
Ask HN: How to get good at social media? - thrwaway69
I feel absolutely shit when I am trying to be relevant by spamming the trending tags, repeating what is already there in the form of SEO spam, email spamming, asking people to subscribe to thing they probably don&#x27;t even care about.<p>How do you handle this?<p>Trying to keep track of what&#x27;s trending tires me out. Why is it always hate, hate and hate. Why is it always politics or some celebrity expressing their &quot;concerns&quot; or cute puppies.
======
tomhoward
In the offline world, much of what "trends" is stuff that hacks people's
reward system.

E.g., high-fructose corn syrup, french fries, nicotine, slot machines.

It's bad for us long term, but satisfies our evolved physiological needs in
the short term.

Most of the trending content on social media is the same, and much of modern
news and commerce has adapted to it.

From what you've said, you're trying to win at the same game, against
people/companies who are far more experienced, skilled, resourced and cynical
than you.

The answer: don't play that game.

Find a small niche of people you can satisfy with earnestly good quality
content.

Think really small - like, 5-10 people, who you can get to know personally and
whose interests you can address really really well.

Then grow gradually.

It will seem painfully slow at first, but with a consistent effort over a long
enough period of time, you can achieve exponential growth and eventually build
a huge audience that really cares about what you have to offer.

One of the best people to follow for guidance on how to do this is Seth Godin.
Follow his daily blogs/emails, and read his books, particularly Linchpin,
Permission Marketing, Purple Cow and The Dip.

Simon Sinek is another person worth paying attention to.

~~~
at-fates-hands
> It will seem painfully slow at first, but with a consistent effort over a
> long enough period of time, you can achieve exponential growth

This is the part most people don't get. A great example is Jonny Giger. He's a
skateboarder most people have never heard of. He's pro, has his own youtube
channel which now has around 380K followers. He rides for a company most
people have never heard of called Revive.

He basically hacked the entire industry. His first pro video part was just
released a few months ago. He's been creating his videos for EIGHT YEARS to
grow his audience, and do it his own way. Because of the revenue he makes on
his channel, he literally has no need for big corporate sponsors, or to
constantly put on insane video parts or do well in contests to stay relevant
like most pro's have to do these days.

He puts up regular content about learning tricks and revisiting old tricks
that haven't been done in a long time. He has a whole series where he's just
trying to learn some of Rodney Mullen's hardest tricks. In my mind, he's a
legit pro and is a really skilled skater. The cool thing is he's done it
completely on his own, instead of taking the normal route. Yes, it can be
done, but it didn't happen over night did it? No, it didn't. It was dogged
persistence on his part and sticking with something I'm sure people told him
was impossible, or wasn't going to happen.

As insular as the skateboard industry is, I'm glad there are guys out there
like Jonny getting it done on their own terms.

~~~
guevara
+1 for Jonny Giger mention. That guy is awesome.

------
anw
A few things to consider:

Why do you want to get good at social media? You mention spamming tags and
subscribing to things that they don't care about.

What is the outcome you want from this?

Getting a lot of likes/RTs? Getting a lot of followers?

If that's the outcome you want, then it sounds more like you want some form of
community where you can feel appreciated or encouraged. Social Media is a
vacuum of constant churn, and you won't find fulfillment there.

There are exceptions, but I strongly recommend thinking about what things you
like to do and try to find your community in real life where the reward is so
much higher.

Join a tabletop game club, take French cooking classes, go to some Yoga
meetups.

I know now is not an opportune time to go out and meet people, but it's a hell
of a lot healthier for your mind and body to be around real people when the
time comes. Don't waste your time on social media right now. Build yourself
up, learn something new, create something cool. If you get one of those things
done, share it on social media if you want, and maybe you'll find some cool
people who share your passions or interests.

~~~
thrwaway69
No. I wouldn't use any popular social media if I could. It's for promotion of
a project.

To expand on the problem, I have only once or twice susbcribed to an email
listing. I consider all the other spam, irrelevant and Will never check them
unless forced (some sites do even when you pay them) and other missed to opt
out. I don't like seeing people spamming follow me or subscribe to me
everywhere either. I know the functionality is there and I would if I want to.
I don't care about most of what brands post? I don't want to see a corporate
puppy in my feed. I don't want to know that you have a discount running and
retweeting this will give a hypothetical chance of winning a giveaway if I
have no need for the product. I don't consider businesses intrusive tracking
and analytics everywhere ethical. I don't want to participate in signalling
that businesses do. Most businesses need to make money and pretending they
care more beyond is ughh. Most social media UX sucks. It's unintuitive to use
and horrible (see twitter). I have the google paradox, if you can easily find
it on google why do I need to share it to you? This is wrong pattern of
thinking but this does make me tired mentally when posting something.

 _Obviously, the problem is entirely me_

I keep trying but deep down, I don't even want to support the platform by
engaging on them.

It just feels bad to have an ulterior motive behind posting a cute puppy pic.

~~~
nl
> It just feels bad to have an ulterior motive behind posting a cute puppy pic

Is your project about puppies? If not then don't spam it!

It's low value marketing and you feel bad because you are deliberately trying
to trick people. Maybe try to get your product in front of people who actually
want it.

------
iamben
Practice?

Seriously though, isn't this like _everything_? Stop trying to shortcut it and
actually put in the work. The people that grew massively overnight are
outliers. The other 99.9999% put in time and effort to cultivate the following
they wanted.

What sort of audience do you want? What do they want to see? Put your ego
aside, answer those questions, then create genuinely engaging content that
ticks that box and isn't a rehash of every other account in the same niche. If
you can't offer something different, why would I follow you instead of them?

~~~
thrwaway69
Yeah I get it. Found something to remove toxicity from my feed.

And sorry I can't give you an upvote because that would ruin the number. :)

Edit: someone ruined the number :(

~~~
dhimes
I don't see numbers- one of us is the "control" ...

~~~
rckoepke
Same. I don't see vote counts, there's no downvote buttons, and no "report" or
"flag" link anywhere on HN for me.

~~~
dhimes
To flag, I think you can click the "X hours ago" \- that's actually a link,
and flagging will be an option if you look carefully. I know they were
experimenting a long time ago (apparently still are) with making upvote counts
invisible. It's been a long time. The idea of 7000 upvotes on a comment is an
order of magnitude for what I've ever heard of.

------
tenebrisalietum
> Why is it always hate, hate and hate

Anger is the most easily evoked emotional state behind sexual arousal, because
it is tied to basic survival instincts. US "wild west" culture over its
history has ended up making it very OK to be angry at something. This is
exploited by people seeking attention.

> Why is it always politics

Politicians and their opposition pay people to to stay visible in the media
and run stories about them. Facebook is also mostly used by older people who
tend to be the ones to consume opinion-based cable news shows.

> celebrity expressing their "concerns"

Celebrities pay people to stay in the media and run stories about them.

> cute puppies

I think it was in the Naked Ape that I read that the "aww..." reactions
produced by cuteness is evolutionarily intended to ensure people like their
babies (who need non-angry-at-them parents to survive). This is exploited by
people seeking attention.

If social media promotion is your job, you have to detach from it emotionally,
and remember that no one is being forced to use social media, or to like
anything, or repost anything. It's all on them.

------
jashmenn
I don't buy the sentiment that social media isn't "worth it".

I've made friends, started projects, had job offers, acquisition offers -- all
through Twitter. Twitter opens up huge opportunities for meeting people who
share your interests.

The single best resource I've seen on this is David Perell and Matthew
Kobach's (recent) lecture on "How to Crush it on Twitter" [1].

They say:

\- People treat social media interactions like real-life interactions: if
you're selfish irl folks won't want to listen to you, so why would social
media be any different? Be generous with good ideas

\- Pick a niche and only tweet about that niche. This obviously has to be
something you actually care about. Your niche is probably smaller than you
think

\- Practice and review: Post for 30 days and at the end of the month, review
the likes/RTs and draw a green circle over what worked and a red circle over
what didn't. Post more of what worked and you'll notice you're getting better
over time.

It's an excellent watch if you are looking to deliberately grow your Twitter
following and are willing to practice

[1]:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5d6zm3YbqM&feature=youtu.be](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5d6zm3YbqM&feature=youtu.be)

------
pjc50
You cannot be "good" at social media in the abstract. You have to be providing
the kind of entertainment people want. Yes, hate is a kind of entertainment,
although an extremely unsavoury one.

Trying to piggy-back a top trend when you're unrelated is also doomed. It's
just spam. As you've noticed, trying to get people who don't care to sign up
to something that _you_ evidently don't care about either is futile and
demoralising.

You have to have a niche. You have to be relevant to people, not topics. Oh,
and the advice is radically different depending on platform; I'm mostly
HN/Twitter. Few of us is pretty enough for Instagram.

~~~
estrabrook
Absolutely. TBH, Instagram is not a suitable platform to do this. It's not so
much lined-up as Twitter. I mean you can play around with the fancy lined-up
on Instagram when one visited your profile but it doesn't deliver the main
purpose of using social media for engagement. IMO.

------
onion2k
_Trying to keep track of what 's trending tires me out._

Are you suggesting that posting about things that are trending is what you
would consider to be "good at social media"? That's not what post people would
call it.

Look at what are generally considered good social media accounts - they don't
follow trends. Some times they might happen to post about something that's
trending, but most often the good accounts are ones that have an authentic
voice about a topic they find interesting, and they don't deviate all that
much. Occasionally a good account might also have a mix of a topic they care
about and 'everyday life stuff' because people are human after all. No one
who's really good at social media is posting about lots of disparate topics
that happen to be trending at a given time.

------
Normal_gaussian
You're copying the wrong behaviour. The marketing staff at XCorp engage in all
kinds of marketing that you likelh don't want;the behaviour you are describing
is either a deliberate brand awareness campaign, or an accidental pursuit of
likes/follows ignoring engagement (often an easy way to boost your appraisal).

For small companies and projects:

Focus on your niche. If it isn't relevant, don't send it. Determine a
relevance bar and stick to it (when you get settled you can try playing with
this if you care)

Set a limit to how much you send, and over which channels. Set a target as
well. Don't lower quality to meet target.

Set up triggers for relevant events (your competitors trending, HN/core forum
discussions on your topic) and have a small list of things to do when they
happen.

------
aphextron
I've found Twitter to be the only one really worthwhile. The key is finding
thoughtful, interesting people whose opinions you care about, and then
ruthlessly weeding out anything political. No matter how much I might like
someone, the moment they make a political post they're gone. Political
discussion can be great, but social media is simply not the place for it.
You'll find that there are plenty of people who feel the same and avoid it
entirely, so eventually you can build up a really cool list of interesting
folks to follow and learn from.

------
saagarjha
What you need to do to promote yourself and still sleep well at night is come
up with good content, and bring it up when relevant. You can easily become an
outrage or clickbait factory, but that’s no fun; likewise, spamming SEO,
trying to get people to do things that they don’t want to do, like subscribe
to your content, pay you, or even pay attention to you is difficult if they
have no reason to do so. You don’t have to “optimize”, either: not everyone
ends up being hugely popular, but you can still be known for something you’re
proud of.

------
nakodari
Don't post everything mindlessly by following the latest trends. Instead,
focus on a niche you're good at, a topic that interests you and you have the
experience, and you will get dedicated followers who want to follow that
topic.

------
pm_me_ur_fullzz
Since I'm doing other things now I'll tell you the secrets:

Basically its all anti-patterns, the things people SAY are not the things
popular people are DOING. And the unorganic stuff like "buying followers/email
lists" isn't the unorganic stuff that you should be paying attention to.

Long story short: don't buy people to add to the list, _buy the account_

On Instagram, you just buy a popular account and rebrand it. Pricing is
followers multiplied by engagement. You'll figure it out. 3% higher engagement
is much better than higher followers. But you can get in the door with
partners with higher followers.

You break even on the account by doing paid features for like a month.

The rebrand will cause a bunch of followers to leave, so THATS when you use
bots like instagress to get the attention of other real humans to offset the
decline. _you are never actually growing the account_ , teenagers in Albania
and India are growing the accounts. Don't fall for the time wasting ideas,
unless your time isn't valuable. You buy their already grown accounts.

Use those accounts to hack hashtags for several years. I'm not sure thats a
term but here is how you do it: you take the account private, and thats when
YOU pay for promotions on other people's accounts to drive real humans to your
account.

When your account is private, instagram queues up follower requests 100 at a
time, and when you switch back to public only 100 followers or so are added at
once I think. There is some limit. The point is that you always maintain a
currency of new followers that you can accept in bulk at any time.

So THEN when you post a picture with almost any hashtag (based on popularity
of that tag), you can accept a TON of followers that you've been queuing for
an indefinite time period - also amplified by paid promotion again - and
everyone likes/engages with it quickly, pushing it to the TOP section of a
popular hashtag.

Rinse, repeat.

Regarding promotions again, you also want to be in a liking ring in Instagram
DMs with other popular accounts. You post your picture in those rings and they
like your photo, and vice versa. I'm not sure how much this works since the
friend's activity feed is gone, but it can still move your photo up on other
people's normal feeds if you share followers.

Its a decent place to START your funnel these days.

~~~
pm_me_ur_fullzz
If I find a good deal on an account with more followers and higher engagement,
I'll just buy that and then rebrand that to my main account, and turn the old
account into a "fanpage" of the same brand, or consider using it for a similar
venture in the same sector (or a hard rebrand I won't use, because if you
never post you won't lose followers, but you can still get in the door with
people - or just slide into DMs with Tinder girls because they actually talk
to you if you have alot of followers, you don't even need to swipe right on
Tinder. It really functions very similarly to currency. I have 100% brought
beautiful women to my apartment, in programmer filled San Francisco, who have
never seen me before, by sliding into DMs with a popular account that I
purchased and broke even on, after I saw their profile on Tinder and didn't
even bother swiping right.

Instagram accounts pay for themselves you'd be surprised.

Oh well the secret's out, my actual opinion is that purchasing accounts is
riddled with fraud and Facebook should broker them and take a cut because it
is a whole economy)

------
mkohlmyr
> I feel absolutely shit when I am trying to be relevant

Sounds like you should stop. Obsessing over social media isn't healthy and
unless (perhaps even if) you're doing it professionally I very much doubt it's
going to bring you value proportional to it's (negative) emotional and
psychological impact.

------
dredmorbius
"Good" in what sense, to what end? Why are you on social media in the first
place?

"Trending" is virtually always utter dreck. Advice on Reddit is to unsubscribe
all default subs, on G+ it was to block or avoid "What's Hot" (a/k/a "What
Snot"), and to avoid at all costs _appearing_ on it.

My goals are, mostly, finding intelligent conversation, awareness of
_relevant_ information, and bouncing my own ideas off others, for further
development and refinement. I agree strongly with this comment by @tomhoward
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22933833](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22933833)),
especially about finding a _small_ core group. Best discussion group I'd
managed in recent years had about 50 subscribers, core actives about 15, but
excellent discussion. It's since been dissolved and the platform it was hosted
on shut down, but was good while it lasted.

The one secret hack I've found, on any platform which suports it, is "block f
---wits":

[https://mastodon.cloud/@dredmorbius/102504802435025145](https://mastodon.cloud/@dredmorbius/102504802435025145)

Effectively it's a S/N boost mechanism by curtailing noise sources. It's
remarkably effective.

For HN, that's not possible, but moderator intervention and user flags tend to
be highly effective.

------
he11ow
What's the end goal for which you feel you need to get good at social media?

The thing to consider about "social media" is it's a term that's taken out of
the pages of 1984, like the Ministry of Peace. It's social in the way that
social experiments or popularity contests are "social", not as in hanging out
with friends and feeling good.

There are many, many people whose entire job is to get good at jumping through
these hoops, and even then most of them fail. So the best thing you can do for
yourself is decide you're not a monkey or a lab rat.

I'm guessing you have in mind something you'd like to promote, even if it's
just yourself and your thoughts. And I second the suggestion to build a tiny
audience at first. Even if it's just 5 people who absolutely love what you do
- that's a start.

The way to get these people is to step out of dystopia-land and recall how it
works in real life, and mimicking that in whatever social network you feel is
most relevant to your objectives. For me, that social network is LinkedIn. [I
left any others I was on.]

I've written an entire detailed article on how to take this approach, which is
different to the traditional "gain a following", but ends up building actual
relationships. You might find stuff in it relevant to your needs.

[https://medium.com/skill-strong/how-to-network-on-
linkedin-w...](https://medium.com/skill-strong/how-to-network-on-linkedin-
when-youre-shy-4c60f02b3afd)

------
blairbeckwith
I have no affiliation, just a happy customer, but the Holloway Guide to
Twitter is a great, lengthy resource for Twitter at least, probably applicable
across platforms for the most part: [https://www.holloway.com/g/using-
twitter](https://www.holloway.com/g/using-twitter)

------
c0nsumer
I help run a small all-volunteer non-profit that advocates for trail access
for mountain bikes (CRAMBA - [https://cramba.org](https://cramba.org)), along
with trail maintenance, design, building, etc. I've found the best way to get
a good response on social media for promoting our topics is to have them be
relevant to the audience.

Literally, posts and things that are stuff people are interested in (new
trails, COVID-19 closure info, trail conditions, asking what they did on the
trails this past weekend) get very good engagement and they get info out
there. Stuff that's only peripherally related trying to gain likes and
followers and whatnot just seem... meh.

So, the short answer to what works for us? Not trying to game things and
providing actual, nice content. It also keeps our audience very focused.

------
toberej
I think one tweet that stood out to me not sure who it was by is that each
social media platform requires a different set of skills to be good at it.

So I think the best step is to pick one social media platform and study people
who have successfully gained traction on that specific platform.

------
nl
> Trying to keep track of what's trending tires me out

From your post, it sounds like you are tying to spam everything with
irrelevant content just to try to trap people into getting something they
don't want.

Maybe you feel bad because that's a bad way to behave?

Social media is what you make it. If you are promoting a product you like in
areas where it is relevant then maybe you'd feel better?

Others have suggested finding a niche and working that, which is a great
approach.

Otherwise, if you product isn't about cute puppies why do you care if others
are posting them? I use Twitter, Facebook and Instagram pretty heavily and I
go days without seeing any puppies.

------
RIMR
It really depends on what you're trying to do with Social Media.

I tried for years to get a small business' Twitter account to take off with no
success.

But I also created a personal Twitter account for political musings and it had
10 times more followers than the business account in a few months, and
literally hundreds of times more engagement.

I don't think anyone is actually "good at social media" as it's constantly
changing. I just think you have to take the right approach to whatever you're
trying to do, and also be lucky.

------
auganov
It's not that different from other social endeavors. If you don't have
existing social connections, meaning people don't know who you are, it's
tough. If you're already "famous" you could be posting third-rate content and
get decent engagement. Even if you get a few posts to go viral it doesn't help
you in the big scheme of things if you cannot convert it into a relationship.

At the end of the day it's all people on the other side. Think how to get them
to like YOU, not your posts.

------
mch82
People only have so much attention to allocate. It’s exponentially harder to
become a star on social media platforms as the number of users grows. Look for
the next platform that appeals to your audience & begin building while there
is a vacuum to be filled.

Advertisements and referrals will magnify your reach. If you have money, buy
ads. If you are famous on another platform or have access to other famous
people, promote your channel via referrals. If you have a website with high
search rank, link to your posts.

------
9214
The only winning move is not to play.

------
ErlangSolutions
We tend to find that our team are most interesting when they write about what
they are interested in. After all, people who tend to create content to reach
trending audiences often aren't writing with the same love and passion, and so
what the offer is less unique. Get really into the details of what you love
and you'll tend to find and connect with others who do the same and build your
community that way.

------
johnchristopher
What's your product ? What added value is it offering to your prospects
compared to other's product ? Who are your prospects ?

I'd suggest getting your hand on a marketing 101 book or online courses, take
the shortcut here by learning from others and stop trying out things at
random.

And depending on your business: be prepared to shell out money in ads. Be very
careful. If you don't know how then it's the time yet.

------
sneak
What are your goals? It’s hard to give you actionable advice without knowing
what you are trying to achieve.

It sounds like you’re just copying others; that is not a good way to be good
at most things that aren’t commodities (which social media is not).

Copying the techniques that you see on trending pages, without copying the
(unseen) techniques that _got_ people on trending pages will, predictably, not
land you on trending pages.

------
tomcooks
don't get good at social media, get good at finding sponsors and scouts.

with this I mean, get good at finding 100 persons that either: \- would pay 1
euro a month for whatever you're doing next \- would happily forward infos
about whstever you're doing next to that friends of theirs who is really into
the same niche (who usually would love to pay 1 euro/month)

------
stephenr
Personally I've found the way to "win" at social media is to not engage.

I left Facebook over a decade ago - as it happens because of the _people_ not
the platform - and I find myself not using Twitter at all (I'll occasionally
go read a linked tweet, but its not like I need an account to do that) for
months now.

------
throwaway55554
> Why is it always hate, hate and hate.

I firmly believe that being mean (spreading hate) takes much less effort than
being nice. It's like curse words. It is so much easier to drop an F-Bomb than
it is to a word that's more descriptive. People just gravitate towards the low
effort fruit, even if it isn't nearly as delicious.

------
Jaruzel
Why do you care?

I'm going to take the opposite view here, and advise you that if see Social
Media as full of hate (which it is in my view), then Social Media is not for
you. I recommend you leave it to those who enjoy that sort of toxic
interaction, and focus on something you actually enjoy.

------
qznc
Being good at social media is not worth much by itself. What is the actual
goal? Selling something?

------
elorant
It seems unclear whether you approach it from a professional or an individual
basis. You mention spamming the trending tags which sounds like a blackhat
marketing tactic. Do you want to promote your product or to become more
involved at a personal level?

------
stereotactic
Work towards a niche.

Then announce it to the world. Although getting "followers" or "retweets" as a
vindication of your online presence is not a metric that should be pursued.
Its futile.

------
DrNuke
You need to find your inner voice first, and your best fit? Each medium has
its own population and style. Start from the one you like the most and be
yourself.

------
kowsheek
There's no need to play that game and it's far more rewarding to define and
play your own game with a smaller audience. I had cut myself off of social
media and blogging but got back into it recently because I felt there would be
an audience I could benefit: [https://blog.kowsheek.com/should-i-start-a-
blog/](https://blog.kowsheek.com/should-i-start-a-blog/)

------
kyuudou
Stop using it and get Actual Work done

------
friendlybus
Hate, feelings vs facts, false compassion, relatability and all that is part
of the current bit of nature we are experiencing. Studying art, culture,
religion and psychology has a lot of answers for how people behave. Ultimately
a lot of the pop art and advertising is just plastering a film over what
people want at the moment and pointing people in a direction from that.

Hate is running out of steam as we speak, in a few years it will all be money,
humanism, unity, kindness, ect. Then it will be taste, the tall mother, class,
sisterly love ect. The cycles of what the nature in people want can be tracked
over days, months, years, decades, centuries, ect. People have been doing this
stuff for millennia.

Hate, jealousy, ect are signals that something of value exists and is worth
hating. Getting your product hated for silly reasons is a great boost, sell to
both the haters and lovers. People won't tolerate inaccessible and distant
rich or classy figures at the moment, all the cash and attention is in
relatability. All the old symbols of competence and class have mostly
collapsed (except for the old mainstays) so there's few ways to visibly
distance yourself socially from others anyway.

It's all a big ecosystem that rumbles on, for all the 'individual brilliance
of an artist/advertiser/designer' they are all using the same tools to do the
same stuff, including the understanding of human psychology. Once you learn
all the tools it becomes constraining what gets attention and what you can
actually live off, it can only really be one thing, one story at the end of
the day and everybody's competing for it.

------
HABytes
Yes targeting fewer people easily show you better results in the online
industry.

------
nicedicerice
oh, the whole proccess of seo is an experiment. there is no accurate formula
for success, however, there are some tips and tricks.

what social media you are talking about? reddit, facebook, youtube, twitter?

------
Igelau
A strange game. The only winning move is not to play.

------
GoblinSlayer
0.0.0.0 facebook.com

0.0.0.0 twitter.com

------
paypalcust83
Don't. Just don't.

Social media has proven to be a least common denominator gutter that worships
outrage and chumbox spam. Either have bots make the snausage by filling the
world with crap for money, or be at peace without approval in relative
obscurity with worthwhile content and less money. There's not much middle-
ground because it's half-stepping to not go all-in and focus one way or the
other. Personally, IDGAF and would do the latter if I was forced to but don't
really care what random, cyberdisinhibited people think because it's usually
time-wasting noise.

