Social Media Dos and Don’ts

with guest Cody Sperber #MakingBank S4E38

Cody Sperber dropped in for this week’s episode of the Making Bank podcast and left us with a ton of tidbits on how he’s had so much success on his social media platforms. With over a million followers on Instagram alone, there aren’t many people with a better understanding of how to build an online presence, and his insights are not what you might expect.

Chief among his suggestions is to forget the cheap tactics. Building a social media presence is hard work and there aren’t any real shortcuts. If you try to build your following artificially it will not end up being what you want and will probably end up popping like a balloon.

If you really want to build influence you need to get down to work. Here is a list of key ‘dos’ and ‘don’ts’ that can guide you on your journey, straight from the man himself.

Do Network

Making connections with others is an absolute must. Social media is really about social networking. You need to have a strong network if you’re going to succeed. If you aren’t focusing a good portion of time and energy on this, the rest of your efforts won’t matter at all.

Find people who align with what you’re doing and engage with them. On a basic level this means reaching out to people by liking and commenting on their posts. To get to the next level, put together a group of people with a similar follower count and work with each other by trading shoutouts. Doing this will organically draw attention to your page from people that are more likely to be interested in the content you are putting out, and that is the name of the game.

Don’t Cheat

The biggest mistake you can make on social media is to attempt to buy your way to success. This is a silly move for so many reasons we can’t even list them all here, but know that 1: you are not going to attract followers that will ever buy anything from you, and 2: it will actually make your account look terrible because you’ll have a huge number of followers but almost no engagement from them. It will be obvious that you bought a following, and once you go this route your account will basically be dead in the water.

Some people, such as Floyd Mayweather, create giveaways for people who follow a list of accounts. This does attract real followers rather than robots and fake accounts, but these people will generally not be interested in your products or content, making this a bad idea as well.

The purpose of building a following is to attract people who are interested in your content and could eventually make a purchase, and you’re not going to get those people through cheap methods.

Do create compelling content

What’s the opposite of cheating? Working hard to create great content that people actively want to consume. This is the key to getting engagement and followers who will be loyal and also click through to your site in the long run.

Without compelling content, no strategy for gaining followers will prove fruitful. Focus on your writing, your photography, your videos or whatever else you’re putting out. Once you are confident in your content, then get to work on the rest of these strategies.

Don’t sell!

Many people make the mistake of asking their audience for money much too quickly. If you are aggressively pitching products you’re going to drive people away. You need to create content that is aligned with your products, not just pitch everything directly. Don’t be so transparent!

When people arrive on your page their first impression should not be that you are going to ask them to spend money, their first impression should be that you put out interesting, unique content that can benefit their lives.

Do serve

And it shouldn’t just be an impression! You need to bring that value to people’s lives through engaging, thought provoking content that can enrich them. You should be serving your customers, not feeding off them. If you focus solely on how you can bring value to the lives of others, that value will be returned to you in the long run. If you do this well any customer who feels they have benefited from your work will be much more likely to buy a product or service in the future, when the time is right.

Don’t multi-publish

What’s more annoying than seeing the same post from someone on both Facebook and Instagram? Instead of doing this, you need to create tailored content on each network that compliments your work across platforms, but doesn’t repeat itself.

Facebook is known as being great for videos and long form content. Instagram is better for *surprise* photography, as well as quotes. Twitter is great for sharing everything from quick hit thoughts and insights to long form blog posts, and of course for making fun of the president.

Do align across platforms

Maybe Cody’s most insightful advice is to develop omnipresence, or the ability to be on everyone’s feed on multiple apps at the same time in order to gain recognition. Like him or hate him, we all know that Tai Lopez has got some serious omnipresence across platforms. When he starts a new campaign you can’t escape him, whether you’re on YouTube, Facebook or Instagram.

That type of commitment builds brand recognition as well as credibility, and it is the reason he has built such a massive, loyal following.

If you’re creating compelling content that serves your audience and networking with the right people, aligning that content across platforms and building an omnipresence of your own is the cherry on top that can catapult you to the next level of success in the digital realm, building a rewarding career by sharing your gifts with the world in the process.