Speaker 1: 0:16

We're going to talk about the five undeniable secrets to sky high social media engagement. These are some things that I definitely want to talk about, because I see a lot of people. They go online, they're posting stuff regularly. They're not real sure why nobody's liking their stuff. They're not real sure why they're not getting any comments, getting any engagement. Let's be honest, social media engagement is really down across the board. It's really down across the board, but there are some things that you can do to really make it better and to really just get better engagement, and that's more exposure for you and for your business. So we'll definitely be sharing a lot about that today, all right, so let's go ahead and dive right into it.

Speaker 1: 1:06

Let's talk about our first one, and the first one is you need to know your audience. Your audience is looking for very specific things to help them in their business or whatever it is that they're doing. If your audience is into weight loss or fitness, you want to be very, very clear on what it is that they want. If your audience is into tech stuff, you want to know what they want. What are they looking for? Are they looking for reviews? Are they looking for things that pertain specifically to tech, and if you know that, then you can create content for that specific niche. So knowing your audience is very important to having success on social media. Now, one of the other things that I absolutely love about social media is that, even though you want to know your audience and share content that is good for them and that helps them, social media is also a place where you share a little bit about your personal life. If you go over to my Facebook profile, you'll notice that I don't talk business very often very little. Here and there I certainly do, but I'm always sharing things about my personal life, things with my wife, my daughter, things we have going on in our life. Sometimes I rant on Facebook, something that annoys me. Just yesterday, I posted something about AI and why AI. The people who are going to succeed with AI are the ones that have a high level of integrity, because that is required today. There's a little bit of a rant for me, so if you want to see that post, head over to my Facebook profile and check it out.

Speaker 1: 2:55

But the key is you really want to share a little bit of your life as well. There's a reason for that you want people to get to know the real you. Social media is one of those places where everybody puts on the best face. They always put on their best when they're all dressed up, real nice, and they're out on the town and they're happy and this, and that Every once in a while, maybe share a struggle that you're going through, maybe be a little vulnerable at times. I'm not talking air your dirty laundry, but I am talking about being a little bit vulnerable.

Speaker 1: 3:33

I think back to a couple of years ago when my dad passed away and I shared on Facebook some of the things that I was going through. And now I didn't do that just for engagement. I did it because I have a lot of friends on Facebook. I have a lot of family on Facebook. So I share that stuff, not because I'm looking to get engagement, because I'm looking to share my life.

Speaker 1: 3:56

I also want people to know that, hey, maybe I've had some success in my business, but I'm also a human being just like you. I'm somebody who's just like you that has struggles in life, and so sometimes you really want to do that in terms of knowing your audience. Your audience, yes, they want good content, but they also want real. They want people who are real to the bone. They want people that they can identify with. So if you never share your struggles, then that is definitely going to be something that people won't be able to connect with you. When people have an emotional connection, man, they feel it so differently they really do they feel you so much differently and it really has an impact in the long term on your business, because people do business with those they know, like and trust, and if they can trust you, they will buy from you. So know your audience.

Speaker 1: 4:54

Number two and we already kind of talked about this, but number two is to deliver relevant content. So, if you have a specific niche, obviously the goal is to connect with other people that are interested in the niche that you're a part of. So, again, if you're a health and wellness person and you're into health and wellness, it's probably a safe bet that you should go and connect with other people who are involved in health and wellness. Okay, if you are involved in, you know whatever other topic there may be. If you're into like for somebody like myself, I love BMX okay, I love to connect with other people in the BMX community, so to speak. I'm in several groups. I have several friends. I don't necessarily have anything to sell in BMX, but I still like to connect with those people. So the goal is, when you're connecting and you're building a social media presence, in order to deliver relevant content, you have to have an audience who is relevant to what it is that you're sharing.

Speaker 1: 6:05

So I'll give you a little bit of an example of how this doesn't. This doesn't work, okay. So I had a client many years ago that I was working with and we were setting up some, some ads for him and he was running a Facebook likes that now this is a while ago, we don't really do that a lot anymore, but this is a while ago and he was from Australia and one of the things that he was doing is he was running an ad and he writes me one day and he says mark, I'm getting a lot, I'm getting likes on my Facebook page For one penny each. And I'm like dude, that's awesome, like that's killer. I'm like but I have a question for you like what country are you targeting? Like who are you targeting? And he wrote me back and he said people in the Philippines. And I was like okay, that's cool, but my next question is can you even sell your product in the Philippines, like, is it available? And he writes me back and he goes no. And I said then why are you targeting the Philippines? Nothing wrong with targeting the Philippines, but if you can't sell your product there, then what are you doing? He's like yeah, I see your point. So the point is he was connecting with people, but he wasn't connecting with the right people.

Speaker 1: 7:25

So if you're going to build your audience on your profile or your page, or how are we going to do it, you want to make sure that you're connecting with the right people. Okay, so that's very, very important. So, yeah, cheryl, definitely you know homeopathic. So if you, if you want to share relevant content with that audience of people who are interested in, say, homeopathic stuff, then you want to find where they are on social media. You want to create relevant content to that so that you attract that audience to you, so that that audience who's interested in that type of content will connect and will start to watch your stuff and connect with you. So very, very important, alright. So number three Okay, and this is how to get engagement on social media. It's all about and you've heard this word a gazillion times, okay, a gazillion times and it's consistency. Alright, it's consistency, so let's just quickly review. Okay, you need to know your audience, you need to deliver relevant content to that audience, and number three is maintaining consistency. Now, we have heard this over and over in the past.

Speaker 1: 8:37

If you've been around online, if you followed me any length of time, if you followed Just people who are successful in general, one of the things that they do is they are Totally hardcore, consistent in the actions that they take. So if they are hardcore, consistent in the actions that they take, why do you think you could do something different without being consistent? If you want to be successful in anything, it takes consistency over the long term and, for whatever reason, sometimes people just aren't. I can't begin to tell you how many times I've talked with people. Even this past weekend, I was at an amazing event called the Faith Over Fear Business Summit with Ray Higgin and Orlando. I just got back Sunday night and even talking to a few people there, I'd hear this I just need to get consistent. I just need to get consistent, and I've heard that is a common theme with a lot of people, even when I'm talking to people that potentially want to talk about coaching or I'm doing a coaching call and the idea is, well, I just got to get more consistent with what I'm doing, and so I understand that.

Speaker 1: 9:48

And sometimes we you know we get that but you have to ask yourself the question is, why am I not being consistent? And if you ask yourself that question, you have to really dig deep and find the answer. And I will tell you that, first and foremost, you got to have a passion for what you're doing. You got to love what you do. Okay, that is absolutely crucial to your success. You have to love what you do. When you love what you do, you will be consistent with it. So you got to ask yourself do you really love what you do? And that's a big one, okay. So the other thing is and this is a great comment somebody is leaving is that life gets in the way. Okay, life gets in the way.

Speaker 1: 10:32

However, the cool thing is is that creating content these days does not take a lot, because it's so easy these days to create content. Do you know how long it took me to figure out what I was going to talk about today? It took me about five minutes. It really did not take that that long. And the cool thing is I actually have a notepad that I use on my phone, and every time I have a video idea, I will go ahead and I will put it on my phone, and this is one of the things that I've done over time is, you can see, I have this app right here and this is a scrolling list of ideas that I have for videos. So what you can do is, as you start having an idea for a video, get into the habit of writing it down on a note on your phone. You're always pretty much you'll always have your phone on on with you, so the goal is you want to Jot down those ideas.

Speaker 1: 11:38

I have fleeting thoughts all the time, like we all do. You know. You're out at the grocery store and you're like something hits you, something triggers you in your mind and you're like, oh, that'd be a great video idea, or, man, that'd be a great piece of content, or whatever. Grab your phone, open it up, jot it down and get it off your mind, because I will tell you right now, one of the things that will hurt you is we all have those thoughts, but I will tell you, those thoughts come and they're gone just as fast as they came. We all know it, because we've all had million dollar ideas. We've all had those million dollar ideas before. And what happens when we have those million dollar ideas if they don't get jotted down, guess what? They're gone. You'll never have that thought again.

Speaker 1: 12:25

Maybe you might have it again, but the point is is you're more than likely gonna lose that idea and that's gonna hurt you, because it could have been an Amazing video that you created that went viral and you know gets, you know, a ton of traction. It could send a whole ton of lead your way. But because you didn't write it down, you didn't save that idea. Guess what now you're? You know you're, you're not doing anything. So the next time you feel like, hey, life's in the way, I don't know what to talk about, you pull open your little notepad and you go huh, let me see, let's grab one of these ideas and let's do a video about it. Okay, and it doesn't take long, you can go live, you can put your phone on. I mean, it doesn't. It's not hard today to do it.

Speaker 1: 13:09

I think sometimes we get in this idea that we have to sit down. We got to think it through. We come up with everything in our minds to the reasons of why we can't do something. And oh, you know this here and this here. You know how long it takes to make a 10-minute video about 13 minutes, because you'll need like one to three minutes to figure out what you're gonna talk about and then just kick on the camera and start talking.

Speaker 1: 13:37

And I think sometimes we make it way more difficult than it needs to be. So you have to ask yourself why are you lacking consistency? Be honest, life can get in the way. However, it doesn't take much to be consistent with creating content. Now I will tell you, I have not always been faithful at it myself. As much as I love doing videos, I have not always been faithful to it. Okay, but I've done it enough Over and over and over again that it has allowed me to still have a thriving audience. So consistency is number three. So hard, excuse me, it's not that hard, it's so easy to do and it's something that you can get in the habit of doing. So first one, know your audience. Second is to make sure you're sharing relevant content. Number three is to maintain that consistency. Have that consistency. And number four this is very important if you want more engagement on social media.

Speaker 1: 14:38

Social media is not a one-way communication tool, and I see this so often. You want to treat social media exactly for what it is and it is a two-way communication tool. Now, this means that if you are putting out content or posts and people are commenting on your posts, you want to go and like their comment. You want to comment back when possible. That is very, very important. Now, it may be hard sometimes if you get a lot of comments, but the truth is that that little bit of extra time that you take to like and comment back means a lot to those people. I know that when I comment, I always love a comment back. I always love a like to see that what I said was acknowledged. Who doesn't right? So you have to remember that social media is a two-way thing, and what happens is, over time, as you engage with people's content, especially those on your feed or your social media profile or whatever it may be the more you engage with people, the more they will see your content as well.

Speaker 1: 15:58

That's how the algorithm works. So let's say you have a thousand friends Out of those thousand friends, if there are, say, 25 or 30 that you engage with on a regular basis. Guess what's going to happen. Facebook, or this is how Facebook works specifically. It's going to show you the content of those people and I'll tell you. I know that's how it works because let me give you an example.

Speaker 1: 16:22

There are times where I've been on social media and I'm like dang, I haven't heard from so-and-so in a long time. So I'll go and I'll search up their profile and I'll go over there and I'll see what they've been up to. Then, all of a sudden, guess what? I start seeing their posts in my newsfeed. That's triggering the algorithm, you see. So if there's people like you know you want to see or you haven't seen in a while, test this. Think of somebody on your friends list that you know you haven't seen in a while go search up their profile, go to it, check out their content, like it, comment, and then watch over the next couple days You're going to start seeing their posts as they post. It's because that's the way the algorithm works.

Speaker 1: 17:07

So the two-way communication is vital to making engagement work on social media, very, very important. And it works, you know, incredibly well. So you have to keep that in mind. Now the ironic part about this. Now I'm going to veer off. I'm going to veer off a little bit from social media. This is exactly how it works with email marketing too.

Speaker 1: 17:27

Okay, email marketing is all about engagement. Now, it didn't always used to be that way, but the way the email service providers now are going is it's down the road of engagement. They want opens and clicks more than anything. They want clicks more than anything, even more than opens. So what happens is people treat their email list like a one-way communication tool and they're like, oh, email marketing doesn't work anymore. It's because you literally treat it like a one-way communication tool. You think that just because I got a list, I should just send out a blast email promoting whatever and I didn't get any sales. And you wonder why? It's because same thing they are looking for back and forth. So if you start treating your email list like that and you get into that habit, you're going to treat social media the same way. So it's all about engagement, my friends.

Speaker 1: 18:23

Going back to email, the way email works is there's so much spam on the internet. Like literally 50 to 60% of all emails sent every single day are unsolicited email by spammers. Now, spammers, just to be clear, are people that are sending you emails, marketing emails, spam emails, whatever and you didn't ask to receive them. It's different when you sign up to somebody's email list and you start receiving emails. That is not spam. Spam is when it's unsolicited. You didn't sign up for it and boy, all out of the billions of emails sent every day, 50 to 60% of them are spam. So what are those email service providers doing? They are. What they're looking at is they are looking at the engagement that goes on between it. Same thing with social media. So two-way communications. So know your audience, deliver relevant content, be consistent, foster two-way communications.

Speaker 1: 19:30

Now the number five one. The fifth one is to analyze and optimize, and this is very important. So, over time, as you post content, what's going to happen is you're going to create content and what's going to happen is you will notice let's say, you put up 50 pieces of content. When you go back and you look over all of those pieces of content, you're going to realize that there is a segment of those pieces of content that you created. You're going to notice a little bit of a pattern. You're going to see, hey, this piece of content did really well, it got a lot of engagement, while this one over here did not. But this one here did get good engagement and this one didn't. So what you're going to notice is you're going to see the ones that got great engagement and you'll see the ones that didn't. So what you do is you find those ones that got great engagement and you stick to that topic. You post more content, just like that.

Speaker 1: 20:37

Okay, I'm not saying you have to repeat yourself over and over, but the same concept. So I'll give you an example, as of late, over the last six months, six to eight months you've been seeing all kinds of things about AI and chat, gpt and all kinds of things about AI. I will tell you right now the posts, the content that I create that is centered around AI right now is getting massive engagement. Why? Because it's also a trending topic. It's one of those things that people are talking about right now. So my goal is to double down on that. So you're seeing a lot of content about that because people are capitalizing on the trend.

Speaker 1: 21:22

And this is where I kind of disagree with this notion that hey, if everybody else is talking about it, you should go the other way. Now, in some ways I agree with that, but in other ways I don't, because if everybody's talking about something, then that means that's a hot topic. What you should do is don't avoid that topic, because that'd be stupid. What you should do is take that topic and ask yourself how can I put my own twist on this? Because you can capitalize on those trending topics, you see. So it's very important. Don't get yourself stuck in this habit of saying, well, everybody else is talking about it, so I'm not going to talk about it. No dumb move especially right now with AI Just because everybody else is talking about it. So what? That means it's a hot topic and you can tap into that, build your audience, generate leads, make sales, things like that. So very, very important to recognize that Analyzing and optimizing is very important.

Speaker 1: 22:27

Sure, you can go into your analytics on Facebook and Instagram. It gives you all kinds of analytics that you can look at to seeing how your content does and audience insights. If you're going into your Facebook page and things like that, there's ways that you can do that. But if you just want a very, very simple one, go look at the content you've created over the last 30 to 60 days. Which one's got the most engagement? Was it personal ones? I'll tell you a lot of personal ones. Get that I've put out. Get a lot of engagement. That tells me it's important to post personal things and people like that.

Speaker 1: 23:08

People like to connect, they like to know what's going on in your life and it's like life is a reality show. Don't always share your perfect thing with your little filter and give it your Instagram, you know whatever. Don't always give that like. Give some of the stuff too, like a little bit of the struggles. Hey, I'm having a rough day today, you know so, and so my family members in the hospital. I can use some prayer. Don't be afraid to ask that. Okay, those are the things that mean a lot to people.

Speaker 1: 23:45

People want to know what your struggles are, not just what your successes are, because they can identify with that. See, because here's the thing. This is why I believe that the leaders who are a little bit vulnerable are the ones that will go on and have the greatest success are because when all you do is share your successes and not your failures, guess what happens? It's very easy for that person to go. Man, he or she, they're always having success. What's wrong with me? Like you know, I suck. Like that never is good for me, just because all they're seeing is the success you're having. They don't see the struggles. They don't see any of the personal things that you struggle with as a human sometime. Again, I'm not saying air your dirty laundry, okay, but I am saying be a little vulnerable and put that out there. Those types of posts will do really really well. All right, maybe you've noticed that as well. All right, so let's recap them and we'll close it up.

Speaker 1: 24:45

So the first and foremost is to know your audience. You want to know who your audience is. Make sure that you're building that on social media. If you're on your profile, make sure that you're connecting with people. If you're using it for business, make sure you're doing that on Facebook, instagram. What other other places you're at that you're focused on as well? But make sure that you're connecting with those people. That's how you build the audience there. Number two deliver relevant content, and relevant content is put content out there that they want to see. All right, that they want to see. So have a good mix. Have a good mix of business type things, but also have a mix of personal stuff. You want people to feel you and connect with you.

Speaker 1: 25:33

Number three is that big old C word called consistency. If you're not consistent, try to figure out why that is and ask yourself if you're just making excuses. We all have life. Life absolutely will distract you in every way possible, but we all have it. We all have 24 hours in a day. I promise you that if you get in that habit of creating a note with all your ideas, you can at any point stop and create a video all about whatever it is that you need to talk about. There's always topics that you can do, so when those thoughts hit your head, jot them down right away before you lose that thought, because you may never have it again and that one video that you create could have been the one that built your audience big time. So don't wait on that. Foster.

Speaker 1: 26:26

Two-way communications those are huge, huge, huge, huge. Have two-way communication on social media. If somebody takes the time to comment on your post, make sure you comment back Like their post. Give them a compliment. The power of a compliment is incredibly big If you really. You've heard guys have heard that that people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. I mean, we've heard that a gazillion times, but do we really live it Like it's not just a saying Like, it's a real thing, like when you show genuine care and concern for another person, when you're about building people up. I'm telling you, people remember that, that little shock of emotion that they have in their heart, that little tinge of emotion that you make them feel. They remember that. They remember that more than the killer tip that you gave on social media or the killer tip that you sent out in an email. When they get a personalized comment from you, believe me, that hits right here and they'll always remember that.

Speaker 1: 27:31

And so number five is to analyze and optimize. Look at, over a period of time, what content has gotten the best results and go through and recreate that content, take those topics and really drive those home. Okay, because that is obviously resonating with your audience. So you want to do that? All right, I hope you got something out of this episode today, this video here, and, if you did, make sure you comment and make sure that you let me know, go to hashtag replay, make sure you let me know, and I'd love to hear more about it. We plan on doing this every single week.

Speaker 1: 28:11

And again, get ready, I'll be letting you guys know if you're on my email list. You want to make sure you check it out, markharbertcom, go there, get subscribed, and we are going to be starting very soon doing Faith it Friday, all right, and that's where we're going to be talking about faith and how. If you're a person of faith, if you want to hear more about the things in my life that are going on and sharing with you the things that I'm learning when it comes to faith, you definitely want to tap into that. I'm very excited about that. It's something I'm just feeling very called to do and it's going to be great. I'm excited about it and we'll be having more about that. Okay, love you guys. Have a great one and share this, or tag somebody if you think they'll get benefit. Love you guys.