Episode C.013 Your Online Presence - Psychology of Social Media

The Psychology of Social Media - Overview
In a world of social distancing, social media has the potential to draw people together virtually and many are online trying to do just that. Use the power of the mind to draw attention to your social media strategy and build your online presence.

The Psychology of Visual Appeal

1. The majority of people are visual learners: Include a visual component. Videos, photos, and illustrations help sway and educate potential customers who stumble across your post. They’re also effective when trying to appeal to people who are actively looking for, studying, and comparing products.
2. Power of emoji on social media: Online, we recreate that crucial element of empathy using emoticons and emoji.
3. Color is key when establishing your brand: When making strategic color decisions for your social media content, consider how they’ll fit with your brand voice. What message do you want to send, and what colors can help you send that message? 

Know Your Audience: Six Social Sharing Personas

• PERSONA 1: Altruists: Altruists are people who are considered helpful, reliable, thoughtful and connected. They prefer to share content by forwarding emails.
• PERSONA 2: Careerists: Careerists are people who are intelligent and good at networking. They love to share their opinions via LinkedIn.
• PERSONA 3: Hipsters: Creative, young, popular, with a strong identity. They are more likely to be Instagram and Snapchat. Think of Millenials and Gen Z as what make up the vast majority of this group.
• PERSONA 4: Boomerangs: Boomerangs feel empowered, react to things and often seek validation. They prefer Facebook and Twitter. 
• PERSONA 5: Connectors: These people are creative, relaxed, thoughtful and most likely to initiate plans. Their preferred sharing platforms are usually Facebook and Email.
• PERSONA 6: Selectives:  Selectives are resourceful, thoughtful and careful and are more likely to use emails while sharing content with others. 

The Psychological Rules of Social Media Engagement

1. Weapons of Influence (Social Selling): Give your target audience a clear reason to engage.
2. Reciprocity (Relationship Building): Cialdini argues that, at our core, we hate owing someone a debt, whether it's of gratitude or of a financial nature.
3. Commitment and Consistency (Content Marketing): Create Trust Worthy Content. Content that can be trusted is informative, is backed by the trusted sources and can be used to make decisions. 
4. Social Proof: People are influenced by what others in their immediate surroundings do, and the environment of social media is no different.
5. Liking (Personal Branding and Storytelling): Customers are more likely to engage with a brand that has a distinct identity that they can relate to. Brands that feel less like faceless companies and more like real, breathing human beings.
6. Authority (Thought Leadership): As a thought leader, you're also perceived as a person of authority, a credible source of information whom your followers can trust.
7. Scarcity: The simplest example of how scarcity affects engagement is when you post limited-time offers or contests on your page.

Create Social Media Posts that trigger an emotional response: Use this list as a guide to creating Social Media Posts that engage:

1. Relevant questions for your target audience  
2. A sense of humor
3. A contrarian point of view
4. Compelling storytelling
5. Newsworthy content and updates
6. A consistent presence
7. Having a healthy mix of content topics and formats
8. Include a call-to-action

Pulling It All Together
When it comes to creating share-worthy content, the rules change every day, and quite frankly no one can keep pace with it. But when you know how people think, what is their real motivation and the type of personalities behind them, you can adapt faster.

You learned in Episode C.012 that your brand voice should be unified. Don’t create a hilarious online presence, but act super-dry on the phone with your prospects. Don’t make awesome videos, then send emails so boring your subscribers wonder if you’ve been in a bad accident. An inconsistent brand voice confuses people. And confusion is bad for conversion.

Now that you have all the knowledge it is time for you to put it to the test and create content that connects, converts and grows your business.

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