
My Rule on Social Media Content
“Document. Don’t Create.”
Gary Vaynerchuk
Imagine you have meetings with two new people for coffee to share business tips with. You are excited because both people are incredibly accomplished in your industry. You cannot wait to learn from the best.
One of them is relaxed, genuine, and comfortable with his flaws. He shares stories of his accomplishments as well as his failures. He is open and honest about the questions you ask and is not afraid to share his most successful tips with you. He is humble, telling you of his small beginnings and laughing at how clueless he was when he first began his business.
The second person appears flawless in every way. Every time you ask him a question about improving upon your business, it appears he has no advice to offer because he acts as though he has no knowledge of your problem. He speaks only of his success, sharing no useful tips with you. You walk away from the meeting feeling perplexed.
The second person is an example of the social media presence of many people today. On social media, we tend to post only the best of the best. We take photos of our best-made meals but rarely share the “Pinterest Fails”. We share with the world the news of passing a big exam, but not that we struggled with the material and had to take it more than once.
Which do you remember better? What the flawless photo of your favorite recipe looks like via Pinterest or the funny picture of a friend’s birthday cake gone wrong? If we really want to make an impact and be known in our industry, our goal should not be to create one perfect piece of social media content. It should be to make ourselves known through being genuine. People want to know about your journey, not just your success story.
So instead of spending the money to make every video you put out there flawless, why not turn on Facebook Live and discuss the problems you’re trying to solve that day, unscripted. Instead of showing only a finished product, why not give your followers an inside look and some photos on Instagram of how you or your team works through their creative process to design products? Instead of blindly concentrating on creating the one piece of content that goes viral, why not produce many different types of content and see which one gets the most interaction? What works in your industry may not work in mine and vice versa, but I guarantee the pieces that show who you really are and how you’re getting to where you’re going will positively impact your success.