Episode 209: Social Media Call to Action – Be Imperfect with Karlyn Ankrom
If you've been toying with leaving social media or you're ready to dive deeper, today's conversation is going to help. These platforms are so engaging, but they can cause so much strife. People get canceled. Some people go viral and share beautiful things. It's complicated.
Karlyn Ankrom is the founder and lead strategist of Oh Snap Social and creator of the Fan Firestarter Framework, a new approach to social media marketing made specifically for businesses who've been tempted to fake their own deaths and flee to Tahiti at the mere thought of content creation.
Karlyn developed her user-friendly strategy after working for a decade with a variety of brick-and-mortar businesses who were decidedly social allergic – not because they didn't want to do social media, but because it intimidated them. Her system helps newbies get on the fast track to unsticking their social media in just one hour per week.
Can social media be good?
As much as social media can amplify the positive, it can also micro-target with anger and fear to needle somebody directly. How can we post in a way that is responsible and that lifts people up when others are using the same tools to do the opposite?
The world is coming at us very fast and navigating that can be hard. Karlyn had a client ready to launch a new program as the news started to break about Palestine and Israel. The client opted to wait.
Karlyn says these decisions need to align with you. If you’re someone who can speak on topics, then do. If you’re not, don’t. Never post because you think you should be posting.
“People can judge however they like,” says Karlyn. “For some people they don't have a thumbprint on what's happening in the world, and they want to remain positive of what's happening in their life. Cool. But it's also worth addressing that you're not naive [to what’s going on].”
Social media has made us global citizens. Balancing how to live in this reality and still needing to work is complicated. Give yourself the space to be a person.
Participate and do what's right for you with as much awareness and compassion as possible because none of us are going to do it right all the time.
“Have grace for other people when they get it wrong,” says Karyn. “Social media is not a very forgiving place in a lot of ways, and that's why I always tell people to curate your feed for the mood that you want to have when you open an app.”
Comparison steals productivity
When you are on social media, feel how you are consuming the content. If it’s not good, maybe it’s time to mute, unfollow, or hide for 30 days.
“As you're consuming content, focus on where you want to go and not where everyone else is going, because everyone's strategy is different,” says Karlyn.
Reminding people that we're humans by showing up candid is refreshing and also very much expected in the social media space. Karlyn says many people don’t do it because they feel uncomfortable or think they have to copy someone else. But Karlyn notes when she unfollowed the people she was comparing herself to, she was able to show up as herself and reach her goals.
She says a lot of her clients overthink every word; they care deeply about the people they are trying to serve. But most people don’t remember what they had for breakfast this morning, let alone what you posted on social media two weeks ago. If it worked, figure out how to repurpose it. Share it. People are there and gone in two seconds.
Auditing your social media
We don't want to look at social media as a be-all end-all for perfection. Karlyn is a big proponent of adjusting, learning, and tweaking, which starts with auditing where you’re at right now.
Also keep in mind, what is happening in the world. People might not be consuming as much. So are you paying attention to that as well as what the numbers are saying and marrying the two to create content?
Looking at the numbers and measure what matters. What matters will go back to understanding why are you doing social media in the first place? If it's because everyone else is doing it, that's not a good answer. Are you trying to get people to your website? Are you trying to get engagement?
Calls to action on social media
Karlyn says the first thing to look at with your calls to action are whether you want them to be internal or external. Internal means content that's on the platform and keeping people engaged there. External is to get people from the platform to your website, to your landing page, and to your registration page. Whichever you pick should be tied to your goals.
For internal calls to action, Karlyn says taking the time to tell people what you want them to do after they read your caption is a missed opportunity. From an internal perspective, it can be as simple as asking the user: save for later, double tap if you found this helpful, drop a thumbs up emoji if you agree, if you found this helpful share it with your community, or send me a direct message.
Make sure that you're including external calls to action, as they are essentially the dot connectors that take people from the water cooler conversation on social to a place where you actually own the data (your website or landing page).
Remember the behaviors of the community on those platforms. So just thinking about how you can add some type of action at the end for the person to do; people are not mind readers and you have to make it simple. Don't be afraid to share your opinions based on your experience with your audience.
Free gift for listeners
Karlyn has a ton of downloads available that she's constantly updating with the latest and greatest resources about social media.
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