Neil Simpson

One question I get asked all the time is “How do you get your social media read?”

And I would like to tell you a story to help you understand what we need to do for that to happen.

Ready?…great!

Last week I had a guy who is a professional writer (in his specialist field) ask me to help him “fix his social media”.

He spends a lot of time writing what he thinks is great content.

His work is well researched, knowledgeable and he assures me …academically on the money

Yet he cant get anyone to read it. His work is roundly and completely ignored.

So I looked at it.

And sadly it was dreadful.

It consisted of

• Densely packed heavy paragraphs of “information” that he wants to pontificate about.
• No clear reason to read the article at the start.
• Sprawling thinking that was broad and general.
• One kind of formatting for the whole document.
• No pictures.

Here’s the thing.

There is no magic to getting your social media read. Everyone is constantly searching for information

Constantly!!

You get your social media read by first attracting your readers attention.

People have an insatiable desire for more information on all kinds of subjects from celebrity haircuts to NASA space exploration and EVERYTHING in between.

If you aren’t getting your social media read it is probably due to one thing:

Your content is shit.

Don’t get me wrong, it may be extremely well punctuated and grammatically correct.

Its just not valuable.

And by valuable I mean, it doesn’t serve a purpose.

That is a purpose for other people.

I understand that it serves a purpose for YOU…telling people how great you are at what you do…or some bland rubbish tips that people have seen ten times before.

The world has enough “Top Tips” posts that are neither actual tips…nor in any sense…you know…Top

People have enough information – we are hungry for insight...better ways to use the information we already have.

Remember…

Your content needs to be valuable to your potential customers (no…telling them about the great opportunity they have to work with you isn’t valuable to them).

Your content needs to be Valuable in the way that it solves a problem they might have, or offers an insight they might need or helps them get more out of what they already have.

Or it is just plain fucking entertaining.

Think about it.

For all the above reasons and more.

Now let me ask you a question..

How often to you enjoy reading other organisations adverts….?

Never …right?

…neither do your customers

so….like the title says..here are 4 steps so you can…

Get Your Social Media Read

1. Write for a specific type of person

And that someone is your most valuable customer (MVC) or the person you want to get interested in BECOMING your MVC.

If you say “well anyone could buy my products/services” – you can just get out now!

Yes anyone could but I would make a million dollar bet that you have a small cluster of types of people who do so most often.

Its those lovely people you write for.

We are all different (in marketing terms) and we all respond to different types of information dependent on a number of different things, from:

• Our gender
• Our personality type
• Our age
• What we are aiming for in life
• What we are trying to avoid
• …and many other factors

and we are VERY good at ignoring information that doesn’t tick our boxes.

For you women readers…ask a guy you know the question below. And enjoy his absolutely blank look.

I have asked over 1000 men this question at my speaking events and I have had precisely zero responses that weren’t having the 80’s Bodyform jingle being sung at me.

None

Men see them all the time on TV.

Despite seeing thousands of them men remember none of them….because for men, they think they dont need to be educated about them, aren’t usually entertained by them (this may be the hilarious exception) and few insights can be delivered concerning them.

So it bounces off.

This is how good we are at ignoring information.

So…devise a detailed customer persona for your MVC and write specifically for them.

2. Make it easy/fun to read

Nobody reads these days.

Well mostly nobody. Most of us merely scan instead.

We flick our eyes around the page looking for things that capture our attention, pictures, key words, potential threats/opportunities…and if we don’t find them almost instantly….?

We bounce off.

So make it easy for the reader.

• Write shorter paragraphs
• Embrace the line break.
• Try selective formatting
• Bullet point things that are valuable or interesting.

3 Make their lives better

Hold nowt back – if you are “saving your best stuff” for your paying customers…you may well find they will be saving their money to spend with your competitors.

Once you have decided who your MVC is…identify their top challenges and fix them. Your advice, links to resources, information templates, whatever you can think of that will make a real difference to the people you are writing for

and help them…for real, as much as you can.

when you are creating content with genuine value…people will share it, because it will make a difference.

And we all like being the person who shares the cool new things.

Help your readers be that guy…and you are heading in the right direction.

4. Make the value easy to find

Both on the web…and in the article

This is important.

In the article…

By writing in short well formatted paragraphs with bullet point lists, effective formatting and good images you can make sure that the reader can pull the important stuff out of the rest of the copy easily.

The more your reader learns to expect great value that is easy to extract – the more likely they are to read future content you produce.

On the Web…

Ensure that you are writing about what people are searching for by using Google Keyword Planner or other keyword TOOL to make sure that the keywords you use in writing your article are ones that are being searched for.

You can also use a plug-in like Yoast while you are writing your content to ensure that your writing quality is high and that your post is configured well for other SEO factors.

So!

There you have it…4 very simple steps to help ensure that people are reading what you are writing.

Do let me know how you get on…if you have any direct questions mail me at hello@neilsimpson.info

Thank you for reading

Neil