Digital Sharecropping
Jerry L. Kennedy | TLT Social Media Marketing June 2014
Engage your audience by “pulling” them in.
The trick is to focus on creating great content on your own web properties, then to place that content in the raging river of the social networks.
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I’VE BEEN SEEING A LOT OF COMPLAINTS recently, mostly from professional marketers, about the way Facebook has reworked its news feed algorithm to hide more of the material shared from Facebook business pages. One company,
Eat24.com, even went so far as to post an open “Dear John” letter on their blog, saying that they were “breaking up” with Facebook over the changes.
A lot of other companies are concerned that if their content isn’t shown as regularly on the news feeds of their fans, they’re going to lose traction with market segments that are spending more time on Facebook.
To all those companies, I‘d like to pose a few questions: why are you so worried about what Facebook is doing? Why does every change to Facebook’s layout or the content it shows cause you such dismay? Is it because you’ve thrown all your marketing eggs into their one basket? Did you really believe that Facebook, or any other social network, existed for your benefit and had your best interests at the top of their minds? I hope that’s not the case, but many of these companies are certainly behaving as if they believe Facebook owes them something.
I call this kind of strategy (i.e., using platforms that don’t belong to you as the sole means of promoting your business online)
digital sharecropping because you’re basically farming on someone else’s property and, when they’ve decided they don’t want you to farm it anymore, you’re up the proverbial creek without the metaphorical paddle. A far more effective method is to spend the same amount of time and effort farming your own land, namely those places on the Web that you have full control over.
So how can you make the shift from digital sharecropping to farming your own land? It’s a simple shift in focus.
Most companies take a “push” approach to their online marketing efforts: shouting from as many rooftops, as loudly as they can, “Look at us! Look at us!” Ultimately they are frustrated by their efforts when no one looks. Why? Because they have little or no influence over how their message is presented to the readers on those other sites. They are focused on external factors over which they have no control.
The real key to engaging an audience is to master the art of “pulling” them in. How? By shifting focus to internal factors over which you have total control, namely your Web sites, landing pages and email marketing campaigns. We discussed one of the primary strategies for doing this a few months ago: storytelling. If you become a master storyteller on your own Web properties, you’ll find that your loyal fans will help you spread the word, which is a far more effective method for attracting eyeballs than posting links to your content on your own Facebook wall.
Social media platforms are great accelerators and amplifiers for building your online presence. They have the advantage of being able to reach millions, even billions of people, instantaneously. As my friend Patrick Schwerdtferger often says, though, the trick is to focus on creating great content on your own web properties, then to place that content in the raging river of the social networks. Master that technique, become a great storyteller, and it really won’t matter how often Facebook changes the way they share your content—your fans will come looking for you.
Jerry Kennedy earned his stripes as an operations and sales manager in the lubricants industry. He is currently the co-founder of CDK Creative, a digital marketing agency that brings his real-world sales and operations experience to the world of online marketing. Learn more or request a consultation at http://cdkcreative.com.
Email him at jerry@jerrykennedy.com.