The Best Way To Get Good At Social? Use Social.

I’m going to let you all in on a secret.

It’s a big one.

You can learn how to be a master of any social network.

Literally any or even all of them. It just takes 1 weird trick.

You ready?

Use the social network.

I know that’s super pithy and hand wavey, but it’s 100% true. You see you can have so much of an advantage over your competitors, over the market, over everyone else by just taking the time to actually learn and use a social network. Understanding the inside jokes, the way people communicate, the pitfalls, etc. All this puts you at a huge advantage over your competition when it comes to effectively extracting value from social platforms.

Let’s take Reddit for example.

I’ve been a big advocate of Reddit advertising for a few different reasons. In fact, I am paying out of pocket, not client money, because I believe in it so much. Why am I such a big believer in Reddit ads? I’ve been a Reddit user since 2010, almost 8 years now. I understand the community in a way that many advertisers just don’t. The inside jokes, the interplay in between subreddits, “legendary” stories that people quote that others would overlook, etc.

Here’s the thing. You can read the manual on Reddit. You can understand how every feature works. The thing that if you aren’t a user you can understand how things work, but not the why. You’ll only ever have a skin deep understanding of the user experience.

I’m nto saying spend your entire work day on social media. Not at all. As much as it is my industry, it can also be a huge distraction. I specifically section off 1 hour of my day that is 3 things.

1. Using social in order to better understand it.

2. Use social to engage with my target audience of other marketers.

3. Learn from others in my industry.

So it’s sort of a 3 birds with 1 stone sort of scenario. I’m using social and understanding it, but I’m also accomplishing real business goals at the same time. This sort of combining can give you the context you need to deeply understand a platform, and also accomplish tangible business objectives at the same time so you don’t feel like it’s at all wasted.

At the end of the day whether it’s social or newspapers or tv or whatever, you need to deeply understand the platform to be able to effectively use it. It’s what all good marketers do.