Think About Social Media this Way as a Blogger |

Ryan Biddulph February 6, 2024 blogging tips 🕑 5 minutes read

Hamburg, New Jersey, USA

Social media.

Social is the adjective.

Media is the noun.

Shouldn’t that tell you something?

Media wins. Media reigns. Media is most important.

For bloggers, media means content. Specifically, media means content that you create and publish on social media sites. Text updates. Live broadcasts. Images. Links. Reels. Long form videos. All content. All media.

For example, writing and publishing blogging tips spanning, say, a few hundred words and posting to:

Twitter
Facebook
Facebook Groups
LinkedIn
LinkedIn Groups
Instagram

pleases the social media algorithm because it satiates the media noun. Media is most important. Social is the adjective. Social happens only after media. First, you need the media to create the social, or, engagement.

Understood?

Unfortunately…..most bloggers do not understand this truth.

I can prove it.

Look closely.

Most bloggers stress the social aspect of social media by preaching that engagement is beyond critical and to spend most social media time engaging. Goodness knows that I have. But the error with this mindset arises as robbing yourself of:

time
attention
energy
creativity
imagination

to spend hours daily publishing content aka media aka far and away the most important aspect of making money for social media site owners which pleases the algorithm and indirectly sends quality traffic and blogging income to and through your blog, via social media.

Media Reigns as King

Have you ever observed an Engagement Empire?

I bet you have spied Media Empires.

Media moguls run media.

Engagement moguls do not exist because the media is the money, the power, the influence, the clout.

Engagement is secondary. No media, no social. No content, no engagement.

But bloggers waste 5 hours engaging on social media daily by dropping comments when each needs to spend perhaps 4 hours creating the media which drives heavy traffic and income through social media. Devote 1 hour to engaging or dropping genuine comments on updates relevant to your blogging niche.

Spend most time creating media and a little time chatting via engagement, or, comments, or, replying to messages.

Pay Close Attention to Social Media Owners NOT Social Media Users

Owners own, gain power and thrive. Owners create social media sites. Wise owners make it really easy for you to create dizzying volumes of helpful content because that puts money in their pocket and your pocket before anything else, if your mind becomes awake enough to see it.

Sure social media owners encourage you to comment or engage, too. But look at social media users who comment genuinely, prolifically and with a targeted focus. Does each rule the world, like the owners? Does each gain power, influence and clout, compared to social media owners?

Nope.

Creators rule the world.

Chatters come in a distant second.

Make Social a Distant Second to Media

Engage. Comment. Chat. But make these activities a distant second to creating media.

First, spend most time and energy publishing:

new
genuine
fresh
detailed
targeted

content to satiate the media side of things. Spend most time on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram doing this content creating bit.

Proceed to spend far less time commenting or engaging because social is the adjective and engagement is the noun.

No Need to Reply to Every Engagement for 1 Person to Give a Shit About You on Social

One piece of popular social media advice for bloggers: Reply to everyone or no one will see your updates.

This is not true because media is the noun that builds massive empires and social is the adjective coming in at a distant second.

Do you even fathom how many people care about you based on the helpful social media updates you publish? Do you even know how truly helpful you are to them based on solely creating content?

Reply to some folks to get the job done. Get busy creating new, fresh, unique media to REALLY get the job done as far as targeting high quality traffic and generating income on social media, then, migrating that traffic to your blog.

Why the Contrarian Perspective?

I observed my diminishing blogging returns via social media.

What gave?

I realized how spending many hours daily replying-engaging-socializing with:

users who Liked my content
users who shared my content
users who dropped comments in reply to my content
users in groups related to my niche
users following hashtags related to my niche

and spending perhaps 5-10 minutes creating fresh, new, unique, targeted content to social media did not slowly and surely increase my high quality blog traffic through social based in relation to those hours. The ratio screwed things up. I commented a ton and created a little and nothing much seemed to happen in terms of genuinely moving the needle. I certainly drew high quality traffic to my blog. But I wasted way too much motion. Something felt off or wrong. Something felt fishy.

One day, I thought to myself:

“Why do people call it social media? Why is media the noun and social the adjective? Why that hierarchy? Why that order?”

I thought about that. Then I thought about all the time I spent being social and the little time I spent creating media. I considered that maybe I’d been wasting my motion a bit. My mind clicked. Creating media is far and away the most critical aspect of social media marketing. Being social is far less important but of course, still important on some level.

Prioritize

As a practical strategy, consider this ratio:

spend 5 hours creating new content for social media daily
spend 1 hour socializing on social media daily

Change the numbers based on the busy-ness of your schedule but stick to the basic ratio.

It’s gotta be new content, guys. New content builds empires. Creating new content feels challenging but unique content is the way. Unique content drives social media users to your profile and blog for traffic and income without you commenting or socializing for many hours daily on social media sites.