You see their name on your caller ID and cringe…’what will they want this time?’ you ask yourself. Perhaps you ignore them. Eventually, you block their number or decide to take them off your contact list.
You may have inadvertently become that annoying friend. That’s what your brand may be doing inadvertently if you are asking too much, and too often of your clients.
The way to avoid that is simple, and it’s by employing the same rules of the road that we use for our clients at TSS. We call it the 80/20 rule of Social Marketing; or, the ‘Social 80/20’.To illustrate, let’s get back to the analogy of your needy and annoying ex-friend. Think about how they could have avoided becoming the annoying pest….
They could have avoided this by simply talking to you during those in-between times when they didn’t need anything, but when it would be nice to acknowledge that they knew that you were there. And perhaps talk about something that was important to you!
The Social 80/20 dictates that you ‘give’ something in 80 percent of your social media posts…a useful piece of information such as a tip, recipe, or cool piece of information related to your business that you found on the web. You ‘ask’ only 20 percent of the time.
When you ’give’, these posts should point to an external resource, such as your blog (preferred), or a reputable news page. Doing this not only creates a situation where people are looking forward to your interesting posts, but these posts establish you as a thought leader in your field.
The 80/20 rule allows you to establish yourself as a trusted friend in the eyes of your followers, and ensures that you aren’t taken off of their contact list!
