How To Get Better Results on Social Media

You could spend a lot of time, energy, and resources posting on social media, but if you’re not getting the results you want, then it’s going to get frustrating really fast.

You might be wondering, “Are there certain posts that will give me the best results?” If you’re going to spend all this time on social media, you should be getting results from it, period. That’s certainly a pain point for many of us.

My mind thinks in terms of results. With social media -- whether we’re talking about Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube or LinkedIn -- I figure out ways to get a specific result, and that’s the only thing that I’ll do on that platform.

Do this first

The first thing that you’ve got to do is to figure out how you’re going to use a platform to get results. 

There are two reasons to use social media. One is to just have fun and connect, and the other is for business. Now, this may come as a shocker for many of you, but if you’re going to use social media for business, don’t post about business -- actually, don’t mention your business at all -- until you know what results you want and you’re sure that the steps you’re taking are going to get you that result.

Otherwise, it’s just like spam. It’s not authentic.

I got a direct message from Facebook yesterday. At first, I thought, “Cool, someone messaged me.” But when I saw the message, it was a blatant copy-and-paste advertisement. That totally felt off.

If she would’ve sent a personal message, it would’ve been better. 

How to choose the proper platform

You’ve got all these platforms in front of you, so it can be challenging to choose which ones to engage in.

A good first step is to choose a platform you understand, start with that platform, and figure out how you can get the result you want on that platform. If, say, you don’t understand Twitter, don’t use it yet. Instead, find someone successful in the platform you’re unfamiliar with, pick their brains, and implement your plan.

It can be tempting to force yourself to engage in all social media platforms. This is why I highly recommend that you pick only those that you understand, those that you know how to get actual results from.

But what if you understand, say, all the five major social media platforms? If that’s the case, pick the ones that give you the best results. If you know how to use five social media platforms, but you also know that 80% of your results come from just one or two of them, then focus on those platforms first and foremost.

This is why I don’t do business posts or any type of aggressive marketing on Facebook right now. I simply don’t get near the results that I do on YouTube and LinkedIn on there.

What should you be posting?

I mentioned above that there are two types of social media posts. One is concerned with what you feel like sharing, and I encourage you to do that because people want to see the real you. After all, social media is an avenue for being social and engaging with people.

In a nutshell, go ahead and share what comes naturally. And all the other stuff that doesn’t come naturally, make sure you know why you’re doing it and the type of results you’ll get from it. 

Don’t bother wasting your time here

These days, it’s easy to get pressured into posting all sorts of things just because you see someone else doing it.

But like what I’ve said above, do the stuff that’s natural to you, and do the stuff that you know will get a result. Don’t worry about any of the other stuff that you see. 

Why waste your time on other tactics when you know that something else will give you the outcome you want? 

Of course, when you see that someone is successful, you can go ahead and try to study what they’re doing. But if you see other people that are just trying out random tactics, throwing spaghetti at a wall hoping something would stick, then you shouldn’t copy what they’re doing.

A good move is to find somebody that’s getting the results you want. If they’re generating leads -- and you want to generate leads like them -- then go ahead and do what they’re doing. And don’t do anything else.

The bottom line

In this day and age of social media, it’s so easy to get tempted to engage and invest in every platform possible. But if you do this without a solid plan, then you’ll end up wasting a lot fo your time and resources.

That said, find out what works and stick to it. Focus on the platforms that give you the output you want. And most of all, learn from the people who are actually successful in what they do. Trust me, there’s no need to adopt a strategy just because someone else is doing it. Share what comes naturally, and then devote the rest of your social media bandwidth to posts that will get you better results.