Before I dig fairly deep into this subject, I want to be very clear about a couple of things:
1) There are no steadfast rules about social media marketing, with the exception of: DO NOT spam.
2) My intent is to guide my readers toward improved effectiveness and real net results based on my results, not a theory that generates blog traffic to sell my book about something I have never really done.
3) I largely write for a specific audience that consists of the social media marketer, the small to medium brand or the social media agency, not particularly for the enthusiast. Please recognize that this post is directly focusing on those using social media for marketing.
Literally hundreds of times per day, I view the feeds, walls and pages of people I am connected with. I am looking to RT (Retweet), share and otherwise promote them. The unfortunate truth is that a large percentage of the time even with several scrolls of the page, I am unable to find anything they have posted themselves. I don’t mean blog posts they have written, but content that THEY find and post. No blog post of their own, no news, articles or relevant information that is valuable and deserving of a share. Just an incredible amount of RT’s of other people’s social media content posts.
Let me say something very clearly here; If you largely RT and Share other people’s social media posts and/or Triberr content from others to fill your feeds with content, you are deploying THOSE people’s content strategy, not your own.
A few things I suggest:
1) Carefully select the posts you Share/RT from others.
Ensure there is a reason for the share that further’s YOUR content strategy.
2) Make RT’s and Shares around 10-20% max of the posts in your feed.
If you are going to be effective with the social media content you post, you need to have a strategy and that strategy needs to be yours. Limit the RT’s and Shares in your feed and ramp up the content you find yourself that is inline with the topics that drive your audience.
3) You must have a content strategy.
If you don’t know what a social media strategy is, are struggling with it or need to make changes to your existing strategy, here is a simple Infographic that may help. Coupled with a social content strategy, you need to have an effective way to aggregate social content and manage, schedule and post that content.
Related Example:
I used to be in several “tribes” on Triberr with many big name social media people who had huge audiences. After sometime, I left those 10+ tribes with a 20+ million reach down to only 6 with around a 3.9 million reach. The interesting thing I have found is that our blog traffic has maintained the same traffic levels, our software user acquisition rates have steadily increased, and I spend WAY less time in Triberr, even though we are in smaller tribes with a smaller reach.
The right content is very important and where you spend your time obtaining content for your feeds is also. Many of the people who have large followings are not as influencial as you might think. In fact, my experience tells me that many of those described above that share your posts have followers that don’t even consider stuff they share as important or relevant, hence the same results with a much smaller tribe reach.
Don’t misunderstand, I am not a Triberr hater. I think it is excellent when used in conjunction with a clearly defined strategy.
The moral of the story here is that you must have your OWN content strategy that includes posting content YOU find, content YOU create, as well as shares and RT’s. These things work together to deliver value to your community and establish credibility and thought leadership in your space. Doing so will result in increased, meaningful conversations, deeper relationships and ultimately a return on investment for your social media marketing efforts.
BundlePost 
Reblogged this on Social Media You Can Use and commented:
Robert Caruso just posted this great blog about sharing content, while I do realize I am sharing a blog post about the oversharing of someone else’s content, it’s a great read. Check out the rest of his posts here: https://bundlepost.wordpress.com
Hi Robert, I am applying the strategy you suggested to attract more local business owners to my Twitter feed (setting up a Google alert and tweeting links to those articles) and have begun to see some modest results after a few weeks.
This idea of keeping RTs and shares to a minimum is a little confusing to me, because as it stands that’s only going to be 1 or two a day and that leaves no room for any tweets of my own writing. I guess I need to find another source of content that is relevant to my target (I only get 5 -10 from the Google alert) to get more of those (in the 80%).
your analysis is accurate. One source of constant relevant content to post isn’t nearly enough for most brands/strategies
Yes again you said it so well. I just commented this morning about a post that discussed rich content. Too many bloggers or companies want to duplicate someone else’s success. Well, good idea, but when you do that you are not aligning your own purpose with your strategy. Hence poor results.
As usual you do a great job reminding me do I need to revisit my share ratio.
Thank you so much Michele! Such kind words.
As always Robert your honest and truthful advice is refreshing. I often say to clients that you should take advice from people that tell you what you NEED to hear, not what you want to hear.
Well said David. Something I require from my own team!
I thought this was really interesting because I constantly read recommendations to make sharing of other people’s content as high as 30-50% of your posts, in the interests of “reciprocity.” There is no way I could generate 70% of my own content, so maybe the trick is in how you find and share.
That is definitely the trick Claire. There’s no way you SHOULD generate 70% of your content. That would be WAY over-pitching.
Very good post Robert. Not to mention that it can be pretty annoying when you look on someone’s page and all you see is Retweets. It gives the appearance of not putting any effort into what you’re doing.
Yes, Dana. Unfortunately it’s not just an impression, but rather the reality. Nothing worth doing is every easy and social media marketing is a perfect example of that. Shortcuts do not generate real results.
Everybody needs a support system, and people are finding it on twitter.Most of my posts are related to what I blog about, and occasionaly I will share tweets by many local companies in the areas I provide campaign coverage for outdoor advertising. So I use all the marketing channels including social media to stay in touch. I think you make a good point where you need to pick a focus and stay along that path. It only makes sense!