Social Media is emotional because Social Media is life

A recent article in the Guardian on Teenagers use of Social Media said “For this generation, social media is where they make sense of the world. It is increasingly where everything that is important to them is taking place. Going online is no longer the thing you do to take a break from real life. It is real life”

If you want proof of how that extends to older generations look at 20 / 30 / 40 / 50 year olds next time you’re out at a bar or a restaurant. Social Media is real life, pan-generation

After our A-Z Of Social Media 2016 which focused on the tools, platforms and apps (you can read this here) we’re now focusing on the Altrincham HQ A-Z Of Social Media Emotion & Psychology

90 percent of all purchasing decisions are not made consciously, experts claim – so if you think Social Media is about the tech rather than the human delivery – read on ..

A – Authenticity
Authenticity is key to social media business success, as people need to buy into a person or brand and trust them

The whole Meet Like Know Trust connection can only happen if people know who is behind the account and what they stand for so social media always feels a lot more authentic when it has a real name and face behind it

You can’t trust an account behind a mask or a pseudonym

After people know you are – then actions speak louder than words

People will always remember what you did for them

B – Blurgh
When everybody craves engagement, you can’t post anything that makes people go blurgh

There’s a lot of Nontent on Social Media and updates that simply don’t move people in any way

You have to make people feel something on social media – laugh, cry, smile, think, ponder

It has to trigger a reaction, because if you can make people feel, you can make people buy

C – Confidence
As Muhammed Ali said “It’s not bragging if you can back it up”

Some of the most confident people I know offline, don’t have the confidence to talk about the great things they do on Social Media

The public forum of Social Media goes well beyond characteristics of extrovert vs introvert

There is a fear of posting something online and being attacked and there is the other side of the coin of the fear of looking arrogant or cocky if you talk about what you do

It’s a balancing act between being humble and having the confidence to talk about yourself – but as the Muhammed Ali quote goes “It’s not bragging if you can back it up”

And if you spend 80% of your time talking to others, caring about others – then you’ve bought the right to talk about yourself occasionally

D – Dominance
It’s not the British mentality to be dominant, to aim for number 1 and to be assured in your position

What if I told you – you could dominate by simply helping more and more people than your competitors

Dominance doesn’t need to be aggressive, it doesn’t need to be cut throat – it can simply mean dominating by value or dominating by helping others

If your competitors help 1 person each day – make sure you help 5 – dominate with kindness

E – Energy
We briefly talked about this on our A-Z Of Social Media 2016 blog – your social media should have a Rhythm, an energy, something that excites and stands out

There’s an energy that leaps off the screen when somebody loves what they’re doing on social media, in the same way there’s an energy off the page in a great book

You can also tell when a business is half-heartedly attempting social media and it’s something they’ve not fully bought into

There’s a lack of passion and lack of direction in the updates and everything feels drab

Passion is infectious

F – Failure
Never let the fear of failure put you off

Social Media for many businesses is a new skill set – something they didn’t have to do themselves in the corporate world or something they only dabble with in their personal life

At one stage every single person has failed to some respect on social media – it might be a tiny fail like a spelling or grammar mistake rather than a business destroying fail, but it’s a fail all the same

But social media is fast moving and your last tweet is yesterday’s chip paper as long as you have a modicum of respect for social media and realise it’s an open platform

If you have a fear of failure – set yourself up the best you can with a Social Media Training Session

G – Gratitude
It’s important to recognise what you’re thankful for

There are 3 massively important words in real life, that are massively important on social media as well

The 1st is hello – it’s the one word that opens doors

The 2nd and 3rd are about gratitude – thank you

You have to recognise all those things you’re grateful for – the people that follow you and take time to comment, share, retweet and recommend you

I’m as grateful for every new follower now I have 10k followers, as I was when I gained my 1st

Never become nonchalant as numbers grow and never stop showing gratitude

H – Humour
Especially if you’re Northern. Humour is in the North’s DNA

Apart from LinkedIn where you’ll get a barrage of abuse about “LinkedIn not being facebook” – Social Media is informal, it’s laidback and relaxed

And humour works on social media. It works BIG style

I – Instinct
Follow it – your gut instinct generally proves to be the right decision

If it feels instinctively right to post something – it probably is

If there’s a nagging feeling the post won’t work – it probably won’t

Learn to trust your instinct

J – Jealousy
Don’t ever get jealous of somebody else – simply because of their social media posts

And don’t ever try to pull somebody down, because you can’t pull yourself up

At the heart of trolling and abuse online there is often an all-consuming jealousy underlining it all

I’ve seen it all too often, where businesses post every day about another person down to jealousy

And every time they do so – they promote the person they’re jealous of and stop promoting themselves

Jealously is never productive

K – Kindness
People will forget what you said, but people won’t forget the way you make them feel

Be kind and generous with your time for others on Social Media

Something I’ve been tweeting a lot lately is … The 1st rule of Social Media – “Just be a decent and reasonable human being”

L – Law Of Attraction
Be careful what you post and be careful who you follow – because you attract what you put out there

There are people who believe in the law of the attraction and there are people that dismiss the law of the attraction

But you can’t deny like attracts like

If you become the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with – then by definition if you spend a lot of time on social media, you become the average of the 5 people you engage with most on social media

Engage and interact with people who will lift you up

M – Motivation
How do you keep up the motivation to keep posting on Social Media?

It’s a question I get asked all the time – after all Social Media like face to face networking is often a long term game plan rather than an instant win

When my motivation is low – it happens to us all, we all have those days where we just want to switch off – I look for opportunities to help other people

It’s something that I do every day anyway – but something I go back to when motivation is low

Helping others spurs you on

N – Negativity
It’s not worth it – just say no!!!

Jealously and negativity are bedfellows and I’ve seen far too many people use social media as a ranting platform rather than a place to change things for the better

T.H.I.N.K. is an acronym that challenges you to ask yourself: Is what I am saying, texting or typing

True
Helpful
Important
Necessary
Kind?

O – Oversell
Oversell or Overpromise – don’t do it

Marketing in the modern age is being authentic.

The days of the Del Boy 2nd hand car salesmen are over in the Social age – you can find out the truth at the click of the button

If you’re good – just tell the truth – because the truth will set you up well

P – Positivity
I used to say I was a realist – but then I realised it was a cop out to slip into negativity occasionally

We’ve all done it at one occasion – posted something negative and then defended it by stating i’m just a realist

The more positivity you put out on Social Media the more comes back

I always find that training bookings come along in 3’s – usually because i’m so hyped up with positivity at the 1st booking that it’s infectious

There are always positive things to post about – try doing it every day

Q – Questions
Ask a question – don’t always give the answer

If you ask the right question your audience will come to the same conclusion you want them to

And then they will buy

R – Romance
Look at the data, don’t be overly romantic with the idea of marketing

I’ve said this countless times before, but businesses are overly romantic about the idea of doing something rather than looking at the results

It’s prevalent on Social Media as much as it is on paying for a local newspaper advert

“I’ve spend 30 hours this month on social media” / “I’ve got 100 new followers” – ok so how is that linked with your business goals and what has that achieved?

S – Substance
You must be able to back up 140 characters with some substance

I remember a number of years ago stating why it was important to go indepth on blogs rather than mess around in the shallows of 200 word blogs

Substance is important – it’s important to go beyond a headline, it’s important to share your knowledge, it’s important to offer something of value

The same goes for sharing as well – a recent study found that 59% of links shared on social media are shared without ever being read

Go deep

T – Trust
If you can’t build trust, you can’t make the sale.

If you remember back to A and what we talked about in terms of authenticity – then this is the next level

Develop a social media testimonial strategy that is all about Social Proof

People won’t buy from you because of what you tell them – they will buy from you because you can show what you do and others tell them

U – User Focused
If you put your users at the heart of every marketing decision you mark, you can’t go wrong

Most people focus on the I in community, but forget about the U

Marketing decisions should be based on external thinking rather than being inward looking

How can we provide as much value to our users as possible?

V – Values
What are your core values and why do you do what you do?

Have you ever defined that and written it down?

Our ethos has been the same since day one – help to promote and develop local businesses and talk about what is going on in Altrincham right now – we’ve never manoeuvred from that original idea when we started 7 years ago

Those values can come with us however social media and the marketing landscape changes

Look at brands like Apple or Facebook – they all have brand values they live by

W – Want
The distance between what you want and what you get is often what you do

Lots of people want more – more customers, more money, more success

Most people don’t do – more work, more marketing, more action

On social media we often want more engagement and more interaction – but aren’t prepared to do it ourselves

Don’t want – Do!

X – Xerox
Be a 1st rate version of yourself rather than a bad copy of someone else

Soak up all the influences you can – Take All The Advice You Can

But put your own spin on it – it’s why people will buy from you

Nobody wants a poundshop copy of a somebody else

Y – ok Why then!
What is your why?

Why do you do what you?

Never lose sight of that and never let external influences take you away from your mission

It’s easy to be distracted online and lose sight of the big why

Z – Zzzz
Social Media is exhausting with FOMO – set time aside for social media and set time to switch off

It’s ok to not to be permanently connected and just to dip in

Live life as well as live life on social media

CHAT TO US
Chat to about Social Media for YOUR business so we can better understand YOU and what will grow your business

We can only find out what is unique to your business by chatting to you

Please call Alex on 07806774279 or email alex@altrinchamhq.co.uk

Alex

Alex McCann is owner of Altrincham HQ – a social media management and training company based in Altrincham, Cheshire that has worked with 100s of local business developing their social media strategy. Alex has 350+ LinkedIn testimonials and is ranked number 1 for Social Media Marketing in the UK via independent customer reviews on Freeindex.