Social media posts or blog posts? Which should I use, and why?
As a content writer, I spend a lot of my time poking around social media and blogs. I read loads of content every day, some good, some awful, most mediocre…
But I think that while hundreds of thousands of businesses use social media and blogging as a way of marketing for their businesses every day, there are so many who don’t really understand how it all works. I get comments all the time asking me why no-one is engaging with their social posts, and why their blogs are not getting read. Sure, it could be that what you’re writing is rubbish, but I doubt it. I think there are other reasons, and so I’m writing this post to share them with you. I hope that it helps you to understand how all this stuff works, and how you can do things better to get more leads in to your business.
How does social media work?
Let’s start with a few stats…
There are 7.8 billion people on the planet. Almost 4.57 billion of those people are active internet users. For those maths geeks out there, that’s about 59% of the population.
As of 2020, 3.81 billion people are social media users.
So you’d think, wouldn’t you, that being present on social media should be getting you seen and noticed all the time. But it's not that simple, and here’s why.
Say you use a Facebook Page, and you have 1000 followers. You publish a post. Firstly, you’re taking the gamble that your audience will be logged on to Facebook at that exact moment in order to see your post at the top of their feed. Secondly, you’re battling against something called an algorithm, which means that your total reach is only about 3%.
Out of your 1000 followers, Facebook will only show your post to about 30 people. And there might only be 2 of them on Facebook at that particular moment.
The odds don’t seem so great now, do they?
Of course, there are things you can do to improve your overall reach, but you need to spend the time doing it. You need to post more, for a start, in order to improve your chances of your audience being there and seeing what you post. You need to put a lot of effort in to commenting, liking and sharing (experts say that you should do this MORE than posting). And you need to share the right kind of content that people will want to engage with.
Remember that social media is a game of chance to a large degree. You might get sales from it, but you have to put a lot of effort in to do so. Posting once a week and then leaving the platform will not work.
It’s also worth considering that if you are just using social media, you are limiting yourself, because social platforms are not searchable. Think about it – if you’re looking for a product or service, what do you do first? That’s right – you ask Google. And now that we have the ability to use voice through devices like Echo by Amazon and other AI products, we can just…ask. Here’s the thing, if you’re just on social, GOOGLE IS NEVER GOING TO FIND YOU. No-one on the internet who is searching for your product will ever see you.
So you need to have something in place that is searchable by Google.
Another stat for you – in 2020, there are over 2 trillion Google searches every day.
Here’s what that looks like as a number: 2,000,000,000,000.
Makes your 1000 followers on Facebook look pretty insignificant, no?
Searchable content
Apart from your website, there are other places you can be present that are Google-searchable. How about these for starters?
- · Blog Posts
- · YouTube
Does that surprise you? It did me.
So in order to get found, how can you use those in your business?
As a writer, the one I use and understand the best is blogging, so I’ll focus there. This morning, I’m doing some research for a graphic design client of mine. I typed the following into Google:
“has COVID changed the graphic design industry”
On the first page of Google, every single result that came up was a blog post. Every single one. Google loves blogs, because they’re so easy to rank from an SEO point of view. And if you’re asking a question, as most of us tend to do, you’ll likely find a blog comes up first due to the key words within.
And guess what? Whereas a social media post becomes lost after about 10 minutes, searchable content like a blog post will live forever. That post you wrote 5 years ago? Still there. The YouTube video you uploaded when you were 19 and had no clue what you were doing? Sorry – still there!
I’m not saying don’t use social – I absolutely think you should. But on its own, it’s not enough. You have to be searchable, and in order to do that, you need to be creating content on one or more of the above listed ways.
I hope that this article helps you to understand things a little better. Feel free to comment and ask questions if you want to know more.
Tereasa Hedges, freelance copywriter for creatives, designers and makers.
I’m a freelance copywriter who specialises in writing content for creative people, helping you to reach larger audiences through blogging, web content, email marketing, and a little bit of social media for good measure.
Want to work with me? Contact me for a chat via shirecopywriting@outlook.com
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