Confessions of a Social Media Professional...

After 3 years working in social media (Buffer.com), I applied my learning to my IndieHacker project (Remotive.io)

• Today, we have 25k email subscribers, 16k on Twitter & 10k on LinkedIn.
• We're not on Instagram/Facebook because they are bad for society.
• We share content daily, getting 100s of RT & 1,000s of Likes weekly on Twitter + LinkedIn.
• All is organic, we never pay (take it from a former Google employee).

What am I sharing here?

MY 10 TIPS FOR ALL INDIEHACKERS
MY SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY

AMA if can help, happy sharing :)

DISCLAIMER:

1. Getting Social right takes time:
   Let's be contrarian: If you're not on social, I argue that you don't believe in your product enough.
   If you believe in your product, staying quiet about it means doing a disservice to your prospects and users.
   Start your Twitter & LinkedIn presence today, you'll be in the game. It's a starting point you can improve from.

2. It's a numbers game:
   At the beginning, 100% of my tweets fell flat. Today, it's only 50%. Out of the rest, 40% have potential, 10% do well. What do I mean by doing well? Getting tons (100s) of organic RTs. What does having potential mean? That you're talking about the right topic but your delivery/copywriting wasn't good enough.

3. Know WHY you're sharing:
   My goal isn't maximum spread, my goal is expressing myself clearly and having fun along the way. It helps me articulate my thought process. Impressions are just a byproduct. Know what your goals are!

MY 10 TIPS FOR ALL INDIEHACKERS

1. Have a voice:
   Your audience value OPINIONS over FACT. So tweeting statistics and industry news, your brand should have a voice and stick to it. Show that you care. Talk to the GUTS and HEART, not to their HEAD. Show them that a HUMAN is tweeting, not a ROBOT. REPLY to followers, ASK questions to people you look up to.

2. Pop Culture is 🔑:
   Leveraging top memes, breaking news, pop culture update to share your beliefs help you to communicate outside of your followers group. This week, you should be talking about Halloween, Thanksgiving or the news.

3. Format matters:
   Use images/emoji/GIFs whenever possible AND appropriate. Check about "Pablo by Buffer", it will make your life easier.

4. Consistency matters:
   Get your free/paid Buffer account and start sharing everyday. Showing up IS half of the battle. Organic reach is at an all time low. Make sure you post often, it's cool to repeat yourself. Only few followers will see your tweet..

5. Always have a RT/sharing mindset:
   People will re-share your content when they feel like: "YES! 100% agree, MY FOLLOWERS should know about this!". Keen in mind that a tweet is popular because it makes the RTer look good/funny/interesting/quirky...

6. Best Threads are emotional:
   Top storytelling anchors emotional attachement to the story, else folks tune out. Take it from Pixar, Disney & HBO - storytelling always wins.

7. Copywriting rules:
   Words, tone, rhythm, spaces, tense, removing adverbs matters. It's hard for non-native speakers. Up your skills and/or get native speakers to review your content.

8. Be a parrot 🦜
   Most people who have something worth saying only say it once.
   That's a mistake! If you do well, do it again!
   Why? If you have a hit song, go on tour!
   If you believe in what you say, you must repeat yourself. Else, you're wasting great content.

9. Great artist copy.
   Find social accounts that work really well. Reverse engineer why their content is engaging. Look at the content and format. Then, ask yourself if that's applicable to what you do while staying on brand. If so, get inspired!

10. BONUS: It gets easier:
    If 10,000+ people follow you for a cause, it's easier for supporters to relay your message. Stick to it, it will become easier over time.

MY SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY

1. Explore Slacks, Specialised forum, Quora... to see what people are interested by/worried about when it comes to your biz/industry.
2. Use twitter as a lab, testing your idea on your audience.
3. Use Buffer as a tool to post often and a lot. You need to keep on testing.
4. When a tweet doesn't "work", keep on crafting/tweaking it.
5. When a tweet "works", post it on LinkedIn + blog about it!
6. When a tweet "works", explore the top tweets/comments, those are gold.
7. If a tweet "works", repackage it and repost it once a quarter.

AMA if can help, happy sharing :)