Periscope
16 NEWSWEEK.COM
Breaking
Through the Noise
,n a Zorld constantly ʀooded Zith social media
posts on multiple platforms, these ɿve strategies Zill
help you stand out from the croZd
in the early days of covid,
racking up social media views
was easy—after all, everyone’s sched-
ule had suddenly cleared. But, as the
pandemic has worn on, social media
expert Shama Hyder notes, “People are
becoming more choosy about their
[media] consumption. The first webi-
nar’s cool, the second’s cool...the 80th
webinar better really bring it, right?”
Every Thursday at 12 p.m. ET/9 a.m.
PT, I host Better, a Newsweek video
interview program streaming on
LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and You-
Tube. Hyder—founder
and CEO of Zen Media, a
digital marketing and PR
firm, and author of The
Zen of Social Media Mar-
keting and Momentum:
How to Propel Your Mar-
keting and Transform
Your Brand in the Digital Age—was a
recent guest. During the interview, she
shared these five strategies about how
to break through the noise on social
media, when it seems noisier than ever.
Follow the Three Cs
Hyder believes the most impactful
social content these days has three
key characteristics: It’s compact, con-
sistent and creative.
“Micro is winning right now,” says
Hyder, because of short attention
spans and general media overload.
For instance, if you’re giving a vir-
tual talk, she suggests scheduling it
for 30 or 45 minutes, rather than the
traditional 60-minute presentation,
because audiences will be better able
to pay attention.
Consistency—building a relation-
ship with your audience by sharing
content at regular, predetermined
intervals—also matters. For instance,
in my book Entrepreneurial You, I pro-
file popular men’s fashion video blog-
ger Antonio Centeno, who believes
frequent, consistent posting has been
the secret to his massive
subscriber growth.
Finally, Hyder says,
we have to be creative in
order to stand out. That
means continually exper-
imenting and trying new
ways to connect with
your audience. Among the switch-
it-up tactics she suggests you might try:
talking about topics you don’t usually
cover, varying the length of your posts
or your videos or creating some con-
tent that’s more personal in nature.
Don’t Be Everywhere
“It’s very easy for me to sit here and
say, ‘Be on every [social channel],”
says Hyder. “I know a lot of gurus
do that. But it’s such terrible advice
because it all depends on your band-
width. Do you have a team of 20 you
can deploy?” Most of us don’t.
The solution, according to Hyder:
“Get on the platform where you can
be consistent.” That usually means
the intersection of the platform
where your audience congregates
and where you most enjoy posting.
For instance, Hyder and I work with
professional clients, and therefore we
both put most of our online efforts
into LinkedIn, where I also offer a
weekly e-newsletter.
Create Pillar Content
Hyder is a believer in what she calls
“pillar content”—meaning, creating
rich material on a particular topic
and then leveraging that content in
multiple ways.
An example: “When trade shows
BUSINESS
FEBRUARY 19, 2021
BY
DORIE CLARK
@dorieclark