Social media is tough, it’s a lot of noise and fills your day with distractions. Whether you’re a twitter fan, an Instagram fan or a facebook fan, you’re bombarded with topics that can range from overly negative to overly positive. There’s no middle, is there?
The same can be said with how people use social media as an influencer. Those that suck, really suck and those that are good, are really good.
We call these really good people marketing guru’s, mainly because guru is a word that means “will teach you things for a lot of money”. Marketing gurus know they systems it takes to bring in customers and can crank that dial to 11.
After I failed a side project and lost a lot of money, I took the time to research marketing material. It took about a year to digest books, courses, and other fun stuff. There are many strategies I don’t feel comfortable with using and My Food Job Rocks isn’t designed to be a money making machine. It’s designed to give people a voice in the food industry.
However, there are still many strategies I employ to help spread the word on My Food Job Rocks.
Saying I’m an influencer is a bit cringy, but for the sake of this article, if you want to become an influencer, you will have to recognize the outlets needed to disseminate your work.
Essentially, each media platform has its purpose but in terms of impact, the more “senses” you touch, the more you have the ability to “convert” someone to listen to you.
Reach
As you walk through the grocery store, you are bombarded with 100s of SKU’s telling you to “buy me”. As I look more into the retail space, perhaps the only reason why food companies will take massive cuts is basically exposure.
When you use these platforms you are basically using someone else’s network whether it be social media, website or event. To drill it all down, to get exposure, you must be on someone else’s platform to be noticed.
Great platforms for reach (ranked from little impact to high impact)
With only 180 characters (or whatever it is), you don’t have much to say. Great for links and thoughts that are of your own. Hashtagging on a viral sense also can potentially grow the platform. Certain platforms like being a reporter or writer, have a much better presence on twitter than anyone else.
According to most of my guests, this is the most powerful platform because it gives you the ability to be visual. The only reason why Instagram is this high up on the list is its that it’s really hard to gain traction and you have to put a lot of work into it from the quality of your photos to the hashtags you use. If what you do is visual (video, product focus, etc), this is a great tool to use. Though Instagram is extremely useful, you can’t put too much on there. Most influencers get their money deals via Instagram.
My favorite platform is linkedin because My Food Job Rocks is technically a B2B business. LinkedIn is a very powerful brand builder when used correctly, but not a very good one to build a company, ironically. Your mileage may vary depending on what industry you’re in.
I talk much more about linkedin on this post.
People say the algorithm is dangerous on facebook, so sometimes, reach is questionable. However, the reason why facebook is more impactful is because it’s super versatile. There’s no other place where you can link your twitter, Instagram, create groups, make messenger bots, create events, buy online and share content than facebook. No matter what people say, create a facebook page. All I do is repost the website content and Instagram posts and I get some good engagement. It’s a great method of exposure since so many people use it.
Guest Posting/Guest Podcasting/ Collaboration
Referrals are probably the best way to get someone to trust you. This is something I learned when starting the company.
Having the ability to jump on other people’s platforms can really help your brand grow. This is mainly because the people on someone else’s platform already have buy-in, so the barrier of trust is lowered and the likelihood to go and see your stuff is more likely.
Even saying you’re a writer on Forbes or, Washington Post, will improve your reach dramatically, so don’t be afraid to make some connections and post on your friend’s platform (with permission).
Speaking Gigs
Speaking gigs are nice, because it gives exposure at a very small event, where people are more likely to know who you are. Because guests already might have spent $20-100 dollars a ticket, they are obligated to listen to at least someone speak. Perhaps that might be you.
This is like when a hit band has an opener who might be surprisingly good. You never expected to listen to them, but since they’re good, you might google them, or listen to their hit on Spotify.
Yet this is a chicken or the egg scenario. How do you get speaking gigs? They are very hard to get. You need good reach and good depth to get speaking gig, so think of this tool as more of a snowballing strategy.
Networking
What networking does is gives the ability to spread a more authentic word of mouth than the other platforms. As you visually talk to people, or do good deeds, this pierces the skin when people talk about you.
I feel much better talking about the podcast when I talk about it in a networking event, or just meeting people in real life. When you talk to people, it’s easier to convince because they see you, they hear you, and they feel present with you. When they listen to you, or read a post, they imagine your voice in their head. And that’s pretty powerful.
The best part is, you can be anyone at a networking event and as long as you convince someone you’re worth listening to there will be a higher frequency of them looking at your stuff. Though this might not be the best strategy to get mass amount of people, you will get a higher quality audience, which might be more beneficial to you. It’ll at least make you feel more satisfied.
Depth
After you accomplish reach, you now go into depth, or how much you interact with each other. Depth allows you to pierce the skin a little bit with your content, and is how you can convince someone that you’re authentic. Focusing on depth to a point where people can’t get enough of you is very powerful. Some methods are more effective than others.
Do note, that if your content is crap, then you won’t be getting much impact from your audience. If your content is good, then reach allows someone to notice something about it, and when they tap into it, they just can’t get enough.
Great platforms for depth (ranked from little impact to high impact)
Facebook Groups (and other social media groups)
I’ve only seen a few facebook groups work well, and I think they are super effective when it comes to asking basic questions. They are very good at starting a community, yet starting such groups and taking time to care for them is really really hard. It’s hard to promote the idea that it’s ok to ask questions, or to not sell your stuff there, and facebook makes it very uncertain if your post will be seen on the feed.
Blog Posts
When you publish an article, the user only sees the words you write. Overall, a minimal effort piece of content, but still important. Because it takes less effort to write a blog post, the depth won’t be as bad. Blog posts generally lead to bigger and better opportunities if used well such as selling your book, or directing them to an event or podcast.
Blog posts alone will most likely never make you popular. There is too much better media than just words. But it fills in the gaps.
Video
Video is a great method of reach thanks to Youtube and other platforms. Most social media channels promote videoes much better than text. Video, however, take a lot of work. You not only have to look good, but you have to talk in complete sentences, do takes that last 3 minutes, and it has to look good.
The effort to depth ratio makes it that it takes more effort to make a good video than the depth your audience gets. Some videos take no effort, like Let’s Plays which can be 3 hours on content with some guy playing videogames and many people find this a problem because those guys make more money than the guys who want to make art from their video.
Email List
Getting someone’s email has the ability to lock someone into your network for life. You can hit them up when you’re around, you can send weekly updates or useful information, and you can sell stuff to them if you want to. Giving an organization an email list is like giving them your street address. They have the ability to send you stuff on a personal level.
Be aware that most people will send you a lot of crap, and there are even some companies who “scrape” contacts and you’ll get stuff you forget about.
The best way to get an email is to offer something in exchange. For My Food Job Rocks, we used to offer the Graduate Timeline, the Career Playlist, and now do something depending on their field of interest. These are great tools of value someone can use to get an email.
Be sure to use proper etiquette to send emails. This depends on what you’re doing, but I hate getting 3 emails in a row from some marketer demanding I buy his book.
Podcasts
I’m biased here.
When you listen to a podcast, you are giving up the time to absorb someone’s content. This is valuable as time is a scarce resource. Because it’s a scarce resource, I feel grateful that people listen to my podcast.
To me, podcasting is the opposite of video because the effort to depth ratio is reversed. It takes less effort to make a podcast than a video, and you can make it an hour long.
Because people have to commit to the timeframe of the length of a podcast, I rank this high because it’s easy for someone to binge on audio while doing something else like walking, going to the gym, or working. You can easily absorb the content, and end up listening to days worth of this guy talking.
Books
It’s a big commitment to read 100-300 pages of stuff coming out of your mouth. Top that to the fact that a lot of people don’t really read for fun.
Books are the ultimate content when it comes to the depth of knowledge. It takes a lot of effort to create a book and sell it. Having the proper amount of exposure helps tremendously and even then, it could be a miss.
The biggest issue with books is that it takes a tremendous amount of buy-in to get someone to actually read a book you wrote. This is why publishers vet these types of opportunities and why self-publishing only works when you have a really strong brand. People also generally have to pay money to get your book, which is an even harder way to get people to read it.
However, a good book is memorable and if it’s good, can become what you’re most well known for in life.
Portfolio
This can be parallel on how food companies can be run. Soom Foods, for example, has their arms in food service, retail, and online sales and each has their own benefit.
To be an influencer, you don’t have to use all of these strategies. Choose about 2-3 good ones. Once you get good at that, spread your wings and try more.
For My Food Job Rocks, I started with LinkedIn, Facebook, and Email Lists. Eventually, I got a twitter, Instagram, and speaking gigs.
Don’t overwhelm yourself with the myriad of platforms you have to master. You don’t have to master everything now. After all, you’re in this for the long game.
