If My Mother Can Do Social Media So Can Your Business
I used to joke that my mother is a social media guru, but truth be told, she had more engagement than most of my clients put together
It all started with a simple Facebook account — isn’t that the usual start of almost every digital age fairytale?
I wouldn’t have imagined 9 years ago when my brother and I created my mother’s Facebook account that she’ll love it so much and use it as her personal blog. But she did.
Now, she says that Facebook helps her relax after a long work day. It’s also the best way to share her passion for books, art, travelling and gardening with her little community. Zuckerberg knew what he was doing when he started all this, I must say.
When I used to work as a social media marketer, I got to meet all kinds of clients with different goals and expectations when it came to their social media marketing strategy.
One thing they all had in common is that they were struggling to gather an audience or to engage with the one they already had. In the meanwhile, my mother’s posts were effortlessly receiving likes and comments.
How can that be?
It’s simple: she instinctively follows the basic rules of good social media marketing. She understands her audience, posts regularly, curates her content, expresses her unique style all throughout her copy, and starts conversations on topics her followers care about.
Mother knows best, doesn’t she?
I bet that by now you’ve read tons of articles on how to build the most successful social media marketing strategy for your business. While these articles generally give useful advice, you can end up feeling overwhelmed at times. You might even start asking yourself if you’ve got what it takes to do this social media thing right.
This article is quite different from those I’ve mentioned as here we start with a simple story where YOU could be the protagonist. For every chapter of my story, I highlighted what my mother did right so that you can include that in your brand’s social media strategy. This way, what you read is both easy to follow and actionable.
Let’s get straight to the story then, shall we?
My mother takes the time to find her audience
And I’m not referring here only to family, friends and co-workers but to other people with similar interests and ways of thinking. In this case, people who read a lot, love to explore the world, take beautiful photos and have a great sense of humour when commenting on today’s realities.
If she finds a person like that, she includes them in her community. She either follows them or sends them a friend request after they chatted for a bit about a book they’ve both read or a place they’ve both visited some while ago.
There’s nothing more important than finding your tribe on social media. These people are the ones who will enjoy your content and will support you on your journey.
She stays true to herself in all she says
My mother is very good at using sarcasm and humour in her posts as she is at crafting compelling book reviews and recommendations. Her posts capture her unique personality and her values, which makes people appreciate the content on her page and listen to what she says.
She’s authentic — a quality that is highly valued in a digital world where sometimes things are not what they seem. Be genuine and you will gain people’s attention and, more importantly, their trust.
There’s no procrastination for my mom when it comes to posting
My mom is very active on Facebook. Be it old travel photos, a book review, a quote from one of her favourite authors or a great song she’s discovered recently, she will share all that with her audience. Sometimes, she draws people into a discussion by sharing someone’s casual rant that matches her exact views on a particular subject.
She usually posts multiple times a day, to be honest, and most of her posts have a high rate of engagement. This only comes to prove that if you post regularly on your social media account, you stay top of mind with your audience.
For those of you who are time-constrained, there are loads of great social media scheduling tools out there to pick from. These will help you save time when it comes to posting and allow you to create your personalised social media calendar.
From content curation to content creation, there’s nothing she can’t do
My mother likes to curates various types of content — such as videos, photos, memes, quotes, and articles — that she finds interesting and relevant for the people in her community. She does post her own content too, such as travelling pics, photos of her beloved garden, book reviews, news and general life musings.
She has content that informs, content that educates and content that simply entertains. That’s a great content mix to have when planning your social media strategy.
My mother is also a master at expressing her thoughts in writing which makes her quite a talented copywriter. Maybe it’s because she’s such an avid reader or perhaps she’s been gifted by an art-loving fairy at birth, we won’t ever know for sure.
But what happens if I’m not gifted with magical writing skills? you might ask.
Many people aren’t, but that doesn’t mean you can’t borrow the skills of a content writer to bring your ideas to life in a compelling form. That’s their mission in life — to write — so you can easily make two people happy just by hiring a content writer to help you share your message to the world.
You can count on my mother to keep the conversation going
She tries to respond to almost every comment she receives on her posts. Why? Because that’s the polite thing to do, of course. And also because that’s how conversations work, how relationships are built.
She leaves comments to other people’s posts on books, thanking them for their recommendations. She doesn’t shy away from going more in-depth about a subject to clarify things and she will defend her point of view if needed.
By using this conversational approach, my mother doesn’t struggle at all to get engagement on her posts. People like friendly people (and friendly brands, of course). So, next time when someone comments on one of your posts, take the time to reply to them.
So there you have it, folks — social media advice inspired by my lovely mother.
Maybe she won’t write a super detailed e-book on how to engage your audience and make your voice heard on social media just yet. Still, I’m sure she will continue to delight her Facebook friends with great posts.
If there’s one thing I want you to remember from this article, it’s this: you CAN successfully use social media to build trust and awareness for your business.
The key is to keep it simple and as human as possible.
