Welcome to The Social Smarty Show, your weekly podcast for social media marketing tips, tactics and practical digital marketing advice. Let's get you taking real action to grow your online audience, build connections and your business. I'm your host, Jodine McIntyre. Think of me as your digital marketing coach, cheerleader and wingwoman all rolled into one. Grab some of my social media marketing know-how for free at socialsmarty.com.freebies. Now, before we dive in, make sure you subscribe so you don't miss any future episodes.
Welcome to The Social Smarty Show. This is episode number two.
I'm really looking forward to this episode. I'm going to share with you the six things that I see that are working really well in social media right now. As we head into 2022, we need to ditch those outdated tactics that are not serving us anymore. We need to think about maybe a little bit of a more fresh approach to our social media, shall I say.
I'm going to dive right in with number one. This is all about authenticity and personality. Now I know, I know this is nothing new. Experts have been telling us that we need to be authentic online and show our personality for years now. But we're just really doubling down for 2022. It's really time to show the people or the person behind the brand. And we can see big accounts, big businesses that are doing this over on TikTok, not only in the content that are creating, but also in the way that they engage with other content creators, the comments that they're leaving and the conversations that they're having.
We're even seeing the social media managers. We're seeing the real faces that usually would be hiding behind a brand. It's so refreshing to see this authenticity, see this personality coming out. And it's time for you, if you haven't already, to think about how you can be a little bit more authentic and show up with a bit more personality in your own social media. Don't be afraid to be a little bit vulnerable, maybe share a bit more of your personal life. I want to know what makes you tick, what you're interested in, what values you have, what you do in your spare time. All of these sorts of things are going to help me deepen my connection with you.
Now, stories. If we think about Facebook and Instagram, stories, that's a really great platform to show up authentically. Maybe if you want to keep your feed content still quite polished and then your followers, because it's only your followers really that see your stories. If you want to take them a little bit deeper, that's where you can show your face a little bit more, tell some more stories, and share your personal life. And empower your team to do the same. That's really important, if you're working in a team, don't just try to take over the social accounts as one person, so whether you're the owner or the social media manager. Think about how you can incorporate your whole team into that content.
Number two is collaboration. Now, this is massive for 2022. Think about how you can collaborate with another business or another brand that shares a similar audience. Now, it could be as simple as creating an Instagram post or a Reel for Instagram and using the built-in collaboration feature. So to do that, you create your post, and then in the settings for that post, you add another account. They'll get a notification that invites them to collaborate. And if they accept, that means that post is not only posted and shared with your audience, but also with their audience. So it's like they're introducing you to their network and the same for you. So you're introducing them to your network. So that's why it's really important to think carefully about who you collaborate with and how aligned your values are and also your audience.
Now, another way to collaborate is live video. Instagram, we can go live now with up to three other accounts. And again, that allows you to be introduced to those other audiences and introduce your collaborators with your audience. So collaboration, think about who you might be able to collaborate and how you can do that this year.
Number three is memes. Now, memes are nothing new. But again, people are really enjoying that relatable or humorous content. So think about what your audience would laugh at or really relate to and create a meme around this. Now, you can search online. You can do a Google search. You can have a look on Instagram. There's whole accounts that are built around memes. The key is to tailor it for your audience. Your goal is to have someone in your audience think, wow, that is so relatable or oh my gosh, that is so funny - I'm going to share it with my own audience! And what that does is it increases your reach. Memes can be highly shareable and a great way to increase your reach.
Number four is short vertical video. I think Reels, TikTok, Pinterest Idea Pins, YouTube Shorts, that sort of thing. So we're holding our phone vertically and we're shooting video that way and we're keeping it really short. So think 30 seconds max. Now, TikTok and Reels are the first two that spring to mind for me, and that's sort of the easiest to get started with. If you're not sure about Instagram, Reels, jump onto my website, socialsmighty.co/freebies, and you'll find a couple of guides there to walk you through making different types of Reels.
If you're keen to try out TikTok, TikTok does take a little bit more effort if you really want to succeed with the platform. So you need to have a bit of a plan. Unless you just want to dabble and have a go, then absolutely go for it. But if you haven't already embraced this short form, vertical video, now is the time.
Number five is LinkedIn I know, I know - it's like the OG online networking platform. It feels very old school but you will be really surprised if you haven't been over to LinkedIn for a while, the vibe has completely changed. It is now a real hub for sharing ideas, information, sparking conversation. It is a fantastic platform. I heard it described recently as, "social media for adults". Go and check it out if you haven't lately go and make sure at least your profile is up to date and spend some time on LinkedIn and see what you think.
Lastly, we have balance. So it's so important in this year that we find some balance between showing up online and living in the real world. Now if you feel like you are tied to your social media accounts you need to step away. There's absolutely nothing wrong with taking the weekend off or putting your phone away in the evenings and even removing the apps that suck up your time from your phone and only using them on desktop.
Another really simple way to streamline your social media use is to batch your content so create your content in advance. Batch it even if you're doing two weeks at a time, that means that you can set and forget a lot of that content and just spend time shorter amounts of time engaging on the platforms.
So there we have it, the six things I see working really well in social media right now. Number one showing up authentically and showing your personality. Number two collaboration number three memes. Number four Reels and TikTok or short form vertical video. Number five is LinkedIn and number six is finding that balance between showing up online and living in the real world. I hope that has helped. I hope that sparked some ideas for how you can show up for your audience online.
I would love for you to follow along my podcast hit the follow or the subscribe button to play depending on where you're listening from and I will see you in episode number three.
