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Ask HN: How to get good at social media?

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Re: Ask HN: How to get good at social media?

#21

Post by qznc »

anw wrote: post #17

A few things to consider: Why do you want to get good at social media? You mention spamming tags and subscribing to things that they don't care about. What is the outcome you want from this? Getting a lot of likes/RTs? Getting a lot of followers? If that's the outcome you want, then it sounds more like you want some form of community where you can feel appreciated or encouraged. Social Media is a vacuum of constant c…

I get the vibes that thrwaway69 does it professionally. Maybe some social media manager job? In that case a tabletop game club will not be helpful.

Re: Ask HN: How to get good at social media?

#23

Post by thrwaway69 »

anw wrote: post #17

A few things to consider: Why do you want to get good at social media? You mention spamming tags and subscribing to things that they don't care about. What is the outcome you want from this? Getting a lot of likes/RTs? Getting a lot of followers? If that's the outcome you want, then it sounds more like you want some form of community where you can feel appreciated or encouraged. Social Media is a vacuum of constant c…

No. I wouldn't use any popular social media if I could. It's for promotion of a project.

To expand on the problem, I have only once or twice susbcribed to an email listing. I consider all the other spam, irrelevant and Will never check them unless forced (some sites do even when you pay them) and other missed to opt out. I don't like seeing people spamming follow me or subscribe to me everywhere either. I know the functionality is there and I would if I want to. I don't care about most of what brands post? I don't want to see a corporate puppy in my feed. I don't want to know that you have a discount running and retweeting this will give a hypothetical chance of winning a giveaway if I have no need for the product. I don't consider businesses intrusive tracking and analytics everywhere ethical. I don't want to participate in signalling that businesses do. Most businesses need to make money and pretending they care more beyond is ughh. Most social media UX sucks. It's unintuitive to use and horrible (see twitter). I have the google paradox, if you can easily find it on google why do I need to share it to you? This is wrong pattern of thinking but this does make me tired mentally when posting something.

Obviously, the problem is entirely me

I keep trying but deep down, I don't even want to support the platform by engaging on them.

It just feels bad to have an ulterior motive behind posting a cute puppy pic.

Re: Ask HN: How to get good at social media?

#24

Post by he11ow »

What's the end goal for which you feel you need to get good at social media?

The thing to consider about "social media" is it's a term that's taken out of the pages of 1984, like the Ministry of Peace. It's social in the way that social experiments or popularity contests are "social", not as in hanging out with friends and feeling good.

There are many, many people whose entire job is to get good at jumping through these hoops, and even then most of them fail. So the best thing you can do for yourself is decide you're not a monkey or a lab rat.

I'm guessing you have in mind something you'd like to promote, even if it's just yourself and your thoughts. And I second the suggestion to build a tiny audience at first. Even if it's just 5 people who absolutely love what you do - that's a start.

The way to get these people is to step out of dystopia-land and recall how it works in real life, and mimicking that in whatever social network you feel is most relevant to your objectives. For me, that social network is LinkedIn. [I left any others I was on.]

I've written an entire detailed article on how to take this approach, which is different to the traditional "gain a following", but ends up building actual relationships. You might find stuff in it relevant to your needs.

https://medium.com/skill-strong/how-to-network-on-linkedin-w...

Re: Ask HN: How to get good at social media?

#25

Post by c0nsumer »

I help run a small all-volunteer non-profit that advocates for trail access for mountain bikes (CRAMBA - https://cramba.org), along with trail maintenance, design, building, etc. I've found the best way to get a good response on social media for promoting our topics is to have them be relevant to the audience.

Literally, posts and things that are stuff people are interested in (new trails, COVID-19 closure info, trail conditions, asking what they did on the trails this past weekend) get very good engagement and they get info out there. Stuff that's only peripherally related trying to gain likes and followers and whatnot just seem... meh.

So, the short answer to what works for us? Not trying to game things and providing actual, nice content. It also keeps our audience very focused.

Re: Ask HN: How to get good at social media?

#26

Post by thrwaway69 »

dhimes wrote: post #18
thrwaway69 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I get it. Found something to remove toxicity from my feed. And sorry I can't give you an upvote because that would ruin the number. :) Edit: someone ruined the number :(

I don't see numbers- one of us is the "control" ...

The parent had 6969 total votes before.

Re: Ask HN: How to get good at social media?

#28

Post by elorant »

It seems unclear whether you approach it from a professional or an individual basis. You mention spamming the trending tags which sounds like a blackhat marketing tactic. Do you want to promote your product or to become more involved at a personal level?

Re: Ask HN: How to get good at social media?

#30

Post by Normal_gaussian »

You're copying the wrong behaviour. The marketing staff at XCorp engage in all kinds of marketing that you likelh don't want;the behaviour you are describing is either a deliberate brand awareness campaign, or an accidental pursuit of likes/follows ignoring engagement (often an easy way to boost your appraisal).

For small companies and projects:

Focus on your niche. If it isn't relevant, don't send it. Determine a relevance bar and stick to it (when you get settled you can try playing with this if you care)

Set a limit to how much you send, and over which channels. Set a target as well. Don't lower quality to meet target.

Set up triggers for relevant events (your competitors trending, HN/core forum discussions on your topic) and have a small list of things to do when they happen.

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