I’ve recently had a few months off for a major life event, the arrival of my second child. After I got through the first sleep deprived few weeks, I started doing what many parents do, spamming my friends and family with pictures of the little cherub on Facebook and Instagram.
Having a bit more time to throw at my social media profiles in the past few months I noticed that more and more people just share stuff. Less and less are people creating/posting original content. And, in my opinion it is BORING!
- Oh, you’ve shared another pointless meme about your wine drinking habits. Dull.
- Oh, you checked in somewhere. Dull
- Oh, here are a bunch of photos, with no captions. Annoying.
- Oh, here is video of someone or some cat doing something stupid posted by some radio station in the US. Dull.
When Facebook started, people posted real stuff about themselves, and for my friends and family that still do that, I like it. If you visit their pages it is an interesting mosaic of their life.
So, why is this relevant? More and more businesses are trying to use Facebook and other social media platforms, to engage and inform their communities. It is important to remember that these tools need content; fresh, new, interesting content to remain interesting to followers.
A couple of weeks ago everyone got on the Back to the Future bandwagon, and I reckon two local organisations got it right.
The Queensland Police team get their Facebook stuff right pretty much all the time! They have a well thought out mix of community interest stories and urgent information provision. They have a sense of humour and couldn’t let the Back to the Future anniversary pass without a post about the Mt Isa hover board unit…
Eat Southbank leveraged the 30 year Back to the Future anniversary to post a series of photos of Southbank in 1985 and 2015. Probably would have made more sense for Southbank to share these images, or for the images to have a greater focus on the restaurants now in Southbank, but the post was interesting, well prepared and timely.
Obviously Facebook isn’t so boring that I’ve completely switched off, but I am the master of my own feed and can unlike at the click of a button. Friends and businesses can keep me liking (and sharing) by making sure their posts are relevant, timely, regular, accurate and interesting!
