This bonus lesson is a golden nugget from Neal O'Grady. Learn how to avoid making common mistakes that can kill your reach on different social channels—meaning your post will not do nearly as well as you’d like it to.
Here’s a list of the top reach killers by platform:
1. Adding an outbound link in the post
Causing people to leave the platform causes them to lose out on ad revenue. The platforms want you to keep your content and audience on the platform.
Therefore, adding external links will almost always cause your content to perform worse.
There are ways around this:
- Push people to the link in your profile.
- Ask people to comment to get the link (this is another Nugget).
- On LinkedIn, add a comment with the link after several other people have already commented.
- On Twitter, add the link in another tweet in the thread after a few hours when the post has already taken off.
Exceptions:
- Instagram: You can’t add external links
- YouTube: You’re free to add external links in the description or as overlays, this is a very normal and common use of the platform
#2. Looking or being spammy
If your post is, looks, or feels spammy, it will not do well.
Examples:
- You use ALL CAPS to try to make a point
- It’s stuffed full of emojis and buzzwords or spammy things like FREE, THIS WILL REVOLUTIONIZE, etc
- You tag a ton of people randomly at the end of it (more on this shortly)