If you’ve ever swam in the sea where there’s a strong current, you have some idea of what it’s like swimming against the tide and in some cases how dangerous it is.
Well, the same can be said for trying to get your message across on Social Media., although it’s not likely there will be much in the way of danger. It’s just pure and simple hard going.
Starting at the very bottom of the ladder you are going to find very few people are going to follow you, like your posts, share your content and even acknowledge you exist. Each time you post something on Social media, you get zero feedback. That being the case, ask yourself this simple question. Why? The answer is multi-faceted, but you need to remember one thing, certainly in the case of Facebook and Twitter, postings fly by so fast it’s sometimes hard to keep track. But other than that, here’s a few other reasons.
Your posting wasn’t attractive therefore nobody saw it because …
- Your post wasn’t interesting
- Your post was unintelligible
- Your post used too many hashtags
- Your post didn’t use enough hashtags
- You’re plain unlucky
Okay, skip the last one, that’s just me being a cynic.
Now let’s go back a step and remember what I wrote about social media giants Facebook and Twitter. Both have content poured into them at an astonishing rate. According to Internet Live Stats Twitter has an average of 6,000 Tweets per second. Just let that sink in for a second, and in that second another 6,000 Tweets were sent! It is mind blowing and relentless traffic. From high drama Tweets to mundane rubbish and anything in between, every day, every hour, every minute and every second. And you’re surprised nobody seems to know you exist?
But all is not lost if you have a lot of time, the ability to create interesting content and, crucially, the ability to display your content in an attractive manner. In short, you need to catch someone’s eye. Just like the swimmer in the sea, swimming against a riptide, he needs to catch someone, anyone’s attention before he drowns. You, dear reader, are the same. You need to primarily catch the attention of people and then deliver content they want to read or view. How hard can it be? Well at 6,000 Tweets per second it’s going to be extremely hard, but you need one other thing to make your presence felt. You need perseverance.
Swimming against the tide is hard enough, but when it’s a tide of Tweets (not to mention Facebook, Instagram et al) it’s not easy, but worthwhile when someone likes what you write for the very first time.
Good luck… oh, and try not to swim in the road, the danger there is another type of relentless traffic running you over.
Copyright © Tom Kane 2020
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