Ryan’s Rules of Social Media Mastery

The purpose of social media (from a marketing perspective) is to engage with and grow your audience to better promote yourself and/or your organization.

5 Things Your Social Media Needs To Do

  • Promote - Talk about the latest events and happenings within your organization

  • Engage - Ask questions. Engage with your audience on their posts and on their feedback on yours

  • Inspire - You are awesome! Your company is awesome! Your industry is awesome! Tell the amazing stories that you have!

  • Educate - Fun facts. Cool trivia. Things they need to know or you want them to know.

  • Entertain - Make them laugh. Make them smile. Make them tell their friends.

Content Is Everything

  • It Doesn’t Matter How Good Your Strategy Is - No tips can make bad content viral and great content doesn’t need any promotion. This is perhaps the most oversimplified thing I’ve ever written, but it is worth stating bluntly.

  • Find Your True Fans - Where are the people that would tattoo your logo on their own bodies? What do they want to see?

  • Passion Beats Production - According to NFL.com, 208 million people watched the 2022 installment of the ‘big game’. Millions and millions of dollars were spent on production and the half-time show may have cost as much as $20 Million USD. I don’t think this cost that much. “Charlie bit my finger”, which has been removed from YouTube, had more than 900 million views when it was removed and sold as an NFT.

Nurture Your Audience

  • Don’t Build A House On Land You Don’t Own - direct your followers back to a website or mailing list. Cross-pollinate between multiple social media platforms.

  • Listen To Them - when they ask questions or ask to see certain things give them to your fans.

  • Surprise Them - even though they’ve tuned in because they love what you do most of the time, don’t let that stop you from trying to break the mould once in a while. Just make sure you don’t lose them.

Rules Of Engagement

  • Be Actionable - Make an ask of your audience. Include a link. Ask them to do something. Track everything.

  • Beware The Promotions Trap - Social media is for being social. Beware of being too promotional - that's what ads are for! Social media posts should be different from commercials.

  • It's Not About You - Engage with your audience on their posts to build a community.

  • Make Your Audience Feel Special - Like, heart, and reply to everyone.

  • Deal With The Trolls - They are too powerful to slay directly. Don't get crushed, but don't let them eat your villagers.

  • Spread The Love - If people post something nice about you (or a news story) it should be shared.

  • Clickety, Clackety, Get Typing - If it's worth hearting, it's worth commenting on. If it's worth sharing, it's worth commenting on.

Moderating Posts

  • Ignoring - Not everyone has to agree with you and not every comment needs a response.

  • Responding - If it looks like someone is open to a reasonable conversation, awesome! This is a great opportunity for learning (on both parts)

  • Hiding - On Facebook you can hide comments. This leaves them visible to the OP and their friends but hides it from everyone else.

  • Deleting - Perfect for unreasonable posts and racist comments

  • Banning - Great for spammers. A good option for serial offenders, bandwagon jumpers, and repeatedly offensive people. A last resort for fans/people who can't be reasoned with or who only want to argue.

Social Media Tips

  • Monitor Twitter, Facebook, Tik Tok, and Instagram (etc) for comments. This doesn't just mean looking for notifications. It also means searching for your brand and seeing what pops up.

  • At LEAST Twice Daily Replying to comments/engaging with people.

  • Identify and follow appropriate Hashtags

  • Follow Instagram Location Tags

  • Follow partner organizations and venues & share their content.

  • Ensure proper tagging of other venues, organizations, and people (triple-check your links!!!)

Implement And Maintain Social Media Calendars

  • Create & maintain a social media calendar, based on your Marketing Hit List

  • Use Daily & Weekly Calendars

  • Keep a yearly calendar to recognize recurring events and time periods that you always act on. This can help remind you in advance to prepare for these better.

  • Include non-promotional and conversational content!


What did I miss? What would you add?

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