It’s strange to think that my businesses, and by extension my life, wouldn’t exist as it does today if it weren’t for the one simple bit of knowledge that changed it all. If it weren’t for this, I’d have nothing. After all, it’s with this seemingly benign piece of information that I have been able to add tens of thousands of people to my clients’ email lists, hundreds of thousands of dollars to their pockets, and expose millions to the magnificence of their brands. It is with the untold power of what can be summarized in eight words that I was able to launch my own business and build something vastly larger than I had ever built for any client.
Think like a machine. Engage like a human. (@My_SocialSherpa) September 13, 2014
I’m getting ahead of myself. As with any story, there’s a beginning and to tell you how I learned to master the art of online sales through social media – I have to tell you a bit about my childhood. I was an odd kid (something I’m sure is apparent in reading my other articles). Things made sense in my head, but I had trouble communicating them with the world around me. What was more frustrating was that I had no idea why this gap, which somedays seemed to divide me and the rest of humanity, even existed in the first place. I struggled to make friends, my family didn’t seem to understand me, and despite being pharmaceutically medicated the majority of my life – I just didn’t seem to fit in anywhere. Why was I so… weird?
Looking back, it’s not surprising that I fell in love with computers. While interfacing with the world around me was a perpetual challenge, computers were something I could connect with and it would be years later, in my mid-twenties, that I finally understood why. It went beyond my interest in the machines, I later came to realize that computers and I operated on a day-to-day basis with an eerily similar logical process.
Computers think in a series of rules (i.e. “if A occurs then B must follow”) and until recent years, much similarly to me, they weren’t really capable of deviating from those rules without external guidance. From my earliest memories I remember having a ‘specific’ way of doing things and while it may not have made sense to anyone else – it certainly made sense to me. The problems I encountered in my earlier years typically were a result of my disinterest, and unwillingness, to heed the external guidance that typically came from my parents and teachers.
Whether it was a result of this environment, my inherent nature, or a combination of both – I began to become obsessed with understanding how the world worked. I was always looking for, or creating, patterns while breaking down and categorizing everything I could get my hands on. It didn’t matter if it was my massive collection of toy cars, my toiletries on the bathroom counter, or my candy score on Halloween – I needed to make sense of it.
In the case of my Halloween candy, I had told my mom that I was prioritizing what I wanted to eat first. It seems ridiculous now, and it was, but it taught me something extremely valuable – it taught me how to break down complex processes using basic logic. I never joined the Debate Club (nor did I ever really win a debate with my parents) and repeatedly refused my family’s suggestion to go to law school.
“It wasn’t until I turned my focus to online marketing that what I thought was my greatest weakness became one of my greatest strengths.”
It was in this struggle to conform, that I had developed an addiction to freedom. As far back as I can remember, I’ve believed that true freedom is represented in three parts: financial freedom, time freedom, and location freedom. I saw people spend their entire lives working only to discover that an abundance of money and a lack of time does not equal freedom. I was fortunate enough to see early on that it is only through an abundance of these three freedoms that you achieve total freedom – what I call ‘lifestyle freedom’. Understanding was only half the battle, I needed to figure out how to make it happen.
I built streams of passive income in order to achieve my financial freedom. I focused on creating effective systems to run the day-to-day operations in order to gain my time freedom. It wasn’t until I had achieved these two pieces that I saw the power of the third – true location independence. While I had the time and money to travel, I still had more than a few reasons to (at least occasionally) be physically present at my Burlington, VT base camp. It was from this seemingly small realization that I developed extreme claustrophobia. I had always loved working from coffee shops (just as I’m writing this post at a coffee shop right now) and figured, “Why not work from a coffee shop in London, Paris, or Rome?” I bought a one-way ticket to Europe and decided I was going to live our of a suitcase, travel the world, and work remotely … until I got bored or found something better.
In the pursuit of my own location independence, the final piece to my puzzle, I have been detaching myself from all need to be in any specific location. By opting to record instructions for my team instead of speak with them in person, schedule conference calls instead of scheduling face-to-face meetings, and empowering my team to make decisions without needing my feedback – I’ve been able not only detach myself from a location, but drastically increased overall efficiency of the business. Having rented my condo and moved into an apartment with no lease, all I needed to do was get rid of all my “stuff” that wouldn’t fit in my suitcase.
EDIT: I’ve recently opted to ditch the suitcases and purchase a backpack. It’s a heck of a lot easier to carry and much more practical for the type of travel I’m planning.
I’ve become progressively more obsessed with life efficiency and had no desire to list each of the items on eBay, package them in large boxes, and ship them across the country – I opted for a different method. I created a digital garage sale on Facebook by uploading images and descriptions of the items as an album attached to my profile. From there, all I needed to do was make sure my local friends (who could purchase the items from me directly and avoid the hassles of shipping) saw the listings. Since I cannot pay to advertise posts on my personal profile it needed to be entirely organic traffic – the flow of which is controlled by Facebook’s algorithm. The Facebook Algorithm, often referred to as Edge Rank, is a series of complex math and logic that governs all content on the social network – from the content you post on your profile to ads that large companies pay to place. The great thing about math and logic is that there’s always a solution – you just need to know the rules by which they operate.
Everything you need to know about manipulating the Facebook Algorithm you can learn from a five year old.
In order to get a ton of free traffic, I had to think like a computer. In order to make that traffic meaningful, I had to speak like a human. It was my childhood self that helped me to generate streams of passive income through Facebook and the same principals applied to content posted on a personal profile. The methods I had used to generate hundreds of thousands in sales were the same methods I used to sell out my garage sale in less than an hour. Much like how Facebook’s own algorithm works, I accomplished it it with simple rules.
Work towards an established goal
Setting goals is a lot like using the GPS navigation in your car. Once you set the destination, the system will define a route and inform you of the next turn to make. All too often people get so lost in trying to understand the entire route that they fail to follow simple the directions that help them arrive at their destination. My goal was simple, I wanted to sell all of my stuff! While it may have seemed obvious, I made sure to write it down on a sticky note and put it at the edge of my laptop’s screen as a reminder. Keeping your end game in sight at all times, just as your GPS reminds you of your destination, is a powerful method for arriving there more quickly.
Know who you’re talking to
The whole goal of this sale was to sell my stuff with as little effort as possible and that meant not having to ship bulky items – I needed to sell to friends that lived locally. With paid advertising you can target your message to people who live in a specific geographic area, but with personal content that’s posted organically that’s not possible. As a result, this means that you’re relying entirely on the rules that Facebook’s algorithm uses to determine what posts appear in your friends’ timelines. The rules that Facebook uses to accomplish this are pretty simple and therefore easy to manipulate.
Facebook can see the connections between your friends, your friends’ friends, and so on. When someone you know engages with content by liking, commenting, or sharing – Facebook’s algorithm puts that same content in the newsfeed of mutual friends as it knows they’re statistically more likely to also be interested. This happens with all content you post and my garage sale album was no exception. In order to get Facebook to show my content to my friends who lived locally I needed to make sure my local friends engaged with the content.
Put yourself in their shoes
Timing is everything. There have been multiple studies done on the science of social timing, but it’s a pretty basic truth – post when your audience is online. You can take this to the next level by determining how people feel when they’re online at certain times and positioning your content accordingly. In the case of my digital garage sale, I had a rather crafty plan. I knew that everyone in Vermont loved being outdoors in the summer, but one of the few things that had the power to keep people inside was rain. Though it doesn’t matter where people live, studies have shown that internet usage escalates during rain storms and when people get online – they tend to gravitate to Facebook. My strategy was simple, wait until it rained and post my garage sale album.
Taking this even further, people tend to get depressed when it rains and often seek sources of dopamine. If you’re unfamiliar with the semantics of neural transmitters (most people aren’t, I’m just super nerdy) dopamine is a hormone in the brain which plays a major role in reward-motivated behavior. Essentially, every time you accomplish something from finishing a test to reading through your Facebook newsfeed – the chemical (often called “the pleasure drug”) is released into your brain (check out the video embedded below). I know what you’re thinking right now, science is totally awesome and you need to finish reading this article so your brain will dole out some drugs. It’s for this reason that when it rains, people are exponentially more receptive to making online purchases – great news for my digital garage sale!
As it happened, the first rain storm hit on Sunday, the day before Labor Day, at 11AM – the perfect storm. People hate rain, but people hate rain a hell of a lot more when it encroaches on their holiday barbecue. This was guaranteed to increase the amount of depression in my Facebook friends as well as the likelihood that they would want to make a purchase. Compounding that even further, data has shown that people are more likely to use social media during the middle of the day and on weekends. With the items already photographed in preparation for such an event, this was exactly when I posted.
via ‘Science of Social Timing Infographic‘ on KissMetrics
Engage multiple audiences
While it’s crucial that you only sell to a single audience, it’s equally important to engage other ones in the process. Facebook rules use engagement, regardless of who it’s with, to determine the the reach of your content. It’s important to foster conversations with people, even when you know they’re not going to make a purchase, in order to amplify your marketing by an order of magnitude. In the case of my digital garage sale this was easy, I just had to structure my post in a way that inspired comments about my travels. From the title and description of the album to my responses in the comments I made sure to create a bit of mystery about my trip. Curiosity inspires questions, questions warrant answers, answers cultivate conversations, and conversations lead to massive engagement that makes content go viral.
Throughout all engagements I was focused on fostering conversations – not sales. I made sure to use direct questions, humor, and open ended statements in order to encourage further engagement – most of which was about my travels rather than the items I was selling. I also tagged people when I was speaking to them as this prevents people from missing the response and dropping out of the conversation. What resulted was an ongoing conversation on the album, and many of the item photos within, that increased the reach of the content and massively increased sales.
Utilize the power of a story
“Human minds yield helplessly to the suction of story. No matter how hard we concentrate, no matter how deep we dig in our heels, we just can’t resist the gravity of alternate worlds.” ~ Jonathan Gottschall, The Story Telling Animal
It’s crucial that you have a story at the heart of anything to successfully gain traction. Be it the creation of a new brand, the development of a new relationships, or the launch of an online sale – the suction of the story is inescapable. Every aspect of my garage sale was geared to subtly, but not directly, highlight the reality that I was having it in preparation for a few years of nomadic travel – something almost everyone in the world has dreamt of at one point in their life. While I don’t normally like people to live vicariously through me (I would much rather have them live vicariously though themselves), in this particular instance I embraced it. It’s important to note that the focus on promoting the story was calculated, much like a computer calculates the importance of content on most social networks, but it was entirely organic and the engagement was genuine. Without genuine engagement you will surely achieve the opposite of your goals.
Start your own momentum
While the idea of posting something and having it go viral on its own is novel – it rarely happens. I always make it a point to start my own momentum by finding ways to prompt conversations. In the case of the digital garage sale it was rather easy as I tagged my friends in comments based on who I thought might be interested in the items. I tagged my friends who were fellow Apple fanatics in the comments for my Mac Mini, my friends in video production in the comments for my green screen setup, and my friends who are outdoor enthusiasts in the comments for my camping backpacks.
As it turned out, none of the people I tagged were the ones to purchase the item. They responded to the comment I had tagged them in (often saying, “thanks but no thanks”) and their reply appeared in the newsfeed of our mutual friends saying “YOUR FRIEND just commented on Brian’s album.” The reason this worked so well was the fact that our mutual friends had mutual interests. By tagging an outdoor loving friend their response to my comment appeared to all our mutual friends – who also loved the outdoors. With every single product it was not the person I tagged, but a second tier mutual friend of the person I tagged who actually made the purchase.
Focus on fanning the flames
Maintaining the momentum is equally as important as creating it in the first place. Fortunately, you’ve already started the fire and fanning the flames is simpler and entirely more fun. All you have to do is stay engaged in a timely manner. The faster you respond to comments, the more likely people are still on Facebook and likely to continue the conversation. Much like most social scenarios, the more people that are actively engaging – the more attractive the party becomes to people passing by and the same is true for Facebook. By staying engaged for the hour or so after posting I facilitated a flood of conversations on the photos and the album as a whole.
I also embraced the tangents – conversations about something other than purchasing the item. In one case, I had a public conversation about why I was selling my desk with the woman who owns the furniture store I purchased it from … four years ago. All of these interactions serve to show Facebook that this “party” is a hopping place and that they should direct more traffic to attend by putting the story in the newsfeeds of more and more people. The more conversations and engagements you have with more UNIQUE parties – the more eyeballs you’ll get.
A little mystery never hurt
Let’s face it, being just a bit mysterious is thoroughly intriguing. Mysteries by nature are ‘something that is difficult or impossible to understand or explain’ so it’s rather amusing when you recognize that the majority of humanity spend their lives trying to understand and explain them. For the same reason that people in horror movie walk towards the strange noises coming from the dark, you can lure people in with an air of mystery. While mystery is a great power to amplify the force of intrigue, illusion will work against you – it’s all about balance.
When conversing with people throughout this process I made sure to only answer the questions that were asked – not those I assumed they were about to ask. Giving away too much, too fast, or too soon can serve to make you seem overbearing, narcissistic, or even condescending. The reality is that ‘verbal (or keyboard) vomit’ is one of the cardinal sins of sales. I always love equating this process to dating. Imagine that your engagement on social media is like walking into a bar – you must show interest without seeming too interested.
Have fun with it
This might seem trivial, but it’s arguably the most important. People come to social media for education, entertainment, and escape. If you make engagement feel like ‘work’ then people are not going to be attracted to it and Facebook’s algorithm will assist them in filtering it out. Be yourself, engage with people on an organic level, and have fun in the process. Don’t be afraid to take risks, make jokes, and explore your voice (or the voice of your company).
In my childhood I continually tried to ‘figure out’ the world around me and failed to ever explore it. I attempted to derive a series of rules by which I could interact with a world that is inherently relative. I struggled to understand how to “go with the flow” like everyone else and never allowed myself to immerse in “normal” conversations. The truth, as I discovered, was far more simple the the process with which I went through to find it. When you think like a machine, you create a calculated process based on the algorithms that govern the world in which you live. When you engage like a human, you speak organically to organic being and are able to connect on their level. Without a balance of the two, you will surely fall into the realm of obscurity.
Think like a machine. Engage like a human.
— My Social Sherpa (@My_SocialSherpa) September 13, 2014
Did you get value from this article? Drop your comments, thoughts, and questions in the comments below. I love experimentation and am more than happy to be your guinea pig … just so long as I don’t have to live in a cage.