The Social Media Joyride Hits the Brick Wall
Right now I’m running a little social media “experiment.”
There’s this site called Medium.com that seems kinda cool.
The idea is, you write a great blog post and publish it on Medium.
And when a handful of people read and “recommend” your post, Medium gives you a boost—they make your post go viral.
At least that’s the theory.
So far what I’m finding is that my posts get read and recommended, and then…
Nothing.
C’mon, Medium, where’s my “viral love”?
I was talking to my awesome marketing assistant, Aaron about this the other day.
And I noted that the trend these days with blog post content is:
“Viral or nothing.”
That’s because all the social media sites like Facebook, and Twitter, and Medium realized that more and more marketers were using great content to attract visitors to your site for “free.”
(Nevermind the fact that you worked dang hard to get all those Facebook followers…)
The problem is, Facebook, Twitter el. al. don’t make money when you get free traffic.
So they decided to fix the problem as they saw it by “improving the user experience” with “algorithmic curation.”
Basically they moved the goalposts.
They rewrote the rules on you.
They shut you out.
Now all those tweets and Facebook updates you post—no one sees them, because Twitter and Facebook send them straight to a digital dustbin.
I’ve seen this myself on the Twitter accounts I run. Even though I have tens of thousands of followers, I get less than a quarter of the traffic that I got just 4-5 months ago.
Frustrating?
You bet.
But don’t look for it to change any time soon.
In fact, I expect Twitter and Facebook to continue their crackdown on marketers, forcing you to pay more to reach your own audience.
The social media joyride is officially over.
Which raises the question:
In this hyper-curated, pay-to-play environment, how *do* you get traffic and visitors to your site so you can continue to build your audience and grow your email list?
That’s the focus of the Content Promotion Summit, a free online “seminar” that kicks off on Monday.
The summit is organized by my friend Cody Lister, and I have to say that I’m extremely impressed with the hustle he’s put into this event.
Cody’s rounded up a “who’s who” of online marketing. Names like Sujan Patel, Jeff Bullas, Larry Kim, Laura Roeder and Wes Schaeffer.
These experts will share what’s working TODAY to get your content noticed and grow your audience.
Best of all, there’s no cost to register and attend.
For more details, go here: