The Worst thing you can do in your social media posts

SA hello, I'm Katie McManus, business strategist and money mindset coach. Almost tripped over my words there. Happy Wednesday and happy December 6th. We are six days into me going live every single day of December. Thank you for joining me. For those of you who are tuning in, know that I'm going live from the Facebooks, from LinkedIn, YouTube and Twitter. I love this to be interactive. So if you're commenting, thank you. Welcome. Happy to answer any questions you have on what I'm about to talk talk about. Also, if you comment and I don't respond, know that it's not you. Sometimes the technology just fails us and it doesn't show me everything. So today I want to talk about one of the biggest deadly sins you can commit on social media. And it's not what probably what you think. Like, one of the worst things that you can do for your brand and your personal brand on social media is to confuse people. And let me be clear, I'm not saying like you're gonna ruin your brand if you put up a riddle or a complicated math question or whatever. If that is on brand for you, then please do that. That is fun confusion. That is not really what we're talking about here. What I mean is when you confuse your eyes audience in a way that prevents them from engaging with you for some reason or other. So I'm going to go through like the five most common ways that I see this happen just with my own network and with people in my world. And just so you know, I'm going to explain this. Like, these are the five things that even if a friend of mine posts something like this, I don't engage on. Even though I desperately want to engage to work though. Okay, that's how impactful this is. And hold on, let me get a. You know, you just get immediately thirsty. Anyway, so we want to make sure that our stuff is really easy to engage on. Let me see. Justin, my rule has been with an unfamiliar audience, speak like you're talking to a kindergartner. Like, let them tell you to up the grade level 100%. Justin, I completely agree with that. And also, you know, sometimes we try to be playful on social media and it just doesn't work out. So let me go through my five ways that this typically happens. So number one, sharing something that refers to an inside joke. Okay, so I want to use an example here. A friend of mine on LinkedIn has been sharing pictures of dinosaurs lately and I have no idea what it has to do with anything. And I really Want to support him in his posting. And also, like, I don't know how to be in the conversation in a way that supports him, that is playful. I don't want to look stupid. I am definitely sure I'm missing something here. And this is what your people go through when they see you post something that, like, is just kind of like out of the norm. Like, you literally have to explain this is out of the norm. This is an inside joke. This is a callback to this conversation I had. You need to over explain. And I know, like, sometimes, like a joke that's well explained is so much funnier. Right, I know, I know. There are just some things that don't translate well into social media. And also if you're trying to get right well known as like the dinosaur person, then great, explain it over and over and over again. It helps so much to firm you up and make you more memorable. Right? So you really do have to over explain and as Justin says, like, talk at a kindergarten level. Make sure that you're being so straightforward that someone who, like an alien who lands on this planet and has no idea who you are, what you do, will understand. Okay, so that's number one. So no inside jokes. Number two is really funny. So a lot of experts think that this is a way that they can establish that they are an expert because they read books in this niche. But if you ever talk about an author or a book in your niche, that's not common knowledge. Okay, so basically you can talk about Harry Potter and you can talk about the Bible. All right, you may be able to talk about Brene Brown. I think she's in the common knowledge space about shame. Everyone else, you have to assume no one knows what you're talking about. Okay, so if I were to reference, I don't know, something in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, I'd really have to explain the context of it. You can't assume that people know. And here's the thing. When people feel like they don't know what you're talking about, they may still read your post, but they're so much less likely to comment and like and engage because they don't want to seem uninformed or ignored. Okay? On social media, we often go in thinking like, oh my God, I have to make myself look smart. I have to show up and be an expert. I have to be the. The everything and the end all or whatever. No, we have to show up to highlight how smart other people are, to give them a moment in the limelight where they get to be clever and funny and informed. All right? You have to really set them up to show up as smart. No one cares how smart you are. Not a single soul. Actually, everyone pretty much assumes that you're pretty smart unless you've done something massively stupid in your life. Okay, number three, using expert speak. Okay? Again, along with that whole thread of don't, don't worry about showing up as smart. If you're using expert speak, what you end up doing is you end up speaking with only the other experts in the room. Okay? So if you're a lawyer and you're speaking legalese and you're on social media, guess who you're going to draw into your circle and into engage with you. Now, that's fine if you're a lawyer for other lawyers or if you're looking to network with other lawyers, or that's just your thing. But chances are that's not who you're trying to draw in. Who you're trying to draw in is your ideal client. Your ideal client. If they spoke legalese, they wouldn't need you. Okay, Shab. I knew. I knew we were each other. My male's here. I love the too. Luna. It's okay. Just the mailman anyway. All right, so no expert speak. And. And for those of us who are coaches and we have, like, this fulfillment and balance and, like, find your true calling language. We have to drop it, okay? We feel like it speaks to so well to what we do. It just doesn't. It goes over people's heads. Because here's the thing. People don't, like, go to bed at night and stay awake, like, tossing and turning because they're not fulfilled. Like, that's not the thing. They're worrying about, like, their jerk boss who, like, threatened to fire them. They're worried about paying their bills. They're worried about, like, is my spouse cheating on me? Okay? We have to use their language to speak to them. All right, number four, referring to a previous post that you've made without explaining it in this post. Now, I know we all want to think that everyone is reading everything that we are putting out there, and they're tracking it, and maybe they're printing it out and they're putting it up on their wall, and they're, like, doing, like, paper mache frames, and it's like, the celebration of their life. Bad news. That's not how it's going. People are busy, and they're like, you know, in the bathroom waiting for the hot water to come through, and they're Naked. And they're just like going through and trying to find something to entertain them for the two minutes while the hot water comes through. They probably missed your post yesterday. So if you posted something yesterday and you're referring to it today, you have to explain it, all right? You also have to explain if you're referring to someone else's post, okay? Even if it's viral, you kind of have to give people that basis because someone may not have been online yesterday. You never know. They could have fallen off the earth. And then number five, you may think you're being super obvious. You may think that your metaphor is really obvious. You may think that your figurative speaking is really hitting home. Unless you're an incredible writer, unless you've been doing this for a really long time and you're really effective at this, don't assume anything. Assume that you need to spoon feed the information to your reader. Assume that your reader is not going to know your reference points, okay? Assume that your reader has no idea what you're talking about. Okay? This is the. These are the five things I see the most often. And if you can overcome these in your writing and your social media posts, you're gonna invite more people to engage. You're gonna get more comments, you're gonna get more likes. And because you're getting more comments and more likes, you're gonna get more eyeballs on your posts. And because you get more eyeballs in your posts, you're going to build more brand trust with your audience, which means they're going to be more and more people out there who in the back of their mind are thinking, oh, I like this person. I agree with this person in some respects. I think they're credible for what they do. And actually I may have need for what they do in the future. I'm going to remember them. And then that day comes where they need you and you are the first person that they call. That's what this does. You have to be kind on social media. And being kind doesn't just mean being nice to other humans. Being kind means being super clear and straightforward about what you do and what you're up to with that. I can hear something on the stove is boiling over and that makes me nervous. So I'm gonna go and take care of that. Shab and Justin, thank you for tuning in. I hope this is super use for everyone else who's been here. Thank you for watching. If there are any topics that you'd like me to go live on later this month, then please DM me I'm always excited to do something that is custom to my audience. Whatever need or question you have right now. And other than that, I look forward to going live with you all tomorrow. All right. I'm Katie McManus, business strategist and money, money, money mindset coach. I still. I can't say that today. Oh, and hi, Steven. Welcome. Anyway, have a great night, everyone, and I will talk to you soon. Bye.