3 Ways to Know You're Oversharing on Social Media

I have always respected business owners who put some aspect of their personal lives on their professional social media accounts. Being able to post that photo of brunch with your best friends on Sunday or how proud you are of your son's big hit in baseball, represents a level of vulnerability. You are giving your past, present and potential clients a snapshot of your personal life. However, have you ever wondered if a certain post crosses the line for your audience? Or whether you are posting un-professional content too often? 

If you take anything away from this week's blog, let it be that separation lies in a need to create a connection with your business audience but limit your personal posts on your professional social media accounts. (P.S. If you don't have separate accounts for your personal and business lives, we'll get to that soon!) Today on the blog, I am sharing three was to know when you're oversharing on your professional social media accounts, and the best tactics to avoid or overcome posting that is too personal. 

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1 | Lost Followers

This is one of the biggest ways to determine if you are oversharing on your professional social media accounts. Are your overly personal posts and captions creating a yellow-brick road straight to the unfollow button? While I am sure someone wants to see pictures of your adorable puppy, tasty homemade dinner and even maybe a sweaty post-gym selfie, this is not the best representation of your business - especially if you are seeking new clients. Using social media analytic tools (i.ie. Facebook Insights, Simply Measured) will help you gauge how certain posts can boost or drop your following. 

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NOTE: Sharing one or two personal posts every now and then should not affect your social media accounts. However, when you review your professional feed and see more posts that are personal than business related, it may be time to re-think your campaign. 

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2 | Engagement Suffers

A second way to tell you're oversharing on social media is a drop in engagement. Social media engagement includes likes, favorites, comments, etc. that a user makes on a post or page. If you average 50 likes on a post when it relates to your business and/or products and receive 15 likes any time you share a picture of your latest craft project, it's high time to make a change in the sake of not losing the complete interest of your followers. 

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Tip: Benchmarking your social media by posting during your audience's most active times online and mixing up media between images, videos, and text. Well-timed, consistent posts will also help keep your followers engaged. 

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3 | Diminishing Leads and Referrals 

When the number of leads and referrals you receive from social media declines, you are oversharing on your professional social media. If you are taking the time out of our busy schedule to only post once a day, and that post relates to your personal life nine times out of ten, it will be perceived that your personal life trumps your professional life. While this may be true in reality, you never want to put that in lights for your current and potential clients. The other businesses that typical refer you will make note of this and may not show you as much love as they have in the past. 

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TIP: The best way to combat oversharing is to create separate professional and personal social media accounts. While your business accounts should have a personal touch, over sharing on those accounts can come back to haunt you later. 

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If you are ready to take your business to the next level through social media marketing, use the content form to chat today! 

Finding Your Creative Community

With collaborations on the rise, finding your own creative community is more important than ever to build connections and referrals. What's a creative community? It is a network of like-mind business professionals that you would enjoy working with, becoming inspired by, and would learn from. This new-age style of working with other leading industry professionals is THE modern way to network, and to say that we are big fans doesn't cover how much we love this movement! 

Now that you know what a creative community is, let's chat about how you can find fellow creatives that you (and your business!) would benefit from and how to benefit from those meetings! 

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1 | Reach Out

Find someone in the same or similar work profession as you. This fellow creative would be someone you admire, view as a mentor and would enjoy collaborating with! Before you two are able to meet over coffee or cocktail, make it your prerogative to determine how you can help that person. You can do this by means referring them to a potential lead or even sending them a new podcast - whatever comes up during the meeting, see how you can help them. The next time you plan to meet with them, each of you bring another person that would fit in the group. Before you know it your tribe will grow! 

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TIP: If your schedule does not allow of you to meet in-person as often as you'd like, find an online community! We love The Rising Tide Society and Meetup.com to help you get started. 

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2 | Bring Something to the Table

What is your creative genius? What makes your business stand out? How can you help other business owners benefit? These are all great questions to ask yourself prior to meeting with your creative community! Having something to bring to the table enhances the experience for everyone in attendance and will help you become a strong opinion leader for the group. 

3 | Show Up! 

While this goes without saying, showing up to meetings is the only way to be engaged with your creative community! Always remember that you are doing this to benefit yourself and your business, so it is ever-important to pencil in your weekly (or monthly!) meetings with your group and show up! 

4 | Work Together

Once that you've cultivated a creative community, do something together outside of your standard meeting! From creating a styled shoot to taking a workshop, there are endless activities that you and your creative community can do to expand your collaborating to the field. 

Want to chat more about how you can find a creative community in your area? Contact Alyson today to learn more! 

Avoiding Oversimplification of Content

This week's blog title may be a mouth full, but trust me when I say that this topic is an important one! There is a common assumption among business owners that customers cannot understand the complexity of a product or service, therefore they "dumb down" the context of their content. While their will always be a learning curve for customers to understand your company's unique jargon, oversimplifying the content on your website, social media posts, blog, and anything else you publish to the masses is a poor reflection on your business and you.  

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Before we go any further, I do want to make note that there is a big difference in oversimplifying content to your customers and being detailed in your communication. Yes, this mean that there is a disconnect between the everyday person and the misunderstood customer, but this is not necessarily a bad thing. Instead of divulging statistics and pushing articles that could be deemed as condescending, smarten your content! This will lead to an appreciation from the qualified, current and prospective customers you want to reach!   

The millennial generation has grown up with more choices (oppose to ultimatums) than previous generations. This generation is educating themselves on products and services they desire or need before spending their hard-earned paycheck. Your goal should be to target your explanations to the right audience and begin treating your customers as business partners! 

Now that you've gotten a hang on this concept of avoiding oversimplified content, you have no accustomed yourself to one of the best, modern marketing tactics: content marketing. 

“Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly-defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.”

— Content Marketing Institue

For more information on content marketing practices or to have a review of your current marketing campaign, please use the contact form below chat with us today!