As a marketing professional
I am concerned about innovation and I am always looking for new ways to improve
results both for me and my clients.
I have recently decided to
take a deeper look in what is considered the new nirvana of business: the
social networks.
It seems that almost all
marketers involved in this medium are looking for what they call engagement,
which, according to their definitions, is the quantity of likes, shares and
comments on their posts.
When I got married I didn’t
get engaged. I´ve never had a fiancée in my life, since I´ve never been
convinced what the use of an engagement is. Similarly, I understand that the
goal of commercial relationship is the marriage, i.e., the sale.
However, if engagement is
the buzz, let´s work on how to improve it. So I went into the playing field and
found out which the most effective ways to get a lot of likes, shares and
comments are, as follows:
1.
The language trap: always publish your posts, articles, and papers in
English. No matter where you live and what second class language is spoken in
your country (in mine is Portuguese, a late Latin derived language). English improves the value of the
writer and gets more attention of the public you want to reach. If you don´t
know English, Google Translator can help you (it´ll help a lot of your readers
too, so, what´s the use of being a nationalist?)
2.
Make an offer they cannot refuse: if you want to build a huge database of gullible
people you just have to make a gullible offer like an Excel spreadsheet, a
WhatsApp group to unemployed persons or even an article about how to improve your
social marketing. I´ve already written about this subject but, unfortunately, the article was in Portuguese, so
no one paid serious attention.
3.
Hyperlink to exhaustion: since it´s not practical to hyperlink each and every
word, at least insert a hyperlink per paragraph. I do strongly recommend you shorten all your hyperlinks so that the reader cannot identify where he is being
led to (and insert some absurd ones in order to confuse your audience or to
make them think you are a funny guy).
4.
Viral is cool: do you want to be over shared? Say your content has
turned viral, even if it hasn´t, it will. This is the simplest way
to make it through in as many social networks as possible.
5.
Quote famous people. Borges said that “life itself is a quotation”, and Roux used to say “A fine quotation is a diamond in
the hand of a man of wit and a pebble in the hand of a fool.” On the other hand, Baldwin remarked: “When one
begins living by habit and by quotations, one has begun to stop living”. But
who was Baldwin anyway?
6.
In the shoulder of giants: illustrate your content with images of great business people. Steve Jobs is a must when you want
to look innovative. Zuckerberg is fine when writing about social. If you are
writing about strategy Welch or Porter are the men.
7.
The best title: finally, remember to title your post with a numeral. Always use odd numbers that lead to a miracle
solution. They seem to be more attractive. The only even number accepted is ten
(I assume it has something to do with Moses commandments). People like to
consume plug-and-play instructions so they don´t need to use their neurons,
which is a tiresome activity.
If following all the above instructions you don´t
succeed, you can always blame your public who was not sufficiently intelligent
to understand your witty approach.
