Why Hashtags SUCK & 4 Other Social Media Scandals

Everybody loves a good scandal. So I put my sassy pants on for this one. Come along with me as I share five social media practices that I believe are absolutely sabotaging your social engagement and street cred. Hey guys, it's Alex. And this week I'm going to share my honest thoughts on some outdated social media practices that many people are still hanging on to despite despite the massive changes in the way audiences are engaging with brands online today. Now, the first thing I'm gonna say is this. No one you care about cares about the size of your following. Yes, I said it. Think about it. Who do you care about? Your family and your friends. Obviously they don't care if you're a social media star, and if they do, you might wanna consider getting some new friends. But I am talking about your audience, your customers, your devoted fans and your students. You care about them, right? Hint, you better. But do you think it really matters an ounce to them whether you have 100 or 100,000 fans if you're adding amazing value and support? I mean, sure, they might care in like a way to go supportive kind of way, but trust me, their likelihood to love you or leave you has nothing to do with how many people smash that follow button. Follower count is no longer a measure of how successful your social media channel is because it is common knowledge that you can actually buy followers. Shady. Instead, social credibility is all about how you engage and interact with your audience. The truth of the matter is the only people who care about the size of your following are other businesses who are actually trying to get in front of it. Do you know how many emails I get every single week from brands and companies trying to offer me a paycheck for a video review? And I say no every single time. Why? Well, because I care about you. And I would never do a pay per view unless I really, really, really believe that it can help you or I've personally used it and I've gotten results. Now, I'm not saying that influencer marketing is dead. It's a huge and lucrative business. But it is not sustainable if it's your only intent or strategy. Which makes it even more important for you to follow the steps that I'm sharing in today's video. Those of you who know me know I'm all about creating copy that both connects and converts. And today I'm sharing how this applies in the social sphere. So if you're not already part of my global posse, join us by clicking the subscribe button below. I release a new video every single week on Copywriting, marketing, and branding techniques that are working today. In the meantime, here are five social media scandals that are ruining your reputation with the people who actually give a shit. Scandal number one, you can no longer fake it till you make it. Ah, yes, social media in the 2000s. Welcome to the world of fake followers. Did you know that fake followers cost brands over $1.3 billion last year? Which is why there are tons of tools out there that will actually audit an Instagram account's engagement growth and credibility by telling you the percentage of real followers they have. And plenty of these tools will allow you to run a free report before you need to pay. So I actually did mine real quick, and you can see the growth of my average likes followers and my engagement rate. You can also see my credibility score, which is around 94%. So, yes, I do have a few fake followers. It's unavoidable. But for the most part, my account is fairly squeaky clean. Now, I ran another account through that tool and saw this. Yeah, no bueno. The truth is, there are a lot of ways to get more followers, guys. Some shadier than others. But if you're so hung up on these tactics that you neglect to actually show up and engage with your audience with a genuine personality, that's like basically inviting a whole group of new friends over to your house for dinner and then staying locked in the bedroom the entire time, eventually they're gonna wonder what the hell is going on and leave. The goal of growing your audience is to create a community. And the best, in fact, the only way to do this is to actually engage and connect with your followers. They are real people, too. Now, more than ever before, people are seeking authentic experiences and holding brands accountable for their content. So you shouldn't just be all about selling your product or service, or somebody else's product or service, for that matter. You should also inspire your followers, evoke their curiosity, start meaningful conversations, and get them to have more fun. Fun so mixed up with content that's relevant to your brand and your audience, such as an awesome quote or an interesting fact, a funny meme, or free training. In fact, there are three ways that you can add value online. The first is entertainment value, the second is educational value, and the third is inspirational value. So before you post, ask yourself, what kind of value am I providing here? And if you can't answer that question, you might want to rethink it. When you focus on adding value, first you make your brand relatable and memorable. And that emotional connection is going to influence a buying decision more than anything else. And if you want to incentivize engagement through a contest, that's cool. But consider whether your contest mechanics will actually create a valuable experience for your followers that will make them want to check back in with you. We have all done it. You're scrolling through Instagram, you see some contest online for a brand you loosely follow, and and it tells you to tag five friends. You'll get entered to win something. So what do you do? You tag your five besties. You know, the ones who have all implicitly agreed to be each other's Instagram contest tagging crew. And you know what they'll do anyway? They'll see it and they'll likely ignore it. Now, I'm not saying this isn't a great strategy to get impressions, but how many of you actually end up following those brands unless they immediately get your attention with something that you really care about? Now, there is a better way to do it. So take Dunkin Donuts, for example. They used a Halloween contest to get participants to create a donut inspired DIY costume that they actually had to take a photo of and post online to enter. Now, yeah, it sounds like it would be a lot of work, but the experience itself really incentivized their followers to create a fun and creative post that they would have totally end up posting anyway. And the results were pretty impressive. Look at all that donut inspired Halloween art. How committed do you think those people are to the Dunkin Donuts brand? Yeah, you get the idea. All right, so moving on to a second Scandalo number two hashtags suck. Yeah, you were waiting for this one, weren't you? Now relax. I know, I know. Instagram hashtags can be super helpful, especially if you're just starting out and want to grow a following. I mean, how else are you going to get everybody's attention, right? Here's the problem though. If you do grow a following using hashtags, most of those people are just going to pop in and then pop back out again without ever really engaging with you because there was nothing memorable or meaningful about how they discovered you. Not to mention, if you are stuffing your captions with as many hashtags as humanly possible, you might actually be turning off the people who are genuinely interested in hearing what you have to say. Yeah, nobody likes clicking Read More only to have that caption expand into meh copy and then exactly 30 hashtags underneath. Now, guys, I have been guilty of this too. So if you have done this in the past, don't feel Bad. It used to work a lot better than it does now. And because everyone's always looking for a shortcut to do everything, many people use hashtag generators that just spit out a collection of random ass hashtags that literally have nothing to do with the subject matter. Yes, we have all seen the left field hashtag pop up under a photo. So no wonder real people hardly ever search for content using hashtags. It's totally a hot mess. And therein lies the biggest reason why hashtags suck. They are bot magnets. In fact, they probably attract more bots than genuine followers. Bots go great. I'm gonna go follow and engage with every single post with the hashtag hashtag motivational quote, quote. Then you get all those fake comments like I love your content and great photo when it isn't even a photo and you're like, what? Yeah, those are bots. Then most of the time they just unfollow you anyway. If you don't follow back now, you might be thinking, yeah, whatever. I actually am growing a following using hashtags, so I have a really hard time seeing why hashtags suck. Well, in case you weren't aware, the Instagram algorithm now only shows your content to a small percentage of your followers feeds to gauge engagement before showing it to more. So if that initial engagement rate is low, that content is dead and it is not being shared to any more of your followers. So if your following is full of bots who actually don't engage with your posts, you are desperately hurting your chances of your content being seen by real people. One of the best ways to use hashtags is to use hyper targeted or hyper personalized hashtags that make it easy for people to share and find your content. So use one or two hashtags that are like a million percent related to what you're talking about and stay away from hashtags that everyone is using because it'll just get lost in the mess anyway. Or you can create your very own hashtag. For example, my buddy Mark Groves, the human connection specialist behind CreateTheLove, grew his audience to now over 570,000 followers without relying much on hashtags at all. Yet his engagement levels are through the roof because he focuses on valuable content. Content that resonates so well with his audience that they absolutely love sharing it and recommending his stuff. And all he uses is one branded create the love hashtag in every single post. And that is it. All right guys, next up, scandal number three. It is not all about you. If you Expect your followers to leave comments and start interacting with you. You best make sure you do not leave them hanging. I have seen so many brands make this mistake. They put all this work into creating a compelling and visually appealing post and a great caption, but then they pretty much ghost their community. You guys gotta take the me out of social media. Comments are not a one way street. It is a two way communication channel. So unless you're Beyonce and you don't need to follow anybody. I mean, if you're Beyonce, you shouldn't even be watching this unless you are, hey Beyonce. But if you are not Beyonce, you need to actually get in there and facilitate conversations. You don't just want to make your users feel like they can relate to your content, but that they actually belong in the community. And the best way to do this is to speak to your followers like they're right there in front of you, respond to comments on your posts, tap that heart icon and be a real human. That's it. Make them feel heard and make them feel included. And ultimately you will make them feel valued. Now, I try to respond to every single comment I get on my YouTube channel, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Try it out guys, and put me to the test. Comment below and let me know you're here. To me, it feels so great when I get to interact with you and acknowledge the time that you've taken to give me feedback or show me some support. And it's also the best way to find out what your audience finds helpful and valuable, which is fuel for your business. I also take the time to personally welcome every single new follower I get on my Copy Posse Instagram account by tagging them in my comments. And yes, it does take time, but to me, it is more than worth it to let my followers know that their presence is known and that I value and support them. Okay, next up, scandal number four. Static content is dying. Guys, you have heard me say it before. The future is video. There has been an explosion of growth in video traffic in the past few years. Whether it's a series of Instagram stories, IGTV, Facebook Live, Snapchat, or YouTube, it is no secret that branded video content has become a staple in our everyday lives. And that's not even taking into account. Like Netflix and Hulu and prime and crave, views of branded video content have increased 99% on YouTube and a whopping258.8% on Facebook between 2016 and 2017. Even on Twitter, a video tweet is six times more likely to be Retweeted compared to a photo tweet. Guys, the numbers are huge and undeniable. And by 2021, it is estimated that 82% of all web traffic will come through video and 13% of that will be live video. Just take a look at the amount of engagement and shares on the tasty recipe videos. They're short, they're sweet, they're easy to understand, and you cannot take your eyes off of them. And then, of course, yes, you knew I was going to say it. There is TikTok, the social media video sharing platform that has become a global phenomenon for interaction and engagement. It is addictive. So if you're looking to grow your brand well into the 2020s, you need to be using video. Period. And lastly, scandal number five, don't just stand there and look pretty. If you think you can just curate a perfectly posed, pretty feed and call it a day, think again. Now, I'm not saying you shouldn't put some time and effort into coming up with a cohesive brand look and feel, but if that is all you care about, you are dead in the water. I mean, look at the meme accounts like LED Bible and the fat Jewish that do so well. They provide unlimited value in the form of entertainment and their galleries are messy as hell. You know what I mean? But the point is that a great social media account isn't just about the visual appeal. It's also about how you engage and incentivize your audience. Remember, you need to provide entertainment value, educational value, or inspirational value. While a pretty aesthetic may be inspirational for a hot second, it will lose attention fast when it's no longer a novelty. The great news is you have so many tools at your disposal to help make this a reality and keep your followers interest. Platforms like Facebook and Instagram are constantly updating and rolling out new features and tools to help you with your engagement in marketing. Like polls and filters and Q and A and gifs and countdowns and quizzes and the list goes on and on. Guys, this is not something they do just for the sake of it. Facebook spends millions of dollars on market research every single year and creates these tools because they know that users will use them. Facebook's entire MO is to create a better user experience. So take the guesswork out of your marketing and use the features that are available. It's also no surprise that most of these features are being rolled out to the video side of the apps like Instagram Stories and Smart brands. Get it? Recently, Elle magazine used Instagram Story polls to engage their readers about an article that they wrote on Netflix's rom com to all the boys I've loved before. In a series of polls, they engaged their readers and provided cues for their followers to swipe up and read the entire article. It was absolutely genius. So I recommend you check out how brands are using Instagram stories and related features to engage their audiences. And there you have it guys. My two on what you need to stop doing if you want to engage your audience and stay relevant on social media. So give me a thumbs up if you found this video helpful. And if you want to see what else is in store for the future of digital marketing, check out my video on the top four social media and digital marketing trends. You can watch that next right here. And thank you so much for watching and subscribing. Until next week, I'm Alex. Ciao for now. So if you're not already part of my global conversation.