It's all about Value Add

All. About. Value. Add.

If you’ve been learning about social media for a while, you might have heard about the concept of adding value to your audiences’ newfeeds, but what does that actually mean? And how do you do it?

Adding value essentially refers to the value exchange you have between your followers. To get a follow, you must show (within the first 2 seconds of them seeing a post, or the top 6-9 posts in your Insta-grid) that you can add something to your followers’ newsfeed. Will you bring outfit inspiration? Travel inspiration? Mummy know-how? Cooking how-to? Venue behind-the-scenes? Local insight? What you bring to the table will come across in your mission statement and/or your audience personas, but you need to make sure it’s clear. Once you identify what your value is, they will exchange their ‘follow’ for your content. Value exchange.

Having a ‘follow’ is only half the task, though. You also need to give them a reason to both a) like/comment/share your content, and b) continue to follow you. This is important.

Every single post should serve your audience in some way. There’s actually a few different types of content that you can post that will add value to your follower’s newsfeeds:

Tips/Insights

Particularly if you’re a service-based business, offering tips and insights would give your followers the value that they can apply to their own businesses, whether that be photography ideas, social media tips, marketing help, and branding guides. They also show your audience that you are an expert in your field, and you know what you’re doing. This is hugely beneficial, as if and when your followers need your services, they’re already aware that you know your stuff!

Quotes/Inspiration

Motivate your audience! Sometimes people need an extra little push on Monday morning, or a bit of a meme on a Friday afternoon, and if you can bring that to them, there’s a good chance they’ll engage with that, and share it with their friends! Not only will they get a warm and fuzzy feeling, but this little boost of engagement will help with your other posts for the rest of the week. Also, who doesn’t like a good quote! Just make sure it’s relevant and in line with your brand.

Examples of your work

Are you running a campaign for one of your clients and what an extra network of people to get involved? Did you have a photoshoot on the weekend? Are you designing a website or space that looks pretty darn amazing? Show your audience! Not only do they want to know who you are and who your brand is, but they want to see what you do. Be careful with this, as you don’t want it to come across as a sales pitch… Too many sales pitches can and will turn people off, doing the opposite of value add.

Sales/Promotions/Campaigns

At the end of the day, you need paying customers and clients, which is ideally who your audience is, so sometimes a sales pitch is necessary. The joy about social media is that you can do this creatively, and you can tailor it to the types of people that are following you! So make sure you’re thinking about what type of campaign your followers would engage with, and what kind of products can you push that you know will pique their interest.

There’s so many recipes for when to drop a sales pitch, including things like “Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook” (push your brand/product 25% of the time), equal 30/70 (push your brand/product 30% of the time), or even 30% collaboration, 30% inspiration, 30% information, 10% promotion (push your brand/product 10% of the time). The common theme is that less than half of your social media content should be about you. Your social media should be all about working with others, building others up, and ultimately adding value to your audience’s newfeeds in one way or another.

So before posting another promotional post on Facebook tomorrow, check in and think about what you’re giving to your followers, rather than how you can try to sell to them. I promise that once you start making that change, and making your content about your followers rather than you, you’ll start to see an increase in engagement, which in turn will result in that ROI that you’re looking for.