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Why You Need a Social Plan

Lesson 2 from: Build a Social Media Plan That Actually Makes Money

Ryan Deiss

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Lesson Info

2. Why You Need a Social Plan

Lesson Info

Why You Need a Social Plan

Alright, so let's talk about why you need a social plan in general. Why do we need to really think through a plan, why can't I just go out there and just start doing this thing? Let's talk about what doesn't work. And what I know I've tried in the past, this is a very old screenshot, which is why it's really blurry, I apologize for that. But I remember when Twitter first came out. I was like, oh, I get it. I can go and follow a bunch of people they'll follow me back and then I'll just spam whatever offer I'm promoting right now to all these folks and they'll think that that's a great idea. This person did not think that that was a great idea. (audience laughing) This person thought that it was a very bad idea. And where I was fortunate is that when I was first getting started, there wasn't a lot of people out there. And so as angry as this person was, their one follower saw it. So I think we did okay, but I know for a fact that this doesn't work. And I still see a lot of people coming ...

on social, still even to this day, and thinking that on day one they can just fire up Facebook and just start wanna buy my stuff, wanna buy my stuff, wanna buy my stuff. Never forget that social is still a party. And if you were to walk into a party, especially if you didn't really know a lot of people, and you just walked up to folks and you're like, "Hey, nice to meet you. "I sell life insurance." Anybody here ever seen Groundhog Day? (audience mumbling) Ned Ryerson, boof! And he eventually punches the guy who's just trying to sell, or did you ever sit on an airplane next to somebody who's trying to sell, and your stuck? That's awful. Don't be that person in social. We have a name for those types of people. It starts with an A and ends with a hole, right. You get the idea. So don't be that person. The other thing that I see a lot of people doing on social is they're like let's just be social. Let's just be really nice and talk about the things that we're doing. These are some brands that are doing really great things, but I know that just going out there and talking about the nice stuff that you're doing, talking about the things that are really helpful, nobody cares. I'm not saying you shouldn't do it. But that shouldn't be your entire plan, that shouldn't be your entire strategy. People might think it's great, but they're going to move on with their lives and hear about the things that are most interesting to them. And obviously just posting and praying doesn't work. (audience laughing) Just here we go, why isn't it working. And the reason is that where we are today, organic reach isn't dead, but it is on life support. It is on life support. Here's a fun slash not so fun chart. Back in 2011, if you were to do a brand, if you were to post, put out a post on your Facebook page, that post would be seen on average by 26% of your brand followers. 26% would see that. Pretty good. Nearly a quarter. And given the fact that not everybody was on that platform as much, I mean we think back in 2011, mobile wasn't as much of a thing. So people pretty much only seeing it on desktop. That's pretty dang good. The very next year it had already dropped 10% down to 16%. By two years later, it was more than half, like half off of where it was at its high. Where we were at the end of 2017 was .5%. .5%, if you did a post of all of your brand's followers would now see that post on Facebook. .5% down from 26%. That is like an order of magnitude and a half. That is just, like, your mom maybe saw it. This is what has happened to organic reach, because Facebook and a lot of the other platforms and channels, I use Facebook a lot because they're obviously the Godfather of that. But they've kinda said, "You gotta pay for it." That's what's happened. So if you're gonna win at social, you need to have a plan. It doesn't just work by being there. It doesn't work by showing up. You need to know and have that plan to make it work. Now before we talk about, dive into the plan itself, I do wanna bring us back to where all this began. And we can't forget that social is still about people, and people have reasons for doing things. So what is the real goal of social media? Why do people actually use social? This was a poll that was put out and these were the top reasons that people selected for why they use social. See if any of these sound familiar. 42% they use social to stay in touch with friends. That make sense. Does anybody, by the way, remember what social media was called before it was called social media? Does anybody remember? Still started with social. Here's a hint. The movie about Facebook was called the social what? Network. Network. This used to be called social networking. Because the idea was that we were going to leverage the social channels to better network with our friends. What all the big social platforms did is they said, no, no, no, we're not just for this artisanal networking, we're a big media company to attract the big brands. So the whole terminology changed. So people still use it, though, to stay in touch with friends. That's a big part of it. But as we shifted from phase one into phase two, social networking became social media. A lot of what we're gonna be talking about in this particular class is reclaiming some of those early concepts of social networking. They use it to stay up to date with current events. 41%, what could go wrong there? Especially when everything on Facebook is absolutely true. (audience laughing) People use it to fill spare time. 39% filling spare time. Number four, 37% to find funny or entertaining content. I would argue that that's a subset of three, but we'll keep going. General networking with people. So those are folks that I don't necessarily just wanna talk with friends, I also wanna talk with strangers. And I don't understand, but apparently some of you like talking to strangers. I'm convinced that strangers wanna stab you and sell you drugs, but there you have it. (audience laughing) This is, I love the honesty of this 33% because my friends are there. You know, if all your friends are jumping off a bridge, would you do it too? 33% said absolutely. To share photos and videos, 32%. 30% to share my opinion. I wanna be heard, to share my opinion. 29% to research, find products to buy. Obviously I realize that these add up to more than a 100%, people were allowed to make multiple choices. Some of you are like, eh. Fake news. Alright, and then 27% to meet new people. Now I think all of these are really, really good reasons. I think that there was one group in particular that was really honest about it, and that's this one. 39% people are on social to fill up spare time. I think we need to all face the facts and remember that the real goal of social media is to waste time. That is generally why we are on social. That is why we check in every few minutes, right? It is to waste time. In other words, social media is entertainment. It is entertainment. Content is of two forms. Education and entertainment. Oftentimes we can combine the two and yay, that's good. But social is, at the end of the day, an entertainment media. That is what it is. And this has interesting implications. That means that anything commercial is by definition an interruption. If you're doing anything at all commercial, if you have any commercial intent whatsoever in social, you are an interruption. And my message to you today is really, really simple. Get over it. Okay? Get over it. For so long, a lot of the social media practitioners and gurus said don't sell anything, don't be commercial, just engage and eventually it'll come back around. Look if you have any commercial intent, you're an interruption. Now I'm not saying that you can't balance. Remember we can be both informative and entertaining. You can walk and chew bubble gum at the same time. But if you don't get okay with the fact that if you have any commercial intent, nobody up there really said, I'm here to buy stuff, I wanna find new things to buy. None of you, that's not why you're really doing social in general. You're there to waste time. You're there to waste time. The key, however, is balance. We need to balance these things out. And that's because pure advertising is ignored. That's happened from the beginning and I showed you an example of when I decided to do some pure advertising. It's like hey, buy my stuff, buy my stuff, buy my stuff. People don't like that. Nobody likes that. That's never really worked. At the same time pure content is never seen. There was a time early on where you could just give and give and give and be nice and enough people would see it that you could glean some benefit from it. But when one half of one percent is seeing this amazing, astounding content that you're putting out, I'm sorry but you are yelling into the void. I don't care how great it is. They're just not seeing it. You're on a deserted island. And that's why you gotta do both. Social media today and a good social media plan is about yes, amazing content that people care about, but it's also about being willing to pay to amplify that content at least in the beginning. This is a disclaimer. I'm gonna talk about advertising. In some of the other classes that are in Creative Live that talk about the different channels, they're gonna talk about advertising because to get results from social today, you must be willing to pay to amplify. That's just the reality that we are in. So be okay with that, but it's not swinging the pendulum all the way. And so we're gonna talk about exactly how you do that.

Class Materials

Bonus Materials with Purchase

Social Media Scorecards
Presentation Slides (PDF)

Ratings and Reviews

Cat in the Moon Photo
 

This class was phenomenal! Ryan was incredibly engaging and kept the subject matter easy to understand, even for someone who is quite new to all of this. I loved that even though the class is about social media, he brought everything back to the importance of human interaction. I highly recommend buying this class if you need a kick in the butt to get going on social media but don't know where to start.

Reichel Neil
 

Great class! Once again Creative LIVE has delivered excellent material which can be applied immediately.

Micayla Cathleen Short
 

This class was incredibly helpful. It helped break down the kind of content to post, how to get users to engage with our content, which platforms we should utilize, etc. Much appreciated! :)

Student Work

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