Newer marketers, or those who haven’t had a great deal of success on social media, tend to obsess over basic metrics like views and followers. That’s understandable, but it leads them to overlook something more foundational that could have a bigger impact on their success.
What is this unseen social media metric that so many people are missing? Authenticity.
Not what you would’ve guessed? To be fair, we set you up with something of a trick question. Authenticity isn’t a metric in the traditional sense. You can’t measure it on the dashboard the way you can click-through rate. It’s a very real quality nonetheless, though, and one that will probably make or break you on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram and other social media sites.
Here are a few ways you might think about the authenticity, or lack of authenticity, in your social messaging…
Are You Posting to Social Networks on a Consistent Schedule?
This is an easy-to-miss point, but you can’t be authentic in the eyes of your customers, vendors, and colleagues if they never hear from you. In other words, being authentic isn’t just about staying true to yourself and your brand, but also being consistent in the way you engage with your following.
To put this another way, you can’t be the thought leader in your industry – online or off – if you aren’t ever in the conversation. Plus, it gets easier to develop the right tone and voice when you practice daily, so don’t let your social feed go cold.
Is Your Marketing Persona Consistent from One Day or Campaign to the Next?
You should have a sense of what your business is about, what your clients or customers want, and the dynamic that exists between one to the other. Some of that has to do with your positioning in the market (low-cost, premium service, etc.), but it also involves your company’s personality. Is your marketing quick? Is it funny? Are you informal and local, or a global powerhouse?
It’s not enough to have the answer to these questions. You need to make sure they come through clearly in everything you post to your social accounts. Then you’ll feel authentic to fans and followers.
Are You Putting Forth the Right Kinds of Offers and Collaborations?
Many entrepreneurs and marketers find it easy to remain authentic right up until the point when they want to convert their social following into revenue. Then they get into all kinds of weird collaborations with affiliated brands and influencers, or shift from “find and inform” to “hard sell” in the blink of an eye.
Obviously, we don’t want you to make those sorts of mistakes. In addition to posting continually and having a strong identity, make sure that the offers you make are in line with the tone you have worked so hard to establish. Not only will that keep your followers on board, but it will probably help with click-through rates and ROI, as well.
Authenticity Is the Secret Sauce
These might seem like simple questions, particularly if you’re looking for a “secret tip” that will help you go viral overnight. But if you look around at your competition, or just the vast majority of social influencers in general, you’ll discover that most of them begin with an authentic point of view and go from there. In other words, they know what they’re good at, or what they have to say, and then devise a model of social engagement that fits. What they aren’t doing is having interns throw out random tweets, or just winging it from one day to the next.
The bigger the internet gets, the harder it is to make real connections with other people, much less brands and marketers. That’s why authenticity is such a powerful force. Make it the focus of your social media campaigns for the entire 2022 and see what happens in your business.
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