Why Your Social Media Isn't Growing Create If Writing

Today's post is all about why your social media isn't growing. As in, why you can't seem to grow your social media followers. It's the second in a series called Why Your Audience Isn't Growing. You can click to read the first post, Why Your Blog Isn't Growing.  Social media can be one of the most valuable tools in your arsenal...but it can also be the most frustrating. It takes a lot of time, can feel like a part-time job, and sometimes doesn't seem to bring in results.
If you are one of the many people stuck wondering why your social media isn't growing, I've got some explanations and some tips for what you might do differently. 
Listen to Episode 108 - Why Your Social Media Isn't Growing Keep scrolling to read the post! You can also subscribe and listen on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Google Play, I Heart Radio, your favorite podcast app, or find the audio on YouTube.
WHY YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA ISN'T GROWING  Here are three reasons why your social media isn't growing. 
You Aren't Sharing Relevant Content Back when I first started using Twitter and Facebook, I'd been blogging for a few years. But I NEVER shared my own blog posts. 
Why? Because NO ONE DID. These social media platforms evolved to be a good place for promotion, but they didn't start that way. Now many people use them ONLY for link-sharing. (More on that in the next point.) 
Part of growing your blog IS utilizing the power of you social platforms. (But your blog still won't grow without fixing the three mistakes we talked about in the first part of the series!) We should be sharing links on our Twitter profile, our Facebook page, on Instagram, and wherever you hang out online. 
But if that's ALL you are doing, you aren't going to grow your followers on social media. Which means in turn that you won't have as much traffic to your blog. You do NOT want someone to come to your profile and find that every post or even every other post is your own. 
The Fix
If you really want to grow your social media platforms, you need to be a curator of content, not just a creator. Being a good curator means that you are picking and choosing things to share as a kind of collection or gallery. People often talk about the 80/20 rule: 80% of what you share should be from other people and 20% from your own content. 
Ask yourself what kind of content would COMPLEMENT your own.
What links would add to the conversation you're starting with what you write? What other people are creating quality content in your space? What words of encouragement or news do your people need?  Consider how you can curate a collection of links and posts that will reach your target audience. Share your own, but share links from other sources MORE. 
You Aren't Being Social Social media isn't always the best name for Facebook or Twitter or Google Plus or Instagram anymore. It's often more like Self Media. You promote yourself. And, if you aren't actually being social, you're only talking to yourself. 
If you aren't having actual conversations with people on social media, you aren't being social. This happens a lot when people automate their social shares. They use tools to send out links automatically so they never have to actually go ON Twitter or LinkedIn. 
It also happens when people try the follow-unfollow method of growth. This looks like following a bunch of people and then unfollowing them the next day or week. (Um, that's just smarmy, PERIOD.Stop.) 
Clearly, if you are automating everything, you CANNOT be social. Without showing up and talking to other people, you will not grow your social following.
The Fix
Automation is great (see this post on the difference between scheduling and automation), but you need to have conversations. You must be social. 
This means that in addition to scheduling and automating content, you must actually show up on those platforms and engage. Here are a few ideas for how this can look: 
Reply personally to people who share, like, or comment