from it.
This is going to be about social media as a whole because it is an industry full of BS. Maybe second only
to SEO.
Let's go over a few ground rules first:
1) 99.9999% of the sites that sell "real followers" for Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, et al. do not sell
real followers. At best, they sell fake followers that look sort of real. At worse, they sell fake followers that
do not look real and are deleted by Twitter, Instagram or Facebook after a few days or weeks.
2) All of these social networking sites are saturated. You need to be on top of your game and
actively working your magic to grow your accounts. You can't just throw up a post, start following and
mentioning people, and expecting them to follow back. At best, you will get a couple followers who think
you're crazy. At worst, you get zero followers and get your account deleted for spam complaints.
3) Surprise: Your account needs to actually be exciting to people. Remember-- Real people don't
just follow you for no reason. Even if you have the same interests, real people don't care. You need to
excite and resonate with them.
4) There is no "quick" way to actually build a brand... and a social media profile is a brand. 99% of
these "reports" and "methods" I have seen are blissfully unaware of this. They do the equivalent of a
terrible 80s movie montage. They say "ok, start adding people on Twitter... Once you have 100,000
followers... you can move to the next step!" Excuse me, are you high on crack?
5) It's insanely easy to tell that someone has fake followers. Three things stand out immediately:
Engagement, Temporality and Legitimacy.
that people know best practices and know what should and shouldn't be going on. Namely, almost
everyone can smell BS from a mile away. The only people who ARE fooled are those you don't want to
be involved with to begin with.
So when people "suggest" methods like "Make a twitter account. Start following people, they will follow
you back because you both have the same interests in your description! Once you get to 50,000
followers, contact Kim Kardashian. She will give you $5000 per tweet and also buy you a house. You
can make millions" ... it reeks of bullsh*t..
Not just because it DOESN'T work... but because, if they are saying or implying that it does, they are
lying or weirdly confused (they shouldn't be).
Aside from that, I would also suggest keeping these points in mind when looking at other's social media
accounts and "vetting" them. Social media is great for a couple of things. Off the top of my head...
1) Finding customers: Obvious enough.
2) Interacting with customers: As well as building loyalty.
3) Building authority: Having a strong social media presence is killer, obviously.
Each of these can be done effectively... but, as they are all intertwined, they can also be BSed...
Hopefully this post gives people an idea of what to look for (and out for) in social media... but also gives
people a yardstick to measure out BS before working with someone new.
Especially if you are about to invest money in a new tactic or "method"... I think it's important to make
sure that the method is sound. Hopefully these few little rules will give you an extra way to judge that if
you weren't aware already.
Not only is it important to do that in order to make sure you aren't throwing money away... but it stops
you from investing time and energy in a sunk method as well.
If you have any questions, let me know. I've tried to go through this a couple times and make sure there
aren't too many typos etc.
Love you all.
Edit: Oh, and also... I almost forgot: Those "exchange sites" are also total BS. Why? Because everyone else on there is
ALSO trying to grow their own account. They are not "real" followers. They are followers who don't care about you and are
being forced to follow you to get followers for themselves. Think about it.
the sincerity in it, though. Also, I might be rambling a bit... but don't stress. It's good info if you let it click.
Hey Warriors.
I haven't been around the forums much but, it's the New Year and I was having drinks and reminiscing
with two business partners about how I got started. They just left and I decided to check around the
forum.
It's still a great source of information. Not surprised at all.
However, it is also a great source of disinformation. I'm not going to sit here and theorize on whether it is
spread on purpose or through ignorance, all I am going to say is that there is a lot of misinformation
being spread, which we all know.
One post I just saw was spreading a "great method" to make money using Twitter. Again, I'm not going
to sit here and argue whether or not that post was made maliciously for gain or was just someone
thinking up an idea and assuming it would work. Frankly, that doesn't matter to me.
What matters to me is that loads of people are seeing posts like that, getting excited, and spending
money following through with what they are told... and they won't make a single cent from it.
This is going to be about social media as a whole because it is an industry full of BS. Maybe second only
to SEO.
Let's go over a few ground rules first:
1) 99.9999% of the sites that sell "real followers" for Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, et al. do not sell
real followers. At best, they sell fake followers that look sort of real. At worse, they sell fake followers that
do not look real and are deleted by Twitter, Instagram or Facebook after a few days or weeks.
2) All of these social networking sites are saturated. You need to be on top of your game and
actively working your magic to grow your accounts. You can't just throw up a post, start following and
mentioning people, and expecting them to follow back. At best, you will get a couple followers who think
you're crazy. At worst, you get zero followers and get your account deleted for spam complaints.
3) Surprise: Your account needs to actually be exciting to people. Remember-- Real people don't
just follow you for no reason. Even if you have the same interests, real people don't care. You need to
excite and resonate with them.
4) There is no "quick" way to actually build a brand... and a social media profile is a brand. 99% of
these "reports" and "methods" I have seen are blissfully unaware of this. They do the equivalent of a
terrible 80s movie montage. They say "ok, start adding people on Twitter... Once you have 100,000
followers... you can move to the next step!" Excuse me, are you high on crack?
5) It's insanely easy to tell that someone has fake followers. Three things stand out immediately:
Engagement, Temporality and Legitimacy.
- Engagement: 10,000 followers on Twitter and one like and no retweets on any of the posts?
Congratulations, that person is full of crap. - Temporality: 10,000 followers on Twitter, but when they post a new tweet nobody likes it for 3
days, then all of a sudden they have 2,000 likes and retweets in a period of an hour? Seems super
authentic. - Legitimacy: This covers lots of things. But, in general, how legitimate does it seem? They have
500 likes on their instagram photo... but none of the likes are from people following their account? Ok,
totally makes sense.
NOTE: Because of the dynamics of Instagram, this is even more true there than on Twitter. On6) Finally (I think), while social media is still "relatively new" in terms of marketing, it is old enough
IG, followers are shown essentially a list of photos. They like them as they scroll down. The list is
ordered by most to least recent. They do not really care WHO posts the picture as much as what the
picture is of. If a photo isnt getting immediate likes (and a great ratio), then that account has fake
followers.
that people know best practices and know what should and shouldn't be going on. Namely, almost
everyone can smell BS from a mile away. The only people who ARE fooled are those you don't want to
be involved with to begin with.
So when people "suggest" methods like "Make a twitter account. Start following people, they will follow
you back because you both have the same interests in your description! Once you get to 50,000
followers, contact Kim Kardashian. She will give you $5000 per tweet and also buy you a house. You
can make millions" ... it reeks of bullsh*t..
Not just because it DOESN'T work... but because, if they are saying or implying that it does, they are
lying or weirdly confused (they shouldn't be).
Aside from that, I would also suggest keeping these points in mind when looking at other's social media
accounts and "vetting" them. Social media is great for a couple of things. Off the top of my head...
1) Finding customers: Obvious enough.
2) Interacting with customers: As well as building loyalty.
3) Building authority: Having a strong social media presence is killer, obviously.
Each of these can be done effectively... but, as they are all intertwined, they can also be BSed...
Hopefully this post gives people an idea of what to look for (and out for) in social media... but also gives
people a yardstick to measure out BS before working with someone new.
Especially if you are about to invest money in a new tactic or "method"... I think it's important to make
sure that the method is sound. Hopefully these few little rules will give you an extra way to judge that if
you weren't aware already.
Not only is it important to do that in order to make sure you aren't throwing money away... but it stops
you from investing time and energy in a sunk method as well.
If you have any questions, let me know. I've tried to go through this a couple times and make sure there
aren't too many typos etc.
Love you all.
Edit: Oh, and also... I almost forgot: Those "exchange sites" are also total BS. Why? Because everyone else on there is
ALSO trying to grow their own account. They are not "real" followers. They are followers who don't care about you and are
being forced to follow you to get followers for themselves. Think about it.