Want to get more reach on your social media posts?
There’s a couple of really key fundamentals that apply to every social media platform out there. All of these tools are free and they make a lot of money. How do they make that money? By selling ads.
Your Eyes Lead to Their Profits
The more people that use their platform, the more eyes they have on their platform, the more ads they can put in front of them, and thus the more money they make. And the longer they can keep those people on the site, the more ads they can continue to show.
In other words, the way they make all of their money is by keeping users on the platform and keeping them coming back. So when I post something the platform algorithm wants to figure out if this is engaging interesting content. But they also wanna know is this engaging content that will keep people on their site send them elsewhere?
Which is why the blog links you post on Facebook usually have underwhelming performance. Once somebody leaves Facebook to browse your fabulous blog, they might get into a rabbit hole and never come back to Facebook, right? And Facebook doesn’t want that.
Use Native Content Instead
The way to work with these companies and meet their interests as well as yours is to use native content. I.e. post content directly on their platform. Whether it’s a photo, text, or a video, upload it directly to the platform, rather than posting it as an external link. If it’s effective content, they will want to show that to a lot of people, because it keeps people engaged in the platform, while meeting your needs to get your word out there.
You should still post to your blog! But when you want to share that post on LinkedIn, don’t just post the hyperlink. Instead publish it as a LinkedIn Article (and at the bottom add “Originally published at YourWebsite.com). LinkedIn is going to show that to a lot more people, because that keeps them on the platform. Same is true for videos: they’ll perform a lot better if you upload them directly to LinkedIn and Facebook than if you just post YouTube links.
We have to be less obsessed with our website traffic and be more willing to put ourselves where our customers, our supporters, and those we want to influence already are. And where they are is on their social networks.
There’s so much more to your presence in the digital world today. Your website is one piece of this massive beautiful universe. Get out there, follow the rules and the social networks will actually help you (instead of ruining your life like social media had done for most of us).
