The Social Media Benefits We Don’t Absorb

And how to take advantage of the platforms’ true value

Illustration via Pikist

There’s an unnatural beauty to social media. We all love to follow other people’s lives, even if some of them are too good to be true. We seek true human connections, and today, this is how we can find them easily.

Once we find someone that we like, they automatically get us hooked. They get more followers, create an audience, and, therefore, a community of people who would like to see more content like what was posted before.

I find it funny how these people start videos with ‘what’s up, everyone?” I’ve always envied Youtubers’ ability to speak freely to people they’ve never seen before as if they were close friends. But I digress.

We all know how social media happened. We watched it grow and consume our day and night, as we hoped to see what the world has been up to. In that way, social media is very similar to any community management. But why don’t we treat it as such then?

To this day, there are Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter users that still see the platforms as digital window shopping, thus completely ignoring true communicative benefits from the platform. Hell, have you seen how fast we scroll?

In less than 5 seconds, we judge these profiles as good enough or not worth our time. Then we move on to others.

But we don’t watch just the first 5 minutes of a movie, so why should we stop at these platforms’ front door? There’s reason to think that most of the population still doesn’t understand social media’s real use.

Community Building

#1 — Reading Comments

Do you value your consumer’s opinion? No, really. Do you go beyond your likes and retweets? The best strategy is hidden in between comments. Hear me out.

Watch the social work from the highest D2C brands in the world–they all comment back.

You’d be amazed to see how many influencers with over millions of followers don’t read their comments. Doing so not only creates traction for your own brand (personal or company), but it also stimulates the engagement we all look for when joining a platform.

Most content creators do not consider people’s reactions. But with only a few changes, one can unlock an immense amount of value from social media.

1. Follow fewer people if you need to. With a cleaner feed, you can focus on the inner discussions.
2. Look up what matters to your audience. Hashtags were made for a reason.
3. Rely on the discussions made within the comments.

This is where creativity is happening.

#2 — Branching Out

The largest global brands pay thousands of dollars for market research. But when you don’t have thousands to look for specialized reports, you can find the best research tool right on the palm of your hands.

Social media creates a ‘safe zone’ to comment on your favorite topics that have been specially picked just for you based on your previous behavior.

On the other hand, social platforms become hubs for honest opinions and consumer trends.

So one can utilize that first-hand market research to implement whatever strategy is best. That may mean posting more videos on a specific subject, engaging with consumers that are finding it hard to buy your product, or even preparing for a customer service issue that you’ve seen somewhere else.

Your social media managers are at the forefront of your company. And if you are a personal brand, that is the window to your brick and mortar. But for people to see your window, you need to know where they are coming from.

What is spoken of content is more important than what you own.

So go window shopping. Look for the value that is not within your reach. You will likely find more valuable content through other people’s pages and profiles since you can study others’ reactions.

It comes down to not overthinking it

I’m no marketing mogul or social media expert. What I do is follow trends and interview people. By understanding both, you can actually acknowledge the value that social media brings.

And in the end, we are all looking for connections–it’s that simple.

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