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The key to winning at social media marketing? keep pulling.

I’ll set the scene for you so you can get the full picture. There I was, at my gym, with 200 pounds sitting on my back. The most I had ever been able to squat was 165 pounds, and that personal record (PR) had been set about two years ago after consistent gym attendance and a full back squat cycle. Cut to a couple of weeks ago. I had been back to the gym for about a month after a six-month (unplanned and unnecessary) absence. I had jumped into the middle of a strength cycle and spent a couple of weeks working on my back squat. I had a rough night’s sleep and no pre-lift nutrition. I failed my first attempt – but I made the second squat.

And the best part of that lift wasn’t at the top. It wasn’t before the lift started when I hit that moment of being scared about something and doing it anyway. It wasn’t even afterwards when everyone was super excited. See, in every weightlifting exercise, there’s a sticking point when the lift becomes the most challenging and it’s easiest to give up and simply bail. In a back squat, that sticking point is about a third of the way back up from the bottom. If you’ve let your form go at any point during the lift, this is where it’s most difficult to recover. This is also where most of the stored energy of the movement is accessible, so it’s the best opportunity for success. This was the point where I have the clearest memory of grunting and straining and pushing through to success.


But enough about weightlifting.

You didn’t really think I was just going to entertain you with the thrilling tale of physiological success, did you?  Because I’m going somewhere relevant with this, I promise. What if our social media and our marketing efforts are like lifting a heavy weight at the gym? What if we could take the lessons from the gym and transfer them to what we do every day on social to build stronger relationships and faster sales? Let’s give it a shot. Here are three things my back squat can tell you about your social media marketing.

Start with putting in the reps.

Look, getting a 200-pound squat wasn’t the most important rep. Know why? Because there is no such thing as a “most important rep.” Every. Single. Rep. Counts. The good reps. The bad reps. The reps that I should have been able to get and failed (I don’t even want to talk about my dead lift right now). The reps that shouldn’t have worked (but I scraped by). Every rep is important, and what’s most important is getting in there and putting in the work. That’s how you earn the PRs.

It’s the exact same with your marketing. Do you think your most important emails are the ones you send during the holidays? Sorry, pal. Because if you’re not putting in the legwork before that, if you’re not giving the value that your customers want and building the relationships, you don’t earn that killer email that sells out your online course in one afternoon. If you don’t post regularly on social media with a value-forward strategy that engages and entertains your audience, you don’t have the right to ask for the sign-up to your email list. Good marketing grabs attention and interest. Great marketing does that with buyers who feel like you have invested in them and their needs.

Your WOD (workout of the day):
Find a posting schedule (daily, twice a day or four times a week) and commit to sticking to it for a month. Compare your analytics from the beginning of the period to the end and see how much better your numbers are.


Form is incredibly important in the reps.

I don’t know about you, but I find it really hard to believe that I was able to build the muscle necessary to lift that much more weight without a consistent workout regimen, a good diet (in progress), and cyclical strength work. Something else had to happen, right? Well, something did happen. I got a lot better at my form. The first huge shift occurred a few years ago when I switched from a high bar to a low bar back squat, which meant I was involving a lot more of my posterior chain and accessing a ton more muscle power during lifts.  Recently I’ve gotten a lot better at finding the ideal depth, which meant I could leverage the tension I built during the squat to my advantage.

See, the biggest improvements were about getting the best form down. This is 100% something that matters in marketing. Do you think it’s an accident that there are common words, word count, and formatting that trigger buying decisions? Do you think that it’s happenstance that some ads achieve a 10% clickthrough rate and some get a 1% rate? Or that we tell you to include a call to action in every single post? What you say is important. How you say it is equally important.

 

Your WOD (workout of the day):

Test out these three common post forms and see which of them works the best for you
(note: I just made the posts up and the info is super not accurate):

  1. Problem + Action + Solution

(i.e. If you’re still fighting the winter weight gain battle, this article can help you lose 10 lbs in 2 months).

  1. Unlikely comparison

(i.e. Eating 300 grams of carbohydrates a day is as deadly as smoking. Here’s what that looks like in a normal 24 hours)

  1. Curiosity + Challenge

(i.e. What do you think the most important aspect of long-term weight loss is? Leave your answer in the comments then check out this post to see if you were right!)

 

Coaching is everything.

Tiger Woods has a golf coach. Brad Pitt has an acting coach. Paris Hilton has an airhead coach (probably). The point is that even the most seasoned professionals use coaching to get the absolute most out of their craft. And I, a far cry from a professional, have some fantastic athletic coaching at my gym. These are the coaches who lie to me about how much weight is on the bar because they know I tend to freak myself out. They can tell me if a different grip will help me stabilize my dead lift (still bitter, thanks). They explain that not going deep enough on a back squat will put MORE, not LESS pressure on my knees.

In fact, many of you are coaches. Many of my clients do coaching to some capacity. So why do we understand the need to help our clients with their business, their personal life, or their finances, but when it comes to an area where we are not an expert, we anticipate the ability to master it completely and on our own? Because the truth is that yes, you can become marketing expert. Maybe. Not everyone is good at every part of marketing (even most experts have strengths and weaknesses). But also, at what cost? At the cost of time with your family? At the cost of your weekends? Your other business goals? Your clients? And even if you are an expert, have you considered the fact that you might be way too close to your project to be objective about the best way to market it? Can you properly analyze your results? See, that’s what amazing coaching does. It does not do the work for you, and it does not change everything about your brand.  It DOES assess your strengths and weaknesses and puts together a plan to help you achieve your goals.

Your WOD (workout of the day):

Get a trusted friend or colleague (not a “yesman” who will just tell you what you want to hear) to give you an honest assessment in the following areas:

1. Branding
2. Post cadence
3. Post quality 
4. Audience size 
5. Audience engagement

Need someone to help? I’ll do it. Email me at hello@ek.marketing.

If I can do it, so can you.

Real story: I am not remotely athletic. That’s 100% accurate. So if I can get myself to a point where I feel able to attempt a 200-pound back squat, you can write a little social media post, amirite? One of my favorite parts about my gym is the fact that the coaches and members will remind you to keep working, even when it seems futile or useless. You’ll be in the middle of the hardest lift of your life, and you hear these voices yelling, “UP UP UP!!” or “KEEP PULLING!” Well, in lieu of me actually yelling at you in your office, I will tell you here: as long as you have forward momentum, YOU NEED TO KEEP AT IT.

If you do want me to actually do the yelling (figuratively – my bedside manner is amazing), reach out at hello@ek.marketing to learn what my formal coaching looks like. Until then, keep pulling, my friends.

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