Grow 1%: The Power of '?'
Phil Ranta
COO, Fixated - Digital Media Veteran / Building Digital Businesses, Moving Culture
Pick one of these newsletters every day, spend 2 minutes reading and 8 minutes implementing the lesson (1% of your waking day) and your socials will get 1% better.
Don't buy growth hacking classes. Save your money. Do this instead.
Riddle me this...
If someone asks you a question, there are lots of ways to respond.
You can try to answer, say "I don't know", or ask a follow up question.
But unless it's your 4 year old asking "Why?" for the 30th time, you're unlikely to stay silent.
In the world of social media, that pressure still applies.
Check out this Harvard study that says asking questions actually makes people like you more.
And if they like you, they're more likely to engage and ultimately become your fan!
So how do we use this bit of social psychology to our advantage?
If you create anything online and the next action you want your audience to comment or otherwise engage, end the content with a question mark.
Examples:
- Ending a YouTube video by asking an easy-to-answer and fun question in the comments.
- Responding to comments with a question.
- Ending an Instagram post with a question or request to 'tag a friend' who meets a certain criteria (ex. tag your secret crush!).
- Using LinkedIn polls as an easy way to aggregate leads for those who answer a question a certain way.
My favorite example of this is YouTube sensations 'Epic Rap Battles of History' by the brilliant NicePeter and EpicLloyd, wherein two fictional or non-fictional famous people hilariously rap battle.
Every episode ends with two simple questions: "Who won? And who's next?"
This led to a flood of comments on every video where fans came up with their own crazy match ups, with screenshots of comments often featured in future videos if chosen.
Here's an example of a video with nearly 450,000 comments!
So today's mission: try to end all of your posts today with a question and see how that changes your engagement.
Remember this is a tool not a directive, so don't use this on EVERY post. Focus on posts where you primarily want to drive engagement above all other objectives.
For those who tried it, what % growth did you see in your engagement for that post?
That took 2 minutes. You have 8 minutes left. Go seek answers and grow 1% right now!
Thank you to my sponsor Measure Studio!
About the Author
Phil Ranta, is the COO of We Are Verified, a digital talent management and influencer marketing company. A 2021 LinkedIn Top Voice in Innovation & Tech, Phil has been creating content for the internet professionally for nearly 20 years, starting on MySpace and riding trends to the present. He was the Head of Gaming Creators, North America at Facebook, the first network lead at Fullscreen, the COO at Studio71, and spent 10 years as a working comedian (including 2 years on cruise ships). He's a husband, a dad of two littles, and an insufferable digital media wonk.
Litigation & Entertainment Attorney, Music Law Professor, CIPP/US
1yI was SUPER BUMMED earlier this week when I did a ? on my post about back to school (What was your best class in college and why?) and no one commented. So much so that I went back as few days later and deleted the above-the-see-more-fold question so it wasn't as obvious that people just liked my post and moved on. I still left the end question. Still - nada
Creator Economy Sherpa | Award Winning Curator, Moderator & Speaker | "Inside the Creator Economy" Newsletter | Board of Director | Geek
1yI watch what others do and then try to riff of their success with my own posts and in my own voice. Still learning, thanks for this Phil
Founder, CEO @ Creatorland.com | Building the first professional network for the $100b creator economy
1y#1 tip on linkedin hit return as much as possible!!! 🤣 hehe had to Phil!
I wonder...if social platforms removed the Like button, would that generate more comments and possibly discourse.
First-Gen Social Media + Influencer Marketer 📲 I've built the largest brands on Social Media & now I'm teaching you how to 🧨💥🚀
1yMy two go-to strategies include: 1) Posting a meme or cute animals -- something that's going to pull on the audience's heartstrings before a big sale or announcement 2) Leveraging in-app tools like polls, stickers, quizzes, etc., as those get prioritized by platforms > anything else 🤝 Follow me for more social media tips -- I'm the queen of explosive growth on social!