The Emotional Side of Social Media #592 The Sales Journey Podcast for Network Marketers

“If we look at social media as proof of our value, we are missing the whole point.“
Today, I am sharing a throwback blog post because this topic is coming up so much for clients.
Everyone knows how important social media is these days for your business… so many people are having to rely solely on social media as a way to build and a lot of emotions are coming up. I don’t think this part of social media is talked about enough…
So if you get caught up in the emotions, I want you to know that is normal.  Here are some of the thoughts that went through my mind as I sat down to write this week’s podcast:
I don’t want to do this. Does this even matter? Is anyone even going to watch/listen/read this? Will they like it? Is what I am saying helpful? Is what I am saying good enough, am I smart enough, etc? Why don’t they like me? Am I more than just a taco to you people?! And on and on.  This is coming from me, someone who coaches people on their social media strategy.
If you or someone on your team deals with these emotions about social media, then hopefully what I share today will be helpful. These are the same things I coach my clients on regarding their social media strategy.  
We have to show up.  You don’t have to show up online, but you have to show up somewhere in order to meet new people or reconnect with old people.  We want to show up where the people we want to talk to are, and for a lot of people that is online. So how can we do that without falling into the emotional trap that social media can be…?
Have a clear definition of success “Grow my business on social media” can be very vague and lead to a feeling of overwhelm and helplessness.  Instead, it can be as simple as “I am going to show up and post something on a daily basis.”  If you are just starting out in your network marketing business and using social media, one way to define success could be “I am going to post something every day and get a few conversations started.”  And starting a conversation doesn’t even have to be about your business, or about your product. It could be asking for recommendations, or advice from people on which outfit is best. What you’ll notice is that people will respond, and you might be surprised who is following you and message them and ask them how they are doing.

It doesn’t have to be a direct line to your business or your products. Treat social media as an experiment. One of the things that my coach tells me and what I tell my clients is “Here is our best guess, and let’s test it and see if it is right or not.” When a scientist runs an experiment, there are all sorts of results that can happen.  Some are positive, some are negative, but all of them are data points. Each result is a piece of data that ultimately leads to an answer.  That is how a scientist treats failure – as another data point.” -James Clear

So instead of looking at your social media posts as a reflection on how people feel about you, treat it as a test as to whether or not people will comment, “Like”, or share the post.  I think this can be a healthier way to look at social media – it is a test. What works one week may not work the next and needs to be adjusted.

I am not so sure about anyone who says they know everything about social media, because we are trying to engage humans on the other side of that post.  And their preference might change, or how they use platforms may change.

For Emerge we ask:
– What worked well?– What didn’t work well?– What adjustments do we need to make? This keeps us out of the personal realm and emphasizes the posts that did or did not work well. Post more, not less When we get emotional, we tend to post less, which makes every post feel so much bigger.  What I recommend is to post a little more, and this desensitizes you to the results. Have fun Post to your main news feed the same things you would send to your friends.  Social m