Why I don't use images in my FB posts

I think one of the biggest misconceptions about using Facebook, and I would say social media in general, is that you should use attractive images to get people interested in your content, in your brand, in your message. And I respect that common advice. But it's not what I recommend and it's not what I do. I recommend what I do, which is I don't use images on my Facebook posts. I know images gets more exposure. I know Facebook algorithm likes showing images to people, and my post will get more exposure if it uses images, but I use only words or videos. That's basically what I do. And I'm going to show you real quick on the screen what I mean, if I go to my. I'll show you my. My spiritual page, which is more simple in its content, but I follow the strategy on my. On my spiritual page, which, look, it's piece of writing. Okay? It's either words, no images, right? No images, or it's a video or it's words or it's video or it's words. You know, this is a call to action, asking them to, you know, contact me or, you know, words or video or words or video. And I could just go on and on and on. And it's the same kind of thing on my. My. On my business Facebook page, which, which I can go to real quick here. George Cal Community. And I'll just go right to the post section so you can see what, what kind of posts I make. You know, besides the COVID image, which everybody expects you to have, it's video and words, right? This is just a Facebook reminder about something. Okay? Words, okay? That's a call to action for something that's promoting an event. That's. I'm doing a course coming up now. This is updating my cover photo. So this is not really a post. Again, videos, words. And if there is an image, I put it in the comment just so that people know about my Instagram channel. Again, video. This is a video of one of my clients. So video and words. It's basically video, words, video, words. That's all it is. So why is it that I don't use images like everybody, all the people recommend? There's a couple of problems with this one. When you use images, yes, you get more exposure. A lot more people see your Facebook posts. But that's also the problem. Do you want more people seeing your Facebook posts? No. I mean, sounds ironic, but you don't want more people seeing. You want the right people seeing your Facebook post. Because if more people see your Facebook post, here's what happens. It's easy to like images, right? Oh, pretty mountain. Oh, wonderful animal. Oh, I like that picture of you. It's easy to like things, right? And so you end up with more and more and more people who are going to be seeing your content, but they are, they are shallow engagers. Not, not that they're shallow people, but you've trained them to engage with your content shallowly. So they are not your ideal audience. It's, it's. So in other words, if I post a picture, it's easy for me to post a picture of my dog. You'll get lot, I'll get lots of likes, right? I don't do that anymore. I used to do that. I don't do that anymore. I haven't done that for years. I, you know, it's, it's. I don't post pictures that, inspirational images of success or whatever, even authentic ones, because when I do that, I get lots of people who like to look at pictures who aren't necessarily the right fit for my courses or my programs or my services. And so George, what's the problem having lots of non ideal people? Isn't that just more people they might share? No, the problem is this. That goes to the second problem here, which is it increases our marketing costs. Now, you know, stay with me here. If you had 10, if you had. I'm going to use numbers that are more, more exciting here. If you had a hundred ideal audience members, when they see your content, they want to engage with it. They think about it. They maybe comment on it, but at least they think about it. And then you've gotten some of their real attention, not some of their shallow passing by. I like that picture attention. Okay, let's say you have 100 ideal people. Great. That's wonderful. Because those 100 ideal people, some of them, many of them are probably going to buy your products or your services when something is the right fit for them. But the thing is, let's say you now use images on your Facebook post. Now you have a thousand people, 900 of which like images. They just like shallow, you know, they relate to you in that way. They're not shallow people. They just relate to you in that way. They're just, you know, kind of drive by likes, okay? Now you've got a thousand people, okay, who regularly see your stuff, but only 100 of them are ideal. Here's what, here's the problem. Facebook will, when you, when you do get serious, right? When you are trying to sell something, when you're trying to really communicate a message, right? Facebook will show it to those thousand people, but because it's a serious message, because it's a thoughtful message, 900 of those will not like it because they're used to engaging with you in shallow ways. Get this, if 900 people don't like it or the first Facebook shows our posts in waves to people. Did you know this? It shows our posts in waves. So they first show it to 100 of your audience members, 100 random audience members. And let's say 10 of your hundred are ideal in the first wave, and a bunch of those hundred don't like your serious message or your thoughtful message, then Facebook won't show it to the second wave and then to the third wave. So you are shooting yourself in the foot when it comes to your thoughtful. Their thoughtful messages by posting shallow image. But George, I post thoughtful messages. I just use the image to get their attention. But how do you know if they are liking your image or they're liking your thoughtful message? You don't know. And chances are, knowing human nature, they are just liking your images. And they're not going to engage with the message of the image, right? They're not going to engage with the writings. This is why I don't do it. This is why I think it's dangerous. I think you should stop now. The only people who should keep using images are artists, okay? The only people who should keep using images on their Facebook posts are models, okay? That's what they do. They sell their image for a living. Or artists, they literally sell images for a living. Photographers or people who sell physical products. Because the physical product, you need to show an image of the physical product, and people need to be interested in the physical product. But for those of us who sell information, who sell knowledge, who sell transformation, we deal in terms of wisdom, we deal in terms of thoughtfulness, we deal in terms of conversation, right? And images are just going to create a larger and larger audience that's harder and harder to reach the ideal people. Because like I said, whenever you do share a serious message, you might get people liking the image, but people aren't really engaging. So Facebook doesn't show it to more of the serious people, people who are more likely to be serious for you, with you, okay? So the third problem is that by using images, you are training. And this is all related, right? You're training your audience to engage with you in a shallow way. So even the people who could become clients for you, who could buy your things, you're training them to not really Engage with your thoughts, you're training them to engage with your pretty images. And so that's why whenever you do ask them to do something with you, it's hard to get them to. So versus the other scenario, which is what I do. I've been training my people. All of you, right? The fact that you're watching this video, I don't know how many minutes in this is, right, eight minutes in, or whatever it is. I've been training you. Not training, but I've been. When I say training, I mean this is the way that I. This is the way that you can. The only way you can relate to me is not through shallow images. The only way you can relate. If you want to relate to me at all, if you want to connect with me at all, you're going to have to watch a video, you're going to have to watch me talk for a while, or you're going to have to read something that I wrote. You see what I mean? That's the only way you can connect with me. I don't let you connect with me by shallow images because I know if I do that, you're only going to connect. It's so easy to connect to shallow images, inspirational quotes, pretty things, attractive things. But then I'm training you to connect in that way and I have to keep being that way. Whereas if I always show up and make you read or make you watch, sometimes you're tired and you don't want to watch my videos, that's fine. Or sometimes you're tired, you want to read my things, that's fine. You just keep scrolling and that's fine. But whenever you do engage, that's the relationship you have with George Kao is one of thoughtfulness, it's one of transformation. And so therefore, when I sell my courses, like anything I sell is even deeper transformation, right? It's even more thoughtfulness. It requires even more energy from you to actually transform yourself. So that's why my free content is just the gateway into more thoughtfulness and into more transformation. It's not the gateway into more shallowness like so many of you are doing with your inspirational quotes and your pretty images. When you use images, let's be honest, you're using images because you're fearful or desperate, and that tends to create more fearfulness and desperation, right, George? I'm afraid if I don't use an image, I don't get enough attention. And I know when I use an image I get more likes, so I better use more images because I know people like them, fear and desperation creates more fear and desperation. And I don't want that for you. I want you to stand in your power. I want you to, I want you to trust in your thoughts and in the relationship you're going to have with your audience is one of thoughtfulness and engagement. So I hope that helps. It's going to take some time to untrain your audience when you stop posting images and you start posting just writings without images or videos that are thoughtful. Videos like this, it's going to take some time. It's going to take weeks or months. And therefore you have to be patient. You have to train your own patience. But you will develop an audience that's thoughtful, that wants to engage at that level with you. They might not always comment, but whenever they, they like your, your writings, they're not liking an inspirational image. They're liking because they're actually reading some words and they like the message and that's a good thing. You want them to do that. And many of them will click read more or continue reading or see more or many of you, many of them will keep. So that's the other thing. That's the other reason why my videos aren't that attractive. I used to do my dog walk videos because out in nature it's pretty. There's moving, you know, trees and dog, you know, running around, and that's fun to watch. I no longer do that. I try to bore people instead because I know that those people who are really right for my right to, who are really wanting to transform, they will find my message fascinating, even it won't be boring to them. So, so, so let me say that no matter how boring you are, you're not boring to the people who actually want to transform. With your modality, with your process, with whatever product or service you offer, you're not boring to them because they're so fascinated by that topic, right? So, for example, there's a spiritual teacher. He just talks like me, you know, and I find his topics fascinating. But if I, if I just heard any other person just talk like this, I'd be bored because it depends on the topic. Same thing with you. If you're fascinated by me talking about these things without a pretty image, it's because you're fascinated by this topic. That means you're right for my courses or my books or my program. You know what I mean? So I want to thank my friend Tad Hargrave for this concept that I learned from him long ago about filtering. Marketing is about filtering, not about trying to Please, everybody. It's about filtering to the people who really are right for, who are going to buy from you. And not just buy from you, they're going to use what they buy from you and therefore make you feel really good that you really change people's lives with your business. I hope this helps. As usual, I'm going to give you about a minute to comment below while I look for any comments from my live participants to read out to everybody here. So go ahead and comment below while I look for these things. All right, so thanks to. Let's see who's joining me here. Patricia, Renee, Sarah, Heather, thank you so much joining me. Patricia says I post a picture today In I got 10 times more likes. I wonder what your idea about getting attention of followers for me as a musician and composer by posting images. Well, as a musician and composer, Patricia, you need to be posting videos of your music. So either you performing the music or videos that maybe have a static image but the music is in the background, or a music video, I mean, whatever, but you need to be sampling your music on social media. I don't think writing, writing. You could, you could do your lyrics. Sure. Lyrics. And people who are, who are interested in the first couple lines of your lyrics will keep reading and oh, that's a, that's a, that's a wonderful, you know, poem or lyric. And then you could say it's connected to this, you know, song. And this is the kind of, the music that I compose is like this kind of thing. So, yeah, that's what I would suggest. Yeah. And Renee says, I really like how you explain vanity metrics in a reflective mat. Yeah, vanity metrics is exactly right term. This is an actual technical marketing term called vanity metrics. What are vanity metrics? Vanity metrics are things like likes that make us feel good when we say, oh, I got so many likes. But therefore our vanity. And they don't contribute to actual business results down the road. They don't contribute to more clients and to more transformation among clients. They just make us feel good because, oh, we got so many likes, we got so many amens or yay or whatever. So thank you. Thank you for bringing that term. Okay, so Those are the 2 comments I'm able to see here. Maybe there are more comments that I'm not able to see at this time. But thank you so much for being a thoughtful participant in my content. I really appreciate it. I hope this helps you and I hope this will help you to get even more thoughtful engagement for your business going forward. All right. Take care.