18 lessons I've learned marketing on social media
You get the best time to post, content strategies, six hats, new benchmarks & the best: hot takes as lessons.
The main lesson is that you can't remember or use every lesson. You can't make your social media perfect. There is always something new or changed. At different times, one tactic goes against the other. Here are the lessons I’ve had:
I can’t use psychology to make you join the paid newsletter. The research shares people value things/content more, when they lose it. Plus, providing more is less effective than taking existing content from people.
The newsletter isn’t going anywhere. You get more content in paid version. Plus, Access to archived content/data & Discord channel. I mean, You can join for that!
1. Different Hats to put on when building a social media strategy
🟡 Yellow hat is about filling the void, instead of socialisation. In 2024, media comes first, socialisation second. Socialising is also meant to happen through content. With Brands building parasocial relationships through media.
🟢 Green hat represents creativity & free market. Letting your team run free and generate ideas without censoring them. Trying to build content libraries and feeds for everyone to dive into the mode.
🔴 Red hat is about emotions and balance. What your audience might feel about your content? Use audience surveys and gut feelings. Businesses often provide more of the same feeling. Imagine if Duolingo asked people to do the work with more advice in the content. It will fail.
⚪️ White hat makes you focus on the data & ROI. Analyze the available data and trends. Regarding posting times and content keyword selection, data from search & benchmark reports help.
⚫️ Black hat represents looking at the downside. What are the worst-case scenarios? You impact the mental health and make people spend more time on social. Or, you can increase your competition. By expanding viewers to a new market of content.
🔵 Blue hat is for controlling the process. Most brands slowly give into internet culture’s guidelines. The Guidelines that are changed everyday. Making your brand constantly change and leaving it at the dead end.
2. You should be calculating the value you produce
Don’t get lost trying to help your audience. Never overdo the awareness part. There is always a stage where your audience starts to devalue your content. Because you are providing too much. There should be a complete balance between asking and giving.
I consider not focusing on this aspect as a huge mistake. Building factors like Curiosity, Anonymity and Scarcity in your content is an act of self-promotion. And it’s good for business.
In partnership with Dash Hudson
What Social Media Benchmarks you need to maximize ROI? Dash Hudson’s Benchmarks Report has the answer.
How do successful brands turn social media followers into loyal customers? Read Dash Hudson's 2024 Cross-Channel Benchmark Report to find out.
Gain valuable insight from leading brands and across key channels to propel your strategy forward with Dash Hudson’s TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube Benchmark Reports.
Access Dash Hudson’s exclusive social media benchmarks for 11 industries (Beauty, Fashion and Luxury, Retail, Home, Media and Publishing, CPG, Food and Beverage, Children and Baby, Wellness, Travel, B2B, Sports)
Understand emerging trends in social entertainment, broken down by channel and industry.
Learn from strategies employed by the best-performing brands in each category.
The length of Profile Bio is defined by your content
Some say, keep your bio short and others say the opposite. The answer lies in your content. A small business has more content focused on their products, they don’t need to bother with a long bio. Have a discount code or prompt in the bio, to keep the attention.
A creator or brand doing funny videos or viral trends needs that long + clear bio.
I used to advice people that your highlights can be a tool to explain your business. It is still effective but please don’t add 100 slides to one highlights sections.
4. Networking matters because it delivers consistent engagement.
99.9% of your followers can never deliver consistent engagement on your content. That is what you need when you are new to the platform. It’s best to partner with other creators and businesses as they are chronically online like you.
I remember it used to be using engagement pods to get that consistent amount of likes. In 2024, It is different but you still need to build that engagement network from the start.
5. Solving the ‘no links’ on IG & TikTok problem.
If you want people to visit your link, don’t care about the fact links in the caption of IG or TikTok don’t work. Focus on giving people a reason and options.
Including your searchable post title + (link in bio) is one way to do it. The other is, to include a clean url, which is typing-friendly. I don’t highly recommend pasting Bit.ly links. They are hard to copy on mobile apps.
The alternative for many businesses is to either use ManyChat and distribute the links through private chats. That works like a charm. Or Invest in a website feed like Washington Post to have a clear solution for the visitors.
From a content strategy POV, to make people visit your website or search it. There is more reliance on type of content you provide. Ask yourself, Is it something people want to see consistently? If no one copies your links, It is more of a content problem than links not working.
6. Audience nurturing features build more engaged audience.
For IG, It’s Stories. People don’t expect that much value out of stories content. If you do provide value, your audience will engage more.
For TikTok, It’s Live. Picking a brand topic and scheduling a live every week for 30 minutes + uploading a post before going live works well.
For YouTube, It’s Community Posts. You want to move your audience to Discord and Patreon. Running Q&As and Community Sessions through these posts helps bring the audience to that level.
7. Focus on creativity that your audience gets, not the marketer.
Social Media Content is rarely creative for the sake of Art & Culture. We intend to focus on being creative for our audience, they should go ‘woah’. Not the marketer, who critiques everything from the critical lens.
Their opinion is important to improve future work, but the audience comes first.
Don’t overdo the messaging of your organic or paid creative. Keep it simple for your audience, like JACQUEMUS.
Another example would be the funny transition trend going on TikTok & Reels. Businesses using creative expressions in different scenarios to make people click.
8. Format your social proof for better results
If you can, Do request your customers to deliver the testimonials in the format native to the social media app. I have gotten more responses from other customers when our brand shared testimonials in the ideal format.
By Ideal format, I mean not video or text. The data shows most trustable reviews are short and do not overdo the emotion part. Plus, more people are now searching for company reviews on social media platforms. Only 16% consumers are now turning to a brand’s website to read reviews. Even if the testimonial is honest, being too sweet can backfire especially on social.
There is general consensus in the social media community, how your feed looks doesn’t matter. While I agree with the sentiment, treating your profile like a landing page isn’t wrong. When you aren’t targeting a wide audience like DTC brands. Treating your profile as landing page is worth a try, optimise for easy visibility of testimonials.
Don’t imagine users have that habit, build it for them.
It’s not always your mistake if the users aren’t commenting or sharing the content. The reason might be their social media usage patterns. What if they aren’t the content sharing friend in the group? Or comments isn’t their idea of showing love for your IG reels.
For them, you should have prompts to make them execute those steps. Building that usage habit. It’s not easy but if you ask people they will share & comment.
But please, don’t use prompts like, Let us know how you feel by commenting or Share this with your friend. You can do better by asking them to comment about other topics. For Sharing, think of an emotional reward (In Post) or fun statement to make people consider the share.
The Tool goes beyond sharing and commenting. Don’t assume habits of users, instead help user build them to scale your content.
Example: The idea of building a habit is important as look at how many people listen to a podcast but they rarely leave a review. By sharing reviews from others in the podcast, they could encourage others to leave a review. Adding a reward element can boost the chances even more.
10. Memes can be a tool for sales if you do this.
If you provide constructive feedback through memes. When B2B companies or Pages like R/GA & SuperSide can highlight mistakes of industry people through memes. The same can be executed by marketers in DTC or B2C.
The Best Memes hit home. I personally like to think of social media memes as New Yorker Cartoons. That’s my standard for doing brand-focused memes. NYer Cartoons are funny + message oriented.
To apply that principle to your memes, You can watch videos about how New Yorker Cartoonist create those drawings. Or scroll through Political Memes, then throw politics out of the meme and add brand.
Hot Take: Sometimes it’s okay to use viral memes as research points. When they are about things like fashion trends and media consumption . They confirm an audience's behavior.
11. The Netflix Formula: The Content isn't for everyone. But, they can relate to it.
Influencers with broad identities take the win.
Social Content’s organic reach thrives on relatability, engagement on content quality.
Adam was the highest paid actor in 2023. He’s a great actor but the success and business he’s getting comes from Netflix’s strategic decision.
Netflix’s mantra for choosing Adam Sandler, Kevin Hart and Ryan Reynolds has been simple, they fit the roles in movies relatable to everyone. The platform uses data to select the ideas that already work for their audience. Put actors with most relatable personas to get the reach and engagement from the broader audiences.
The Same approach can be taken for social content. Using influencers with broad personas for product campaigns. With Ideas that are simple yet creative.
Every marketer working in video or social can learn a lot from Netflix’s CEO Ted Sarandos. His approach might upset your creativity. But, he is one of the best media strategists in terms of content performance.
You need more people talking to each other, not at each other.
The Influencer culture is all about everyone voicing their opinion. And the What about X comments or TikTok Stitch culture. All three are people talking at others.
This Structure benefits brands/creators in the short-term. If enough people are talking at each other, you will get your supply of Influencer and UGC Content.
When people talk to each other through communities or content series like #PopChat started by Brianne Fleming. That’s beneficial for brands and creators in the long term, as you will have consistent feedback, social proof and overall presence.
Social media users grow up fast, their behaviour moves from being in 20s to 30s very quickly. You should have some people talking at them when they are new to you, meaning in their Social Age of 20s.
But never shift focus from building a community for their 30s.
Using words of
, You don’t want your followers to feel like this when consuming content:I don’t hate social media, but it’s come to feel like a language I was once fluent in that I no longer speak. - Rachel
13. Don’t overdo Internet References, You might be insulting your audience.
Using Internet Culture isn’t wrong. But you could be making people feel like they are in a postmodern art museum. Your Content looks funny and attentive, Art in the museum looks curious and shiny. But the viewer needs to look at the description to understand it. In Museums, It’s easier to find needed context. On Internet, it isn’t.
Not many people will go out of their way to get your joke made using the new trend. You can solve this problem by sharing the internet reference in your IG Stories, making stories a testing ground.
I don’t want you to wait for other brands to use the trend or reference. The task is to watch the comments and reactions. You to check if the internet reference fits your content strategy. Another option is to join social media communities. You can join our Discord and the one in our bio. There you can get feedback from industry peers.
14. Don’t use an Aesthetic, claim it for Profit & Gen-Z.
Studying aesthetics and social media trends has taught me something. Profit comes from claiming them in words. Not using them like 100s of others.
Due to Gen-Z’s Identity crisis, The Biggest Trend hasn’t been the rise of Aesthetics. Gen-Z aesthetics on social existed for years in one way or another. The Trend taking over the internet has been naming aesthetics. Or, claiming them as your own.
If Brands or Creators connect the right personas and influencers with a product or style. People will do the the naming job for you. You will only need to claim it. Yes, we are X, Y or Z.
Shakespeare’s Globe video has people commenting ‘that is so Good Omens coded’.
Marc Jacobs is very transparently claiming Gen-Z slang and culture. Many others have done the same. But their claim has people shouting in comments. Earning them extra engagement.
But Why? Zoomers and Online Creatures seek constant validation. That leads them to using new aesthetics and trends as new personal traits. While social media is to blame for this occurrence. Gen-Z now feels more like themselves online (45%) compared to offline (40%).
Not to turn this lesson into a Gen-Z analysis. From a Social POV, It means claiming aesthetics of your customers verbally and pushing hard works well. It’s about giving them voice and validation.
15. Don’t blindly follow this advice of ‘People trust People’.
This advice ignores everything we know about how petty some people can be. Yes, people trust people but they also envy each other. And judge too much.
When Santina left Dr.Miami, the same people loving the doctor wrote: I always felt something was wrong about it. Or speculated about the pay.
The example above is very general, but you get the point. Overall, two main issues are:
If you humanise the brand too much, people will come at you. When something happens.
Trust isn’t the only element to chase. Sometimes, your face card can’t deliver the credibility. A brand or product card can.
16. For performance, make your content only 5-12% better.
Social isn’t all about delivering the best value. Neither is Online Search. The doctor with 40 years of experience can’t rank on Google or go viral. He isn’t suffering from a value problem. It’s distribution.
To make your content reach a wider audience. You need to bend the content like Beckham.
In football, players bend or curl the ball. If they give it a spin to ensure that it doesn’t fly straight but curves during flight. In Social, you provide or design the content 5-12% to differentiate it from other, while reaching a wider audience.
Of Course, you can make it 100% better if you like. I do that for my personal account on IG, but it’s always a hit or miss. Making me hit the goal against my team like Manuel Rosas.
17. The Idea of diversifying your social media presence doesn’t end at using every app.
It starts there, ends at bringing your true fans in a community. Or email, to own your audience. And then, you shouldn’t think of it as finished job.
If you moved your social audience to email. Your company shouldn’t bombard them with regular mails. Try to include feedback from social media manager in email strategy.
Ask yourself if you are ready to take the community management role. As you will be creating a new job by building a discord or slack.
Every Community needs influencers or topic experts to keep the conversations going. You would need to find those expert customers, more time spent on vetting community influencers.
Every brand should think about these things before dropping a community invitation. When they don’t, communities die.
Suggestion: Max Pete's newsletter is quite useful for marketers building online communities.
18. Finding best time to post on social media
If you have a pre-built audience, Look at your instagram analytics to find from which country most followers are. Once you have that, you should find at what time they usually use the app. And post around that time or before an hour or so.
The Intent is to use the majority party for a bigger push from algorithm. Increasing your chances of reaching the minorities when they get activity at alternative times. Same goes for posting when you want to reach a new audience. Focus on posting at a time when that countries most people are active.
The Other Angle: Your Content quality matters more than time.
In the algorithms post, It was mentioned that when you go from offline to online, a set of previously published posts is curated. Another set of posts are curated when you are online. That new set consists of newly published posts from your followings.
Those changes are based on recency and relevancy. Algorithms change the position of your post in the feed. Instagram's CEO also confirmed this.
The lesson: You need a history of good content interactions. Then, you will benefit more from posting at the best time.
A list of other lessons I’ve had working in social
After the initial sale, The standards for your content change in seconds. Paying makes a huge difference.
You look like your mother or father. That statement gives you recognition at family events. A recognition like that comes from choosing beginner topics in the early stages of your social media journey. Algorithm connecting you with a relevant niche or topic is what you need in the start.
Social Media Culture is Weird, You can’t resonate with everything. If someone forces a post idea on you. It’s better to ignore than executing poorly.
Vanity Metrics don’t matter. But it’s never a good feeling to see a post with low likes. Hide them 😅
There is a huge difference between what people think they want to learn/consume and what they really need. Most Posts target what people think, the difficult part is to know what they really need.
Keep experimenting and promoting because Pinterest was the first one to introduce unlimited scrolling. Still, IG & TikTok benefitted more from the feature.
Sometimes the only question brands need to ask every week is “Have we created something that influenced others?”.
These were some of the lessons I managed to recall for this post. Some topics like paid social, working at a brand vs agency, plagiarism and others didn’t make the list. Part-2 soon….