A Social Media Strategy For People Who Hate Social Media

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0:57to learn more. Consumer Reports does not endorse or promote any product. Is social media a waste of time for your business? Well, two years ago, I thought so. I was a real big-time hater, a genuine, vocal, committed hater of social media as a growth tool for your business. And my position was very simple. The effort required is enormous. The return on investment, pretty unpredictable. The algorithm changes all the time. It's hard to know what's going to work. And the whole thing looks like a rat race designed to reward people that dance on camera and just didn't feel like it was good for business.

1:35So I ignored it for years. And then two years ago, I decided to prove myself wrong. Yeah, I'm kind of crazy like that. I like to challenge myself. And I went all in on social media. What happened? Well, our revenue doubled. And today I'm going to give you the strategy that helped us produce that result. I'm going to give you the exact framework, what we've tested, what failed, what finally worked, and what cost me 18 months and failed experiments and nearly$200 ,000 to figure out. And you're going to get it in just 15 minutes. So let's go.

2:16Welcome back to the$100 MBA show. I'm your host, Omar Zinhome, where I deliver practical business lessons three times a week, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, to help you start, grow, and scale your business. If this show has helped in any way, it would be amazing if you could drop us a quick review on whatever app you're using to listen to this podcast right now. It helps me and my team bring new episodes every week. And more importantly, more entrepreneurs will be able to discover our podcast so you can help someone else start their journey. Thanks so much. Let's start with principle number one.

2:52When it comes to social media and succeeding in social media, the first thing you need to understand is you need to put video first, always. If you're going to invest in social media, video is non-negotiable. Not because it's trendy, but because video does two things that no other format can do simultaneously. It builds genuine connection with your audience and is what major algorithms are currently rewarding above anything else. If you want to grow, if you want to get exposure, the algo wants you to do video and we got to feed daddy algo. Okay. We got to make sure that he's happy. So make sure that you understand that whatever you do, you got to start with video.

3:34These two facts together make video the highest return format available to any business owner on social media. Text posts can communicate information. Images can communicate your aesthetics or your vibe. Video communicates who you actually are. It actually connects with the audience at a deeper level. Why does this matter? Why do you want to communicate and connect with people with video? Well, the name of the game in social media is attention. We want to make sure that we have their attention. And you have to understand, people's attention is very valuable and very limited. So if you don't grab their attention by connecting with them via video, your energy, your personality, your conviction, it's going to be very hard for you to not be ignored.

4:17With video, audiences don't just learn from you. They feel like they know you, that they can trust you. And that is really the goal here, because at the end of the day, we don't buy from people we don't trust. So make sure you are prioritizing that in all your videos. How can I build that connection so people feel that I have their best interests in mind. Principle number two, everything is an experiment. Here's a number that humbles me every time I say it out loud. We've published over 150 YouTube videos and over 500 videos on Instagram and TikTok before we even started to understand what actually works.

4:54I know that sounds crazy. 150 videos, long-form videos, and 500 short-form videos. Well, yeah, that's what it takes because every time we put out a video, every time we put up a piece of content, we learned what worked and what didn't. And it took us some time, some iteration to figure out what to fix, what to improve, what to double down on. So let me say that again, 600 pieces of content just to find some traction. Not 10, not 20, not 30. People often come up to me in events and they say, hey, I've been posting, I've been posting and nothing's happening. And I ask them, how many times have you posted so far?

5:29How many pieces of content and they tell me like 20, 30, 50. I'm like, that's not enough. That's just not enough. You need more at bats so that you can win. And here's what I want you to understand about that number, the 650 pieces of content number. Those are not 650 failures, right? They are 650 experiments. Each one taught us something, whether it did well or it didn't do well. We learned which hooks stopped the scroll, which titles drove the clicks, which topics really resonated with people and got them engaging and commenting. We found out which thumbnails really performed well on which videos.

6:06And we could not have known any of this if we didn't put it out there in real time, in the real world, not just playing around in our head or just, you know, keeping this content saved on our phone and not out in the world. Because you need a reaction from people to understand what is good and what's not. Again, we could not have known any of this without publishing the content, putting the videos out, and measuring the data that we got. And that data from 650 experiments is worth more than any social media course I could ever take. Why? Because it's specific to our audience, my voice, and the content that we put out there.

6:43No course can give you that. Only your own experiments can. Social media is not just about creating great content. It's about learning what your audience needs and wants. One of the things you can do to prove this point is go to your favorite creator on YouTube. Let's say you go to one of the biggest creators ever, Mr. Beast. Go to his channel and scroll back to his first videos. His first videos are terrible and didn't perform well at the time when you put it out there, but he was happy with 10 views and then 20 and then 50 and then he learned what worked and what didn't, changed his thumbnails, and he had this group of friends that he worked together with where every time they put out a video, they test something new.

7:24Let's test out a new hook. Let's test out a new style, a way of editing that we didn't do before. And every time they iterated, they learned something new because they're putting something new, they're testing something new, and getting new information. And now Mr. Beast is the biggest YouTuber ever, but it all started with those early experimentations. Principle number three, higher for experimentation. This one is the one that is a mistake that I think I made for a very long time, and I'm pretty sure many people who are watching and listening have either done this before or are doing it right now.

7:57You keep experimentation on your own to-do list. Okay, you say to yourself, I know I have to experiment. I know I need to gather data. I need to A-B test. I know I have to do this. And you just put it on your to-do list and you have good intentions, but those good intentions often, you know, die in the graveyard of to-do lists, right? Every week you tell yourself, oh, I'm going to test something new. I'm going to try something new. I'm going to see a new format, a new thumbnail. and it just never gets done. And I'll tell you why it never gets done. Because you're running a business. You have other things to do.

8:28You have a product to sell. You have customers to serve. And these experimentations don't always feel so urgent. They're not something that you have to get done right away. It's kind of like a nice to have. But the moment you hire somebody to take care of all your experiments, this is when your business changes. You now have somebody dedicated to giving you the information you need to improve your content. And this proved to be true for us. We hired Sinead, who's our head of experimentation and growth, and she makes sure that we are testing every little thing when it comes to the things we put out in the world, not just our videos, but our social media posts, our newsletters, our ads, everything.

9:08And her whole job is to run experiments, grab the data, and report back. She tests hooks, thumbnails, titles, descriptions, what I wear on camera, the way I move my hands, how I say the words I say, the pacing of the edit, the format of the content, everything is a variable. Everything gets tested. And because it's her job, it actually gets done. Not eventually. It doesn't get thrown on the back burner and one day, one day, one day. No, that's her whole job. And what we love about Sinead is that she loves it. And when you find people that love experimentation, love data and love doing this stuff, they just produce results for you because they're hungry to see you win.

9:50And this is the lesson. This is the point that I'm making in this part of this episode. Experimentation that is nobody's specific responsibility never happens. It lives in that too hard basket in our life where we just kind of say, one day I'll do it and one day never comes. So trust me, this will change the trajectory of your growth on social media more than anything else where you have somebody is holding you accountable to saying, hey, I told you to change this or do that. Let's see it so that we can experiment and see what happens. And by having that person on your team, you're able to get the data you need so that you can not only be consistent and grow, but get better at what you do, get better at the content and get better at understanding what resonates with your audience.

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11:58In fact, I just hired a freelance videographer here in Europe while I'm traveling for work. I wasn't able to bring my videographer from Sydney, but it was so easy to hire somebody who's talented, ready, and local. Thanks to Upwork. Upwork helps grow your business by giving you fast access to specialized talent across more than 125 categories. So you can fill skill gaps, launch projects faster, and scale support up or down without committing to full-time headcount. It's a one-stop platform to find, hire, and pay expert freelancers across web and software development, data and analytics, marketing, business operations, and more.

12:33It's free to sign up and posting a job is super simple and easy. And with Business Plus, you can access the top 1 % of talent on Upwork. And with AI-powered shortlisting, you get matched to the right freelancer in under six hours. No endless searching required. Visit Upwork.com right now and post your job for free. That's Upwork.com to connect with top talent ready to help your business grow. That's Upwork.com, Upwork.com. Principle number four, volume is non-negotiable. This one is where people really push back on. and it's the one I am least willing to negotiate on. Okay, this is not negotiable in my book.

13:15Quality matters, but you need volume of content to make social media work for you. And when I say volume, I'm talking about at minimum 50 pieces of content per week. Now you might be saying, that's a lot of content. Yeah, don't worry, we're gonna break down on how to do this in a moment. And I know that sounds like a lot, but here's why it's necessary. You might have heard me say this already, but social media is an iteration game. You need a good enough volume to generate meaningful data. You know, sometimes when you run experiments and you figure out what's working, what's not, if you don't have enough information out there, you don't have enough volume of content, it's hard for you to really understand what's working.

13:54It's more of a guess. For example, if you publish three pieces of content a week and one performs well, you don't know if it performed well because of the topic, the hook, the thumbnail, the format, the day it was posted, or is it just random variants? The sample size is too small for you to know anything for sure. At 50 pieces a week, the pattern changes. You can see clearly which hooks are stopping people from scrolling. You can find out which ones are just falling flat. You can find out which topics are driving more saves and shares and people that are commenting. You can see which formats generate the most engagement.

14:33And once you can see the patterns, You can double down on what works and you can leave what doesn't. That is the compounding effect that builds a social media presence that actually grows. And without volume, this is impossible. And I'm stressing this because this is why social media didn't work for me in the past. I was inconsistent. I was not publishing enough content. I was maybe publishing maybe three or four pieces of content a week. That's not enough. You know, a week, we currently publish nearly 100 pieces of content. And this gives us enough information so that we can know the next week what to do.

15:09But when you're just kind of putting up a piece of content here or there, when you feel like it with no publishing schedule, it's really hard for you to succeed. You're really fighting against some forces out there. You've got to remember, social media is a very crowded place. There are people that are posting every single hour, going live, putting video, putting posts, images. They're just all over. They live inside of social media, right? So I'm not saying you have to be that, but you have to at least have a baseline of volume so that you can have the data you need. I'm hoping this episode is giving you a little sneak peek about how social media works and how you can actually use this medium, this free way to market to grow your business.

15:50And we're gonna get into the details in a moment, but I wanna make sure you hit subscribe because there's an upcoming episode I don't want you to miss. That episode's called How to Create a Business You Won't Regret. A business that's not gonna send you to the hospital. A business that's going to make you feel better than your day job. Okay, a lot of people, they create businesses and they're like, man, I should go back to my job. I had less stress then. So I want you to hit subscribe so you don't miss it because we're working on it right now and I can't wait to share it with you. Subscribe and I'll see you then.

16:16Principle number five, the 50-50 rule. And I came up with this rule by chance because I was trying to experiment again with the volume that we had. How much content should we be doing when it comes to branding and awareness and how much content should be doing where we're actually getting people to take action, where there is a clear next step, whether it's to subscribe, whether it's to comment, whether it's to sign up for a program. And I found that half your social media content at least should be branding content, where you are just trying to create more awareness about what you do, about who you serve, about the problems you solve.

16:53This means in these posts, there is no need for a call to action. You don't need to say, you know, link in bio or comment below to receive a free gift or whatever it might be. You're just giving value. You're just meeting people where they are. This is something I didn't fully understand that when people are on Instagram, for example, they don't really want to leave Instagram. Okay. They don't really want to go somewhere else and do a bunch of steps. They want to just enjoy their time on Instagram. So give them a good time, you know, give them the information, give them the value, educate them, make them think, make them chuckle, right?

17:24And have a good time with them because they'll come back to you and they'll trust you and they'll like you. And then one time when they see a post where you are asking them to do something, they'll follow through because now they're bought in on what you're all about. Now, the other half, like I talked about, the 50 % is where you actually do have a call to action. And what I like to do is I like to make sure that I give our audience a call to action that makes sense in terms of that content that they've seen. It's congruent with the content they saw. So for example, if we show them a clip of a podcast interview that we had with Ramit Sethi, who has a Netflix show called How to Get Rich, and he's a New York Times bestselling author, and he's a personal finance expert.

18:03And if this content resonates with them, this clip from the interview, there's a good chance they're going to want to see the full interview, the full hour and 15 minutes. So we ask them to comment the word or the name, Ramit, in the comments. When they do that, we use a tool called ManyChat, which automatically sends them a direct message with the full links of that episode, whether it's on YouTube or Spotify or Apple. Why does this work? Because I'm asking them to do something to get more of what they've already shown me that they like. Okay, they're not going to comment if they are not interested, if they're not interested in more of this content that they saw in the clip.

18:37So I like to make sure that everything is super congruent, almost like a continuation. Like if you want more of this, then do this. It's a lot easier to convert people into something that they're already shown interest about rather than you saying, hey, if you like my interview through me, sign up for my program. What? That makes no sense. Some people are just so hungry for a sale. They really look desperate in that process. And, you know, desperation is a stench that you don't want to have. So make sure that whatever your call to action is, it's congruent with the content that you're presenting.

19:08That combination of 50 % value and 50 % conversion is a good balance to have. Too much of one or the other really allows the audience to start to feel like, hey, this is either too salesy or just too entertaining or not really, there's no way to kind of continue and learn from you. I want to be able to go deeper. For those who want to go deeper, you got to give them that opportunity. Principle number six, collaborations only work with chemistry. Many people use collaborations, meaning they collaborate with other creators on social media or YouTube or whatever it might be. In order for you to leverage, they try to leverage that person's audience.

19:45They have a big audience. I want to collaborate with this person. So their audience becomes my audience. Makes total sense. But what I found is that this really doesn't work unless that collaboration actually has some meaning behind it. Like you actually know the person and there's some chemistry between you and that other person. And this is why we rarely do an interview or bring somebody on the show here that I don't know personally, that I haven't had a conversation with socially before. Because we know that it's just going to fall flat. Like the person in front of me, the guests, they're not going to trust me.

20:14They're not going to feel comfortable enough to loosen up and be themselves. And this is why when you collaborate with somebody else, make sure you invest in a relationship with them beforehand. Also, when you're in these collaborations, whether it's an interview, whether you're doing like a joint video together, whether you're even doing like a partnership with a brand, you'll feel more comfortable if it's not the first time you've spoken to them. And to be quite honest, I dedicate time on my calendar. I usually try to do this on Fridays where I set up lunches on Fridays. I try to do this at least two or three Fridays a month with people that I want to connect with.

20:47We're in the back of my mind one day, maybe I'll get them on the podcast and they'll be very valuable for our audience. But right now, my first job is to get to know them and see if that we can be pals and see that if we can vibe together so that when the cameras are on, it's not uncomfortable. This makes great content when people come together and people see them and say, oh, these guys seem like friends. You know, one of the most popular and most successful podcasts out there is called Smartless, which is three comedians that have worked together for a very long time. They're very close friends and they make fun of each other constantly during the whole podcast.

21:17And it's a lot of fun because of the banter and because of that chemistry. Principle number seven, get used to being personal and vulnerable. Ooh, this principle took me a while to figure out. It took me the longest actually to embrace, and it's the one that was the biggest difference when I started to finally understand it and finally get it and start applying it. Social media rewards vulnerability. It rewards authenticity. It rewards people that are just themselves and not just putting on some sort of performance. You see, the moment you share something that actually costs you something to say, a failure, a doubt, maybe a struggle that you had, the response is completely different from a completely polished piece of content.

22:00Once you start sharing stories, you start sharing maybe some mistakes you've made, people start to see you differently. They start to see somebody that they can relate to, somebody they can trust because you are trusting them with that vulnerability. Because everyone is struggling with something, okay? Everybody has got their own issues and problems and have a history of, you know, struggling with something. So it's okay. It's fine. And you don't have to be perfect. This is something that took me a while because when I was growing up, you know, the popular their business people and the personal development people, they seem perfect.

22:32It was like a veneer, right? But I realized that people don't want that. People don't want the guru. What they want is basically somebody that's a few steps ahead of them. Somebody that they can relate to, somebody that can share. Oh, wow, they had struggles too, and they still made it. I want to be like that. Listen, I get it. This is harder than it sounds, especially if you're someone who spent years building your reputation and protecting your reputation, especially if you came from the corporate world where, you know, you don't show your weaknesses because you might be afraid Someone's going to backstab you or sabotage you or use it against you one day.

23:02But if you look at social media, the businesses that are winning are the ones that are being vulnerable, the brands that are willing to be real in front of the camera and not just the experts. Listen, no one wants to be told what to do. They want to be inspired to do what they want to do, right? They want to look at somebody and they want to hear from somebody and say, hey, I want to follow on that path. I want to do what they did instead of being told, hey, this is what you're supposed to do. I'm the expert. I'm the guru. Listen to me. You know, if you're an entrepreneur, especially, you're very impenuated.

23:31My mom used to say when I was a kid all the time, one of my first few sentences was, don't tell me what to do. But there's some truth behind that. You know, we all want to feel like we're making our own decisions and we want to be inspired, but we also want to carve our own path. Principle number eight, build the team. Social media without a team is a burnout machine. Now listen, Nicole and I, we started the$100 MBA in 2013 all by ourselves. We didn't have any help. We did all the work. We did everything. And it was very tiring. We realized this is not sustainable. And we decided we have to start building a team.

24:06And I encourage you to do the same, even if it's just one hire. And let me tell you why. The most time-consuming parts of a content operation are things like editing, clipping, posting, not the actual creating. What I'm doing right now, you know, talking to you in front of the camera and through the mic. This is not the time consuming part. It's everything around it. It's the ideation. It's the planning. It's the scripting. It's the editing. It's the posting. It's all the stuff that happens. It's the clipping of these videos. It's the descriptions. It's the SEO. All that stuff is what takes all the time.