Don't Make These 5 SOCIAL MEDIA MISTAKES

I want to share with you 5 lessons and mistakes in hitting over 1 million followers just recently. Now, it took me 7 hard graft years to build up half a million followers across my social channels, but then in the last 10 months or so, really just this year, when I focused a little bit more on social media and being a content creator I more than doubled that, went from half a million to 1.1 million in just 10 months or so of this year. So what I thought would be really useful to do for you is to share with you lessons and mistakes. What would I do differently? Where did I go wrong? What few things actually worked out quite well, um, so that you can grow your social media following? So why would you want to grow your social media following? More reach into revenue, more impact into income. To monetize social media, there's now 18 different ways to directly monetize the big 6 social media channels. Um, obviously creating content surely is kind of like the easiest hard work in the world, I would say. Uh, and now if you have a decent social media following, you can get brand partnerships, endorsements, sponsors, collaborations, etc. So I've actually got 19 different lessons and mistakes that, um, I've experienced over the last 8 years of being pretty prolific on social media. I can't cover them all now because all 19 of them would take me an hour or more, but what I'll let you do is I'll let you pick 5 random numbers and I'll pick them from my 19. I just want to let you know that I'm actually just starting on day 1 of my 10x Your Following Social Media Challenge. So if you like the idea and, um, you think some of the content I'm sharing here is valuable, then, um, you could join the challenge where I will go immediately into detailing the 19 things I learned, um, doubling my social media channel, um, following from half a million over 7 years. To 1.1 million in the next 10 months. So Reese, how you doing, Reese? Reese Blaine Kearney there. Reese has picked number 5. Here we go, number 5 then. And by the way, just put a number between 1 and 19 and I'll pick them from my 19 things I learned. Many of them are mistakes, by the way, in, um, 10xing my social media following. So, uh, number 5 is you have to be prepared to fail. You have to do lots of content that doesn't do very well to smash out the content that does. So right now, for example, I'm live here on Facebook and I'm also live here on TikTok, and there aren't that many people on my TikTok live. There's a reasonable amount on my Facebook live, but not— maybe not as many as normal. So what? Now sometimes when you go live, you have loads of people on. I've done, um, videos with 200,000-300,000 views just in the last few days on Facebook. I've done 500,000+ view videos, and then I've done some videos which have barely got 50 people on the live. And on TikTok, it's even less because TikTok's quite new for me for the live feature. I've only been going live a couple of months max. I often go live mostly on, say, Facebook and then just have my TikTok in the background. So if I was just interacting with TikTok, it'd probably be better. If I was doing Q&As and getting you all to like my content and follow and doing shoutouts and Q&As each channel I could probably build, but I'm prepared to go live on multiple channels. I've now got a load of phones, prepared to go live on 4 or 5 channels, and if I don't get much reach or much impact in them, so what? I'll try again tomorrow. So what? I'll try the day after, the day after, the day after, the day after. I don't care. I'm prepared to fail. I'm prepared to have a couple of blips and tech issues. I actually launched my 10x your following social media challenge this morning and we had a tech issue. And video 1 was 4 hours late. Fuck. Still did it. Still alive. So if you want to get good at growing your social media and get prolific with your content, you need to be prepared to fail. You need to have plenty of content that doesn't do well, and then some of it will. Some titles don't work, a few do. Some times of day don't work, a few do. Some prerecorded videos you spend ages creating don't work and some do. Sometimes you seem like you're going viral all the time and then sometimes you seem like you've got weeks of tumbleweed. It's just the game. So that was number 5 of 19 things I've learned, taking 7 years to build 100,000 followers, sorry, 500,000 followers, and then taking, what, another 9 to 10 months to build up to more than 1.1 million. So pick another one, my friends in the live. What number would you like me to pick next At random, number 12. Samantha, how are you? So Samantha wants me to share number 12. Follow my 70-20-10 rule of content. 70% of your content should be on your niche. So for me, my niche is, um, start and scale up entrepreneurial content, getting better financial education and knowledge. Um, it is about content creation, building a personal brand, creating multiple streams of income, creating recurring income, building assets. This is my kind of content. So my job is to share that around about 70% of the time. Then 20% of the time should be newsjacking or engagement jacking. Now, newsjacking is something that goes on in the news, and then you create content on it to surf that wave, to ride that energy, to leverage the emotion and the discussion and the wide-reaching nature of that existing news. That's what newsjacking is. Now, I never really used to do it because I didn't know how to do it, and I also thought, well, it's not really on brand for entrepreneurship, yada yada. Um, but now I realize through a lot of testing that actually content that is either about the mainstream media news that everyone is talking about or is linked to the mainstream media news that everyone is talking about, that content will be most viral. So here's the random thing. I've currently got 36 people on this Facebook Live, which if you think about it, I've got 168,800 followers. That's really low. But just a couple of hours ago, I had hundreds of people on a Live, and then yesterday morning I had even more people on a Live. I've got a video with 205,000 views in less than 48 hours, because that was about the pandemic. It was about Boris's press conferences and some of his decisions. To make us wear masks and things. And everyone's talking about that right now in the UK. So 70% of your content is going to be on brand for your niche or about you and your business. 20% of your content is going to be news jacking or engagement jacking. Now, engagement jacking is content that you create that is designed to get engagement. You know, maybe it's a question, maybe it's creating a bit of a polarized debate or making a controversial statement or a strong claim. And then the final 10% of your content should be pitching or promoting or making an offer or doing something commercial. So again, a lot of people say to me, Rob, I'm really overwhelmed with what content I should put on social media. I don't know what, um, I don't know what to divide my time between. 70% of your time about you, your personal brand, your business, your company, and your niche. 20% of your time riding the wave of the news and the media and news and engagement jacking. And then 10% of the time should be spent pitching and promoting and selling your products and services. Now, some people spend 0.1% of their time promoting themselves. That's not enough. You're not going to make any money. But some people, all they do is fucking pitching. That's too much. You've got to get that balance right. And I reckon it's 1 post every 10. Now, if you're not really that prolific on social media, you only go live 5 times a week, do 1 pitch in every 5. Because I'm live every day. So 1 in every 10, you know, that's, um, it's reasonable, isn't it? And it doesn't mean it's too infrequent. Um, I have my 10x Social Media Following Challenge live right now. Um, so if I were making a pitch right now, that's what I'd probably offer. Stay with me to the end because I'm going to tell you about the 10x Social Media Following Challenge where you can get immediate access to the 19 different lessons and mistakes I've made over the years Taking 7 years to build 500,000 followers on social media, but then just 9 months to more than double that to 1.1 million. So thanks for your number there, Samantha. Who else would like to pick a number? Any number between, um, 1 and 19, but we've already had 5 and we've already had 12. Pick another number. 14. So Myella Music has picked number 14. Go live when you can. It seems to grow your channels and grows your community loyalty. So right now I'm live on Facebook and I'm live on TikTok. So hello, thanks for following me here and watching my lives. By the way, if you're on TikTok, make sure you're following me. That means that you'll be able to see when I go live in the future. So if you don't do many lives, you're missing a great opportunity because on many channels, not all but many, you get more engagement on lives, you get more virality on lives And importantly, you get more connection and community. I can see Emma Ingleton's just joined there. I could see my friend Rick Gannon has just joined there. I can see soulmates.co.uk has picked number 17. So when you're live, you can engage with people and create more of a community than if you just post a pre-record video, for example. Also, not on all but most channels, lives does get more virality. I find my lives do better on Facebook than my pre-recorded video content. It's not the same on TikTok. On TikTok, I have 115,700 followers, um, and many of my videos will get hundreds of thousands or millions of views. Yet many of my lives will sort of struggle to get 200 to 250 people watch the whole thing, and sometimes I've got between 5 and 12 people on the live. So TikTok's a bit different to Facebook, but definitely Facebook Lives I find are really good. And some people, by the way, have really hacked TikTok Lives I think it's because they, um, look at me, I look nice. Yeah, look at me. Um, you know, they look good, or, um, their content is their assets, and not in the form of content, shall we say, or, or they've just found a way to really get engagement. But you'll get your best engagement on live. So, um, give me a yes in the comments if you do lives on any channel. Give me a no in the comments if you don't do lives on any channel. But start doing more lives. Now I'm currently live on TikTok and on Facebook. I have my Instagram phone here as well, so sometimes I do Instagram too. Um, so yes, uh, Soulmates has just said, I just find that some people watch nonsense lives than actual informative business and personal development. To a certain degree you are right. And actually I'm going to pick a number now. Um, so I'm going to move on. So that's doing more lives will give you good, uh, following. More virality, more engagement, because you want a quality follower as well as just a number follower, don't you? You want someone who you've engaged with. Now, what number is it? It's about entertainment. Okay, all right, yeah, yeah, yeah, fine. Number 11. Sorry about the pause there. I've got here on my screen the 19 different lessons and mistakes I learned 10xing my social media following from 500,000 in 7 years to 1.1 million in 7 years and 9 months. And number 11 is: if you can entertain as well as inform, you will go more viral you will get more shares, and you will grow much more quickly. So, soulmates, to your point here where, um, I just find that people watch more nonsense lives than actually informative— people want to be entertained right now, you know. COVID, the lockdown, the last 2 years are hard. People just want escapism. They just want to be entertained. And it used to piss me off for years. Come on, I've got actually really good content, and I've only got 4 people on my live. What I can do could really help people's lives, and they don't want to watch. But can someone sit there with a pair of leggings on, vacuum-packed up their butt, wobbling it around and get millions of views? Or they can sit there throwing a ping pong, ding dong, ding dong, way away in a hole, yeah, you know, and blah blah blah, all these pranks. But in reality, entertainment is way more viral than education. I've learned that and I know that. So at the very least, try and be entertaining in your informative content. That's known as edutainment. Educational and entertaining. Edutainment. But at the very least, try and be more entertaining in your information. And if you can do some crazy mad fun entertaining things, it will give you more virality. You can be someone who shares really useful information, but you can do it in a fun way. And every now and again, you can just do some crazy shit, uh, and you're probably still not going to ruin your brand. You're probably going to improve your brand. You're You're certainly going to gain more virality, more interaction, more engagement, and more growth. Okay, so next one, pick a number, my friends, a number between 1 and 19, but not 11, 5, or 12 because I've covered those. I'm sharing 5 lessons, um, of going from half a million followers to 1.1 million followers in 10x speed. I— it took me Um, 7 years to build half a million and then 9 to 10 months to get to 1.1 million. Natalie, how are you? Natalie's pick number 7: watch time. So watch time is really important now across all channels. They're looking for longer watch time, especially on TikTok. They want 100% watch time, i.e., they're looking for someone to watch your entire video, and if everyone swipes off after a second, you won't get much reach. On Facebook, they're looking to get you through the first 3 seconds and then the first minute. So that when you look in your Creator Studio on Facebook, they'll have 3-second views and that might be 70% of the views. They'll have 1-minute views, that might be 12% of the views, and then they'll have beyond 1-minute views, 10-minute views and on. And YouTube's all about getting that watch time up to 10 minutes and over. Because they want to hold you onto their channel. They want to retain you. So basically, you are getting rewarded for watch time. So some ways to hack watch time— and I didn't do it in this content, and I should have done— um, but it's throw some seeds to things that are coming. I'll tell you in a moment about the 10x Your Social Media Following Challenge and how you can, um, jump on board and increase your social media following dramatically. I'll also tell you how you can access the content for all 19 of the lessons and the mistakes that I've made in going to 1.1 million followers. So there I'm telling about something I'm going to give you in the future of the video, whether it's a minute or 10 minutes later. So you can link to something coming in the video soon, or you could do a little bit of a pattern interrupt at the start— controversial statement, get their attention, stop— and anything right at the start to stop them scrolling. Um, you can incomplete, so you can have You know, 3 ways to monetize social media, and the third is the best, number 1. And you can sort of try and draw them into watching number 3. So these are ways that you can keep people watching longer. You can make your content really interesting. You can go the ideal length of time, which varies on each channel, by the way. So that was number 7. Watch time's really important, and the longer your watch time, the more viral you are. I don't know if you've seen how people edit videos on TikTok now. But they'll loop it. So it'll start and you can't really see when it ends because it starts again, and it looks like it's carrying on on one video, but it's actually looping. And some clever people have done that to extend the watch time beyond 100% of the, um, total amount of time, and that gets you a load of virality. You know, sometimes you go on TikTok and watch videos and you're just waiting and waiting and waiting, and actually there's nothing there. It's just to drag up the watch time. Okay, this is Yan. Yan's picked number 1. I like your style, Yan. So hit a number in the comments between 1 and 19, but not 1, 7, 11, or 12 because they've been covered. I'm sharing 5 lessons and mistakes I learned along the way, hardcore grinding it out to get 1.1 million followers on social media. I wasn't a viral sensation, I wasn't on Love Island, I wasn't on a reality TV show. I didn't get naked. I don't have an OnlyFans. I'm not an actor, a singer, or a celebrity. I had to do it old school, hardcore. All right, number 1, Jan. This is the best one, Jan, actually. Well, it's the most important one. You— now you're picking another one, Jan. All right, so number 1 is accept, engage with, and enjoy the critics. So if you want to go more viral on social media, get more followers and fans, more browsers into buyers, more reach into revenue, more information and impact into income, you absolutely need to accept that you're going to get haters and trolls and critics. And you've got to engage with them and get involved with them and have some banter with them and keep them commenting and keep them in the subthreads and wind them up because they'll wind up your algorithm and you'll go more viral. So never waste a good critic in the comments. Engage with them if you can, if it doesn't throw you off your content, uh, and they will continue to comment. They'll watch you all pissed off, they'll make loads of comments, the algorithms will love it, your fans will come to your defense, your threads will go wild. But also, it's a mindset thing as well. It's the mindset of accepting and engaging with critics and trolls and haters. So for example, if you're too scared to have critics and if you're worried about having haters, you just won't go live. You won't post controversial or polarizing or strong opinionated content. You'll post vanilla stuff. You won't show your true personality. You'll be a bit scared. You'll be a bit meek. You won't post the volume. You'll hide away. So Del Boy Trotter's trying to troll me right now on this subject of trolling. No, no, this isn't a wig. Someone called it a tennis ball head earlier. It's actually good feedback because it kind of is a tennis ball head. It's at that length. So actually, sometimes my critics are right, but I'm fucking rich, so I don't give a fuck. There you go. Um, but yeah, uh, get involved with the critics and the haters and the trolls and the judges. And don't be scared of them, otherwise you'll never put your content out there. Okay, so I've covered 5 lessons and mistakes in building 1.1 million followers across my social media channels, 90% organic, 10% ads or tests and paid. So 90% of those purely organic, which means content, and I get viral growth. What we covered is accepting, engaging with, and enjoying the critics, trolls, haters, punks, and wankers. Getting your watch time up through some tips and tricks. We covered my 70-20-10 rule of content. We covered entertaining as well as informing and educating. All right, so I actually have 19 different lessons and mistakes and things that I've found along the way in my 8 years of being a social media content creator. I've grafted in it hard in the early years and not really getting any benefit other than maybe a bit of brand and maybe some backend sales, but no frontend revenue, no 18 ways of monetizing social media like they are now, no viral growth like I'm getting now. So, um, ST Croft has just asked, where can I get the content I've missed on the live? So if you want to go immediately now and gain access to the deep dive live, the 19 ways, um, to hack growth on social media to gain virality, and the lessons and mistakes that I learned more than 10xing my following, jump in right now and join my Social Media 10x Your Following Challenge. Now, if you do it right now, instead of paying the £300 to £500 that it would cost if you were to get the recording of the course early 2022, if you actually jump in on my, um, members area It's called, um, support us on Facebook. It's called Rob.team, not on Facebook. You can actually gain access to this just for being, um, a subscriber of mine. Now, being a subscriber of mine only costs you the cost of one cup of coffee per month. I'm just putting the link in the Facebook. So I've just put the link in Facebook right now, bit.ly/cashrm. So you can go there in a moment. Let me just tell you what you get. If you're watching on TikTok, the link is rob.team. R-O-B dot T-E-A-M. One's on Facebook, one's off Facebook, but it's the same platform. So on my members area, for just the cost of one cup of coffee per month, £3.49, not even $5, 10 pieces of premium content from me on starting and scaling your business, on entrepreneurship, on sales, on marketing, on content creation, on building a following, on monetizing social media, etc. This is, uh, the kind of content you get. And you get 10 pieces of premium content a month from me. You get 2 Ask Me Anything Lives a month. You get access to some of my events like the 2-Day Recurring Income Summit or the Special Mindset and Money Live event, as well as many other benefits. And you get all of that for just the cost of one cup of coffee per month. The link I've put in on the Facebook Live is bit.ly/cashrm. That'll take you to join on Facebook. Now here's the thing, if you go and join right now, then you're going to be able to gain access to my 10x Your Social Media Following Challenge, which is now live. Now we're doing a 5-day challenge And on this challenge, I'm going to do about 14 hours over 9 modules of content on 10x-ing your social media following. I'm going to record that all, and then it's going to be a paid-for course that's going to be anywhere between $300 and $500 in early 2022. You will see me sell it in 2022. But if you want to gain access to the entire 12 to 14 hour course completely for free then join my supporter platform, bit.ly/cashrm. If you use Facebook, it's best to join on Facebook. If you don't use Facebook, really, you know, like Facebook, join at the link rob.team, R-O-B dot T-E-A-M. Now, in about 5 minutes, I'm gonna do the entire 19 lessons and mistakes and things that I learned 10x-ing my social media following, going from 500,000 in, what, 7 years to 1.1 million in 7 years and 10 months. I just shared 5 with you because, you know, I asked you to share numbers with me and I picked them at random, but I'm going to cover all 19, bang, right now in my 10x Your Social Media Following Challenge. I'm also going to teach you 18 ways to monetize social media, 20 ways to create great content, 8 ways to hack virality, how to increase your engagement, your interaction, your reach, your virality, your shares, and multiple ways to monetize your content in the creator economy. So go right now because I've got to finish right now. The link is bit.ly/cashrm. The link is in the comments. Go join, you'll be a member of my supporter program. It's just £3.49 or $5 a month, the cost of one cup of coffee. You could come in, get this £300 to £500 10x your social media following challenge and course completely for free over the next 5 days. And then if you didn't like it, you could cancel. So in fact, you get a week's free trial in Facebook, so it's actually no risk. So I'll see you on the other side, on the inside, at bit.ly/cashrm, where I'm immediately now going to go live in the supporter challenge and share the 19 lessons I learned building 1.1 million followers and many mistakes I made so that you can build a quicker and more viral and more buying social media following. I'll see you soon. The link's in the comments.