“The internet is forever.”

Wrong. We’ve all heard this warning. But this so-called helpful advice is detrimental to your success on social media.

Unless you’re talking about nudie pictures, (Public service announcement: Don’t post nudie pictures on the Internet.) letting your business’s social media strategy be guided by the fear that any of your posts will ever be fascinating to the whole world for all time is akin to planning your future career as an NBA superstar. Incredibly unrealistic. In fact, your biggest problem is much more likely the opposite: getting anyone, anyone at all, to read and care about what you’ve posted.

Here is some better advice:

      1. Use fewer words. “tl;dr” is an abbreviation the kids use these days for “too long; didn’t read.” The attention span of the average social media user is approximately a nanosecond. Or less. Keep your sentences and your paragraphs short. Use lots of white space. And, lead with your important thoughts, so your readers see them before they stop reading.

      2. If you’ve never taken social media advice from fashion icon, Coco Chanel, maybe it’s time to start?? Go back and cut out a few more words.

      3. EXPLAIN YOUR POST. Posting a picture? Sharing a link? Tell people why you think they’ll like something or find it interesting. Social media is a chance for your readers to hear your voice, maybe understand a little of what you’re thinking, maybe respond, and to feel connected with you. So, connect.

      4. Avoid “saminess” in your posts. And, yes, before you say anything, that is a real word. Probably. Social media platforms all have top-secret formulas for deciding who, and how many people will see your posts in their feeds. This is called your post’s reach. One of the things most heavily penalized is saminess. Same pictures. Same words. Sometimes you need to repeat yourself, promoting a new product, for example, but it’s important to find different ways to present it on subsequent posts. For example: one post might be a feature of a new product, while another could be a testimonial.

      5. Vary the types of posts. Promotional posts typically get the lowest reach, but are the most important to you as a business. You can build up the size of your audience with interesting informational or educational posts, and engaging posts that touch their emotions. No, it doesn’t all have to be your original content. It can be shares. And yes, sometimes this means kitten pictures and videos of hamsters eating carrots. (Google it. It’s adorable.) These kinds of posts help you connect better with your followers. And then, when you do promote your product, you’ll have a bigger, more engaged audience to see it, and they’ll be more inclined to care.

      6. Avoid “selling words,” or be prepared to pay. Posts with words such as “on sale” or “sale price” or “to purchase” or “for more information” flag the top-secret formula that you’re advertising something. These posts have the lowest reach, because the platforms want you to sponsor or boost these posts (i.e. pay for them to be delivered to more people’s feeds.) Sometimes, that’s actually a good idea. You get to choose how much money to spend. The amount you’ll pay to get a decent reach is gradually rising, but this is still a relatively cheap way to advertise. Plus, boosted/sponsored posts let you reach people beyond those who have liked or followed you. You can choose your audience by age range, gender, geographical area and interests. The more you filter your audience, the smaller it will be, but balance that against the fact that the more you filter your audience, the higher the likelihood that your post will be seen by someone who is actually interested.

      7. A Picture is worth a thousand words. Use pictures or videos with every post. For many people, posts without pictures might as well be invisible. 

      8. Pick the platforms that appeal to your preferred market. There are too many to use them all. So use the ones that your target market is using, and within that, use the one(s) you’re most comfortable with. Google “social media statistics” to find out which platforms are currently popular with your customer demographic. For example, if you are targeting the boomer generation, you’d want to be on Facebook. For millennials it might be Instagram or Snapchat. If you don’t yet know which ones suit your style, look at businesses similar to yours, and pay attention to what they’re doing and where. If it’s working for them, give it a try.

      9. Good is the enemy of great. Social media is designed to be more on-the-go, so don’t worry about making every post perfect. Take some chances, and find your voice. Many times posts that are spontaneous can feel more authentic and give you better reach. If you’re embarrassed later by something you’ve posted, go back and delete it. If you notice a typo later, go back and edit it. There will be awkward first efforts. Post anyway. Remember that early on, not many people are paying attention to what you’re doing anyway, or seeing your early mistakes.

     10. Post Day-to-Day. Don’t wait for the perfect topic. Don’t wait until you have big news, or the perfect story to post. People love to be “in the know,” and they’re interested in behind-the-scenes glimpses of the business, your staff, and the market. Take pictures of your team, lunch outings and your office space. If you’re interested in it, others may be too. Let yourself make mistakes. You’ll see which posts get the most engagement. And remember, as long as you haven’t posted nudie pictures (seriously, we do NOT recommend it) the internet isn’t forever. It won’t be long before your awkward misfires are buried under hundreds of subsequent posts, deep down the rabbit hole of your timeline.