Hey Square Readers,
We’re coming to the end of Day Trading Attention by Gary Vaynerchuk, and so far we’ve talked about your business’ use of social media, covered the basics of why attention matters, went through the The Modern Advertising Framework, did an overview of the current Social Media Platforms, and held a social media consultation.
Now let’s dive into the last chapters of the book, wrapping everything up, and sharing our final key takeaways.
Let’s start with Chapter 5: Breaking Down Content Examples
This chapter goes into the different content formats that you can create, the benefits of each, and strategies to be most effective, which the author says is more art than science.
You don’t have to try each and every one of the formats he details, but adding some variety and following trends can help gain exposure and attention. Some of the content types he details are: straight-to-camera selfie videos, reposts, interview clips, modern commercials, listicles, memes, user-generated content, skits, lead-gen promotions, green screen, questions, text posts, carousels, reaction videos, and so much more.
Here are some key takeaways that we found most valuable:
Authenticity and realness is key, so just share what you know:
“Content doesn’t have to be fancy to work—it can be as simple as looking into the front-facing camera on your phone and talking about what you believe in… Posting is better than not posting. A lot of creators and businesses can easily execute on this content format. Just pick a common piece of advice you give your customers, clients, or something you believe in, and literally make a piece of content with it right now… This kind of authentic, “in the moment” content through straight-to-camera videos helps build a closer connection with the audience and leads to building an actual engaged community.”
Don’t try to emulate commercials, make something different:
“The best modern commercials are videos that people actually want to watch. These are advertisements that feel like scenes from a hilarious sitcom, a music video, or an enticing movie trailer. They’re not like the standard, vanilla ads we all see on TV with a car driving down a hill and people smiling.”
Bridge the gap between online and in-person communities:
“Social media is the gateway to real-life interactions. What I mean by that is, you can take the community that you build on social platforms and deepen that relationship even further through in-person events or meet-and-greets… To get the most value out of this, I always recommend filming the in-person events, and distributing that footage in the form of clips across social platforms.”
Chapter 6: Real Life Scenarios
In this chapter, the author does a bit of role playing, breaking down situations based on real scenarios they’ve encountered in his company’s experiences. These can help give ideas and inspire you in your path, whether or not your situation directly reflects the example.
Here are some helpful points gleaned from these scenarios.
If you’re worried about mucking up your brand account while you’re experimenting:
“Create brand-new accounts on social media related to your business category… By starting with these accounts, you won’t “screw up” or “bother” the way the train is running at the company… Most social media content doesn’t lead to direct sales results immediately… This will take years to build, so that if you do have a post that gets a lot of views and leads to a couple of clients, it’s considered an early indication of success.”
Customers search on social media too:
“First off, understand that social media search is aggressively on the rise. It’s no different than placing an ad on Google or maximizing your website to show up higher on Google search rankings. Content on social media can achieve the same effect…
The value of educating your audience and giving away knowledge:
“Oftentimes, the biggest opportunity in the world is to do the work before you’re paid for it… Start by making videos. If you’re not good at video, write detailed analysis in written form on LinkedIn, or use the notes app to type out your thoughts… If you’re good at your analysis, your content will find its way to smart people… That will lead to your opportunities.”
Try changing things up with new formats and types of content:
“The 80/20 rule. Continue to do the standard content you’re already doing 80 percent of the time, but 20 percent of the time challenge yourself to do something completely different. That’s two out of ten posts where you should be switching things up and making content about something you normally don’t. It is highly likely that you’ll get far fewer views and less engagement; however, on the nineteenth time you do it, you might find your next big “thing.” If you never try to put out different stuff, you’ll never find it, and I have watched hundreds of thousands of influencers and creators get into ruts and lose their place in the game because they never added the 20 percent.”
Every single post is an opportunity to gain a new audience:
“With the TikTokification of social media, you could have three followers on TikTok and post tomorrow and if your content is good, you can miraculously have 100,000 people seeing that video. Your content will “find” its audience… You just need to be mentally ready for some of your existing followers criticizing you. The bottom line is, don’t stop yourself from posting just because you think it’s not going to get likes or you’ll lose followers… That doesn’t mean that every piece of content is going to do great, but overall, you’ll find your cadence and some stuff will hit… Be your most true and authentic self, and you will be happier.”
Try different things to reach different people:
“Stop being scared. Make content that’s relevant for different people. Different people are going to buy your T-shirt or software or shoes, and they’re going to buy them for different reasons. There’s so much fear around being “on brand” that prevents companies from being relevant. People have chosen vanilla messaging to one group because they fear being relevant to every group, and it’s limiting their growth. If you’re only selling vanilla, your customers are only going to be people who like vanilla. If you’re selling different flavors that various people like, you’re going to have more people buying. It’s just business.”
Shadow banning isn’t a big thing, it can just be hard to make engaging content:
“The reality is, 99.99 percent of you need to get out of this concept of “shadow banning.” I heard people refer to this term a lot around 2017–18, as the supply of content on Instagram increased and organic reach began to decline for some major influencers. They wanted to blame the platform, not realizing they were starting to lose market share because of the game of supply and demand… It’s harder to make a video get 5–10 million views on TikTok today, whereas years ago it was more common. Why? Because now more people are posting on TikTok and the supply of content is higher. That’s the way it will always work. The answer to your question is, you need to make new stuff.”
Social media takes time and work, but it’s important to make the time:
“Everybody who’s reading this has ambition. And if you have ambition, auditing your time becomes important because a lot of you are busy. You have families and you have leisure time that you need for rest and mental balance. I get it. I don’t want you to add four hours of work a day. I want you to find four hours that you’re wasting. For example, I believe every one of you could cut your meetings in half across the board and find the hours to dedicate to this… Either you do it yourself or you could hire somebody, but you can’t sell to consumers without knowing what they care about.”
Don’t hire someone without knowing what’s needed for yourself:
“One of the biggest issues of the last decade in social media is that a lot of businesses have built out marketing teams of kids under twenty-five because they think the “kids just get it.” That’s laughable… This isn’t about age, it’s about skill. If you want to build out a team, put the strategies of this book into practice yourself, for months. You need to understand it in and out, so that you can hire the right people to do it for you. Otherwise, you won’t know how to evaluate who’s good and who’s not… That doesn’t mean you need to become an expert, but you do need to allocate some meaningful time over the next month or two to start dabbling so you can know enough to ask the right questions.”
We’d love to hear your answer in the comments:
- Which post formats do you typically use? Which would you be open to experimenting with?
- What can you do to be more authentic with your business on social media?
- What are you still apprehensive about? What are your current unknowns?
Feel free to share any other thoughts you have about this book. We can’t wait to hear your thoughts in the comments below!
Don’t forget to:
Happy reading,
Pesso
