Why don't your social posts perform consistently?
It's frustrating, right? You can post the exact same content two different times and get wildly different outcomes. There's no predictability for most people, which is one reason why social is so frustrating.
But what if I told you it's not a skill issue, it's not YOU, and no matter how good your content is or how perfect your strategy is, you're ALWAYS going to be dealing with this?
Let me introduce you to one of social media platforms' favourite phrases:
Variable rewards.
(Or intermittent reinforcement, depending on who you ask.)
The Skinner Box experiments are the most classic example of this. To oversimplify, because this is a blog post and not a scientific journal:
1. Rat push button
2. Rat get pellet
3. Repeat until Rat understands that button = pellet
What happens after this is where it gets interesting.
Skinner found that if he reliably provided a pellet each time, or with a predictable frequency, rats would often get what they needed and stop.
But if he provided the pellet intermittently - varying the frequency and size of the reward - the rats would continue pressing the button even when they had enough, even when the rewards were very small and infrequent, even to the point of exhaustion or collapse.
It is then a conditioned response. The same mechanics that casinos use for slot machines. Don't walk away now, your next bet could be the big winner.
Social media platforms know this.
It is why the majority of the content on your feed is stuff you're not interested in. Forgettable. Uninteresting. Not engaging to your brain.
They give you content you like *just* often enough in your scroll to keep you scrolling. After all, why stop on a bad post you don't want to read? The next swipe of your thumb could be something good.
They also do this to creators, though.
To them, you're the 🐁 and attention, growth, and s@les are the pellets.
If they reliably gave you the same result every time you posted, you'd drop your stuff enough to fulfill your needs and leave.
But if they give you *not quite enough* and they spread it out *not too often, but unpredictably*, you'll be back there every day pumping out more content than you can shake a stick at.
Content they can now sell ads on, in, and between.
While you're pressing the button, to the point of exhaustion, to get whatever pellet you can.
And we are all SO TRAINED at this point that what we see today is them pushing the limits of how little they can reward us and still keep us coming back for more.
This pattern has also spilled over into many other parts of modern life as a result of so many people being subjected to these systems.
You only need to look at the way thrifting, mobile gaming, and yes - even AI chatbots - have exploded in popularity while dramatically decreasing in quality and frequency of reward to see that this is driving us to repeat these patterns across every facet of our lives.
Variable rewards are now not only something that drives us, they're something we intentionally seek out BECAUSE we've received so much of this conditioning from social media.
It is so incredibly unethical and manipulative now that I can see it. And like g*mbling, the best way to overcome the addiction is awareness and abstinence.
But y'all - we still need pellets.
Idk about you, but my electric company doesn't take "strong moral objection" in place of my actual monthly bill payments.
So, what are we to do?
Personally, I think it's time we start building for a post-social-media world.
It is time to return to decentralized communities, so you can participate with intention.
It is time to return to content on your own platforms, on your own terms, so you can consciously choose to work within your capacity - without being manipulated into overdoing it.
It is time to do some things offline again, if that's accessible to you.
Luckily for you, my dinosaur self didn't even figure out social media growth for my personal brand until 2021. Before that, I'd been in business for nearly 20 years without ever touching the stuff.
So in a world where social is unreliable at best, and down right damaging at worst...
... I know how to build without it, and I want to show you the way.
There are two options to learn more about this:
Option one - I'm infodumping on all of this for you next Friday on a live workshop:
Unsocialized:
How next-gen thought leaders are growing for a post-social-media world.
Friday, October 24 at 11am Pacific
We're going to talk about:
- What has actually happened to social media
- Why it is so much harder to grow on social today
- Why "the death of the follower" is not actually an exaggeration
- What is still working if you want to stay on social media
- Where to go and grow if you want to leave social media, and
- How to build a post-social marketing plan with the Four C's of growth.
Yes, there is most definitely a replay, and the Q&A forum is open now for those who want to discuss ahead of time.
Until midnight tonight, you can register for just $72 USD with code "COMMUNITY" at checkout.
Option two is for those of you who already know it's time to walk away from social.
If you're ready to build a plan and take action to build beyond social in a bigger way, Solo School is the place for you to do that.
I literally wrote the playbook on building a service-based business without social media over 5 years ago. I've taught the basics to hundreds of people at this point, transforming the way they market, sell, create offers, and build their network.
I've walked dozens of businesses through building off-social brands and selling services without posting, doomscrolling, or engagement work, to the point where they were able to go back to posting plate pics and gym selfies - or nothing at all.
As a member, you'll get the Unsocialized workshop, of course.
Plus up to 4 hours per week with me to strategize and plan, work through obstacles, and get coaching on doing this in a sustainable way.
Plus, you get access to every other resource I've ever created on this.
- How to do outreach that doesn't feel gross.
- How to create content you actually own in ways that build relationships.
- How to get clients without ever setting a foot on social if you want to.
- How to build packages that allow you to sell to FEWER clients while hitting your goals so you don't need the massive audiences you see on social media.
- How to price those packages equitably - supporting your needs while understanding who can actually access your services ethically at those rates.
- And of course, our marketing collective that literally gives you a social presence without using a social platform ever again, if you want.
It's time to radically de-center the algorithm.
See you next Friday,
- Cheryl
P.S. Our free community is still growing if you're not ready to join us for any of these options, but would like to find some off-social support systems. You can register here.
