Expert Soapbox: Social Media Q&A with XrossWorld’s Julio Cerne Chaves
For Julio Cerne Chaves, CEO of XrossWorld, it’s all about authenticity in social media use. His business XrossWorld is an ambassador marketing company designed to match authentic ambassadors with brands in need of advertising. Rather than matching brands with someone who simply has a large following, XrossWorld’s mission is to match brands with trusted ambassadors within the brand’s niche.
Ready to become a social media pro? Keep reading for Julio’s advice on how to be successful with your brand’s social media platforms:
Q: What’s a great place to start when you want to improve your social media presence?
First, the key is to be yourself.
Be authentic. Implementing that authenticity into the business is sharing the human element of the business. People are looking for how they can connect with your business as a human. It’s not about being sales-y, it’s about finding your own human connection between your product and services and your customers. When you’re formatting your social media pages, promote your products and show what specials you have. However, people also want to know who are the people behind that product or behind that business? Who’s the founder? Why did the founder create this? Why do I connect with this?
Second, you don’t have to be a professional to be active on social media pages.
You don’t have to be a professional actor and create all these beautiful lightings and all that, just be your authentic self. Do it from your home. The cool thing about the pandemic is that it’s opened doors for people to be able to see others inside their natural habitat, and I think people want that more now. We don’t want Hollywood glamor and lights anymore, we want to see who you are genuinely and why your business exists. Do this, and then the product will sell itself. If I connect with you on social media as a human, then I will connect with the product or services that you are trying to promote as well.
Q: What are some of the biggest mistakes you see people making on social media?
One mistake I see is people not keeping up-to-date with social media changes.
Social media is such a happening thing, it changes on a day-to-day basis. So, if you’re not keeping up with it, you don’t know what’s going on. Businesses really need to use their social media pages and be really active on them because things are happening fast. Every time a visitor comes to your profile, that’s one potential customer or potential fan that’s going to follow your page, and if that page isn’t active or isn’t up to date with everything your business is offering, then you’ve just lost a potential customer.
Another big mistake I often see is that people are trying to copy others.
Don’t do that, just be yourself. Find your own voice, your own persona, and use that. If you need to copy other people for aspirations or ideas or so forth, do it, but put your own personality to it. I think that’s the biggest mistake that people make.
Finally, I see a lot of businesses who keep forgetting that it’s not only about having a website.
You have to make sure that your Instagram page is up to date. Your Instagram is your strongest website, especially if you’re advertising on social media, and you have to have a call-to-action. If there’s no call-to-action or if you don’t explain what you’re doing on your social media, people are going to be lost. It’s good to add a link to your website on your social media, but Millennials and Gen Zs don’t want to go to your website, they just want to go to your business’ social media page, scroll up through your images, and see the highlights.
Q: What’s the most popular social media platform currently, and which one is on the rise?
In general, the most popular one is Instagram, it’s the most popular social media platform for everything. But it also depends on what your demographics are, and there are other popular platforms that have been around for a while that are also very good. TikTok is on the rise, and there’s another one called Triller which is also on the rise.
Q: How is each social media platform best used?
YouTube: In the e-commerce space, I would use YouTube for how-to videos. YouTube is more of an educational and entertainment platform, but for a business, definitely use it as an educational platform and a testimonial platform. Have the founder of the company do a testimonial and connect with them humanly. Have that 5-minute video, because YouTube is where you can do a medium or long-form of content and have that person there.
Instagram: Instagram is very short form. It’s very picture orientated and short video clips. Once you start to get some following and engagements on there, I would also use Instagram to contact and reach out to your followers. Send them direct messages, especially if the people that are following your page are authentic customers. Reach out to them and stay engaged with them constantly.
Facebook: I’d definitely use Facebook for ads. I think geotagging ads on Facebook are great, it’s the whole “if you’re not seen, you’re not remembered” type of thing. But just be aware that not every demographic is going to be on Facebook. It’s more of the older generation. People 35 years and up are the ones that are more active on Facebook, so you’ve got to be more aware of that.
Review Sites: I’m not a fan of review sites personally. I read reviews, but I don’t really go and make my decision on buying something based on reviews. I just use reviews mainly for restaurants if I’m doing it. OpenTable is a great place that I’ll go to for reviews as opposed to Yelp, even though Yelp is the biggest platform.
Q: What are the best times to post on social media, and how often should you post?
First, you’ve got to understand where your demographics are.
Do your research. If your Instagram isn’t converted to a business account, convert that to business. Then, analyze your posting times and see when people are engaging and understand where your demographics are at. In general, right now, there is no particular time to post because most people are working from home. So, everything is really about research, analyzing, and A/B testing.
When you post on Instagram stories, post stories every day, but don’t post another one until the last story has been deactivated.
The idea is to post all the stories (story set) at the same time and then wait until the end unless the previous stories have a connection to an action that was mentioned in the previous story. If a person keeps adding stories without the last posted story set completed, the new stories become white noise. In addition, when creating stories on Instagram, the principle overarching storytelling theme is the same as a film, book, series, etc. There’s a beginning, middle, and end. The context of a story should match the target audience or followers.
In terms of Instagram stories, which is a really good way of engaging, I wouldn’t post any more than 3–5 stories per session.
And you can spread them out through a day, so if you’ve got a strategy or say “I want to post a story that is 3 15 second clips,” and if that narrative can be spread out throughout the day, fantastic. But, if that narrative needs to be one after the other, then do it at that particular time one after the other and then wait until the next day until they’ve expired. So 3–5 sets of stories is a good rule of thumb.
Also, constant content is gold for any business, so be constant.
It’s time-consuming, and a lot of businesses cannot afford a social media manager, but if you’re going to drive traffic and you’re running an e-commerce store, you should be really active on social media. Make at least 3 posts a week. If you can focus on 3 posts a week, you’re doing good. If that’s too difficult, then focus on one post every week and then increase that to up to 3 posts a week.
Q: What’s one thing you wish more people knew about social media?
The power that it has to be able to captivate your audience and create a community, a fan base, around your product or persona.
People are like, “ah, social media, fake posts, fake news,” but it actually has a really good power if you use it properly to be able to engage a community and interact with them. It’s definitely a platform that should be used to communicate with your customers, and it’s a good tool just to create your brand around. Because everyone’s on social media, and the new generations that are growing up are going to be on these platforms too.
Q: How can people increase their follower count?
This goes back to being authentic. Being authentic and engaging with your consumers is important.
Also, if you find a community that’s really engaging with you, see who is in that community. For example, if when you make a post there’s someone that’s constantly commenting on your posts, have a look at their followers and see who they are, and then find some form of connection. Send them a direct message and say, “hey, I can see that you follow this person who also follows our page. I’d really like to be in touch with you. This is what we’re offering, but most of all, we just want to build a community,” and just be authentic. Don’t be too sales-y. Get them to follow you based on your personal stories, whatever those are. Be creative within the realm of your capacity, you don’t have to be an actor, actress, graphic designer, comedian, or anything else like that, you just need to be your own personal self. And if they really like you, they will follow you.
Use a social media platform as a place to create your brand, not necessarily to sell.
Bring awareness to your brand. Because the more people know about your brand and have that in their mind when they’re talking to a friend or their family, they’ll recommend your product or service. So, it’s all about just being authentic and constantly engaging with them in an authentic manner.
Constantly remind your followers that there’s a human behind your business.
And that could be anyone from the team of that business, it could be the social media manager, it could be the CEO, the founder, the business owner, it could be the employees coming on there and just talking with everybody about the product. Do a shoutout, and say, “hey, these are all of the employees that work with us,” and really show who they are. They’re real people, and so people want to know that they’re real. Tell them about yourself and create that community to what your interests are, and the people will follow.
Q: Any final advice?
Don’t be afraid to show your natural habitat.
We know that COVID-19 has brought out the opportunity. We’re seeing famous musicians, movie stars, and television celebrities talking on live videos from home. Going live is a good opportunity for people to show who they are. So, go live, invite your followers. Say, “hey, I’m going to go live because I want to show you about my product, I want to do a giveaway on my live program, I want to hear from you.” Do Q&As live, ask your customers, “how can we best serve you?” At the end of the day, it’s all about really being authentic and being yourself.
What’s your favorite way to use social media? Let us know in the comments below!
Originally published at https://www.soap-bx.com on September 11, 2020.
