Ever view social media as a giant maze? Maybe you wonder what types of posts get more attention or the small changes you can make to give your posts an edge. Yes, there are specific changes you can make such as crafting 70-100 character tweets and creating a call-to-action at the end of your posts. I discuss specific ways to strengthen your tweets in this free eBook.
But how do you write an awesome post every single time? I’m not just talking about a post that gets engagement. I am talking about a post that is so powerful and attention grabbing that people crave your content. I am talking about a post that makes your audience beg for more.
I am talking about the M.V.Ps—Most Valuable Posts—of social media. Those are the posts that we desperately want more of. We know them when we see them, but how can we craft M.V.Ps of our own?
True to the acronym M.V.P., the first method starts with an M, the second method starts with a V, and the third method starts with a P.
Message
The message of your post all comes down to the purpose of that social media post. Are you trying to make your audience laugh? @MLBMemes does a great job at that (if you are a baseball fan) Are you trying to provide them with information? That’s my aim with social media.
Your desired message must be tailored to your audience. Knowing your audience allows you to realize what type of reaction is a good one. If @MLBMemes started to tweet social media articles, people would get thrown off. If I tweeted MLB memes too much, then sure enough my followers would get thrown off too.
So once you know what type of message to craft, how do you craft it?
The answer depends on the social network you are utilizing. On Twitter, brevity wins in large part because you can only use a maximum of 140 characters.
For the most part, brevity wins. Have a short intro to the article or picture you are sharing and then let the article or picture tell the story. For other social networks like YouTube, you have to tell the story within the post.
The best way to understand how to craft your message is by examining how other people within your niche craft your message. When I needed to learn how to use Twitter, I looked at how Jeff Bullas and Kim Garst used the platform. I tweeted in my own style and combined that style with how they sent their tweets.
Combining my style with their styles is the reason I tweet the way I do.
Sure enough, there are plenty of blog posts you can read that let you know more of the specifics. However, the best way to learn how to do something is to see an example and then implement based on that example. Observing results in learning. Then it’s just a matter of doing.
Value
I love this word. I could have used quality but value does more justice (and it allows me to stay consistent with the acronym).
First off, let’s start by defining value from a social media strategy perspective. Valuable content is NOT awesome content. Valuable content is awesome content that resonates with your audience. That is an important distinction.
I come across many blog posts that I believe are valuable. The blog posts that I believe are valuable could easily be defined as meaningless in the eyes of someone else. Since I am learning how to play the piano, I am learning about the different symbols and their meanings.
I’ll Google something like “piano symbols and their meanings.” If I find an article that does a good job at explaining several of those symbols, I continue reading it for a while. It’s something I want to learn more about.
However, if I were to tweet that article to my Twitter followers, I wouldn’t get much of a reaction. If I branded myself as a pianist and singer in the making, then I would get more attention. However, I brand myself as a digital marketing expert. People who follow me want digital marketing advice.
While the piano article is valuable to me, it wouldn’t be valuable to my audience.
Understanding that distinction allows you to put more of your time and effort into the right direction. It also allows you to create M.V.Ps.
The truth about M.V.P.s is that only a certain audience sees a certain social media post as an M.V.P. If you don’t know anything about baseball, then you won’t find any of @MLBMemes’ tweets as entertaining. I don’t know much about basketball which is why I am indifferent to the NBA memes that dominate the web.
Now comes the point when you define value in your niche. A valuable video or blog post within your niche is something that triggers the desired reaction. If you want your audience to laugh, then that’s the reaction you are looking for. If you want your audience to acquire more knowledge by thoroughly reading the blog post you promoted, then that’s the reaction you are looking for.
The best way to identify value in your niche is by seeing what works. Look at what the highly regarded experts post. Better yet, see which posts get the most attention from the people within your audience. Just search for some keywords relating to your niche and look through the posts that get the most engagement.
That’s what your audience likes. Mimic it while adding your own style.
Picture
With a sea of tips that specifically apply to certain social networks, it is difficult to come across tips that apply to all of them. Social media is constantly changing and more options become available as the days go by.
In a constantly changing atmosphere, it is difficult to find the constants (had to do it). One constant that will always remain is the impact of pictures. Social media posts with pictures get more than twice as much engagement as social media posts without pictures.
All of the social networks have adapted over the years based on this fact. It’s the reason why we don’t see those pic.twitter links anymore and why you can’t be a player on Instagram and Pinterest unless you post pictures.
When you promote one of your articles on your social networks, the picture you use in your article is just as important as the content as itself. The human mind registers a picture 60,000 times faster than plain text. The picture matters.
The best free tool to create awesome pictures without any help is by using Canva. Canva is a free tool with an arsenal of options to improve your pictures. I used to use Canva until I hired someone with more expertise to create the pictures for me.
For some of the pictures I created with Canva, you can tell that some of them were rushed. I didn’t have much time to begin with because of my school schedule. To make matters worse, I was in my junior year. So I handed that responsibility over to a freelancer who creates awesome pictures. I didn’t create the picture in this blog post. My freelancer did.
Pictures are essential to getting and keeping attention. If you don’t create good pictures, then don’t give yourself that task. Pay someone else to get the job done right. You save time and get an awesome picture. Some freelancers charge $1 per picture.
When you share one of your articles on social media, make sure you include that picture within your social media post. In my experience, my tweets with pictures get more engagement than my tweets without pictures.
In Conclusion
At first glance, any goal you go after will look impossible. That includes the M.V.P. status. When you stare straight into your goal and observe the examples around you, that goal becomes easier. In some cases, that goal even becomes child’s play.
I love using sports analogies of some of the best athletes, so I’ll do that again here. At some point in his life, it was difficult for LeBron James to make a shot in basketball. Now he makes the shots that most of us would never even attempt.
All writers start off struggling to write the 250 word essay. Some of these same writers became bestselling authors.
You may struggle with crafting awesome social media posts now. You may be intimidated because you only took the first glance. However, when you stare this goal straight in the eye and take action, this goal will soon become easy for you. Soon enough, you’ll be crafting and publishing M.V.Ps left and right.
What are your thoughts on the M.V.P. method? Do you have any suggestions for crafting better social media posts? Sound off in the comments section below.
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