Social Media & The 10% Rule
Bottom Line Up Front
“Spend more of your valuable time, valuable energy, and hard-earned money creating content that will consistently work for you.”
An article for content creators.
"Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."
- not Albert Einstein
You can find an almost infinite number of articles telling you how to “boost your social media presence” or “be successful with social media.”
Social Media accounts are often considered “successful” by how large of a following they have. This, to me, is a dangerous method of measuring success, especially if you are attempting to depend upon social media as a basis for an income; let me tell you why.
It is great that you have 5,000+ followers. Really, it is. You can definitely use that to your advantage. (More on this later.) Let’s face it, we like the instant gratification that a hot new post brings, especially when we’ve built a decent following. When you post something, there is a euphoric feeling that comes along with the instant gratification when our “friends” react or comment on this hot new post. The problem is, your friends also want that feeling of gratification, so they too are posting. Add to that the fact that advertisers and sponsored content may also be being posted. Where is your post now? It has been shoved down the wall by the many others also looking for attention. This leads me to my concern with defining success as defined above. The problem in defining success in such a manner is that no consideration is placed into the infinite loop you are in, or the hours spent, energy spent, and money spent in building that following. Imagine with me if you will…
Imagine if you had spent the same number of hours, energy, and money in creating content on your own platform! When you purchase a URL it is yours! You own it! Yes, I know what you are thinking. You are thinking that the website is a thing of the past and that social media is the way of the future. Let me tell you why you may need to rethink that line of thought.
Fads | They Change
Fads change. Let me use a hypothetical example to illustrate my point. Let’s assume you sunk many days, hours, and probably money into creating a “successful” social media presence on one of the following platforms, Myspace, Vero, and/or Google+.
Going… Going… Gone…
Going - Myspace isn’t totally dead, but it surely isn’t “the most visited site” on the web like it used to be in 2006. Can you imagine having poured your time, energy, and/or money into a decent Myspace presence only to have it go in the direction it went!? Now, for all I know, the direction Myspace went might suit your interests perfectly. You could be on cloud nine right now, but I doubt it. If you are running a small business, do you really want to gamble with your time like this?
Going - Vero started off quite strong, but has since simmered down. Even the lure of an ad-free environment doesn’t seem to be enough to gain it a foot-hold in the social media world. The same applies here. Imagine if you’d have sunk those hours into building your presence on their platform? You’ve got it! You’d suddenly realize that those hours might not have been utilized to their maximum. In full disclosure, I have a Vero account. I think I posted to it once, but it exists.
Gone - Google+ doesn’t even exist anymore. I had a Google+ account and really tried to make it work for me. I put a few hours into it but did so when it was on the way out. This is one of the events that helped get me to the conclusion that I am trying to make in this writing. Imagine with me again, one more time…
Imagine that you sunk hours upon hours and days upon days building your following on any, or all, of these platforms. Heck, maybe you did sink hours and hours into one or more of these platforms and are getting upset about being reminded of it right now. Those hours, through no fault of your own, have potentially been all but wasted. You cannot get those hours back, ever. Since we are imagining, imagine you’d have sunk the majority of those same hours you put into building your social media following into building something you actually own and fully control.
Control: Own It
You do not own Social Media, “They,” the social media companies, do. To emphasize this, here is another hypothetical, yet all too real, scenario. Where is “that post” you posted back in 2007? For the sake of this hypothetical scenario, just imagine you posted something back in 2007, you want to find it, and it is now the current date.
Can you imagine looking for a post that you put up in 2007? It’d be pretty tough. It may not be impossible, but it would take a lot of effort and definitely a lot of time. Now, if you have a hard time finding something that you’ve posted, how hard of a time do you think someone else would have finding it?
Ask yourself this, “Self, how many people are seeing my post from 2007 right now?” The answer should be pretty easy, none. As a matter of fact, the number of people viewing that post may have been close to zero the day after you posted it, maybe even hours after. Immediately after you posted it, it began being pushed down the wall towards obscurity.
Now, compare that to an article you wrote back in 2007, even if the article is just for argument’s sake. The search engines will still find that article as if it were written yesterday. You could optimize your SEO to help keep it relevant. Someone can run across your web-page and read the article without much issue at all assuming your website is anywhere near user-friendly. If you’d have taken the time to put your thoughts in the form of an article on your web-page, vs merely as a post on someone else’s social media platform, it would not be buried right now. Your articles would exist until you decide they are either not needed or require updating.
Income Traffic Dependence
Can’t Take That Away
It seems people are considering their social media accounts to be “theirs.” Well, they aren’t. You do not own Social Media, “They” do. When the social media platform you are using decides to make changes, they can have a very real effect on your message/business IF you are too reliant on them. Keep in mind the examples from above. Did you get a say when Google+ decided to discontinue the platform? Sure, you could have backed up your content, possibly, but this does nothing for the following you thought you had. You end up hoping that your followers cross-platform followed you. I say this to urge you to focus your attention on the products you own. This doesn’t negate all risk, but it sure helps!
I am by no means saying that you should quit social media. That would be quite hypocritical of me as I too have a social media presence on multiple platforms. What I am saying is, attempt to depend upon social media as only ~10% of your online business traffic/income. Start spending your time doing things that you control and that you own. When, not if, the social media world changes, your business will be more secure.
We like our growth to be exponential. You cannot have exponential growth if you are constantly rebuilding your social media following every time social media platforms come and go. It’s kinda like a savings account. If you save $5,000 and then take it all out and spend it down to $0 only to save again back to $5,000 you’ve gained nothing from your original position.
In Conclusion
In conclusion, Focus on getting visitors to your website. Use social media to introduce your new content on your website. That post will get pushed down your wall/timeline as usual. That’s okay. The post was always going to be pushed down towards obscurity. Only difference is, now you’ve got content that is on your website and is not going anywhere until you decide it does. If, after your social media post gets pushed down into virtual obscurity and you want to refresh social media interest on your topic at hand, just post it to social media again. Time and energy are valuable. Do your best to budget 10% of your time to guiding people to your content where 90% of your time should be focused.
