In the digital economy businesses don’t have the luxury of choice when it comes to social media, it’s a sort of do or die medium of advertising. Due to the saturation of business on social media, much of what you see on your Twitter and Facebook feeds are advertisements for different businesses. The problem with so many different people using such a crowded channel of communication is that it is very difficult to get your head above the parapet and be heard! Many businesses using social media would be much more effective at breaking through all the noise if they used the 80-20 rule of social media.

The 80-20 rule of social media has become one of those unspoken laws that successful users understand while everyone else blasts out shameless self-advertisement to no avail. The concept of the rule is fairly simple and is directly related to the content you’re posting on social media, it states that at least 80% of your post should be curated content that’s interesting to your audience and at most 20% should be advertisement.

The usefulness of the 80-20 rule may seem questionable but when you analyze the communication channels of social media it’s easy to see why it’s so effective. On a slow day twitter averages 500 million tweets a day (that’s about 6,000 tweets a second). As I’m sure you can tell social media has become a heavily saturated medium for advertising and thus requires some special care to be effective.

The over saturation of social media in a live stream found here

Photo is a screenshot from www.internetlivestatistics.com

The 80-20 rule provides the care you need to keep your social media presence healthy and attract new followers. The key to this method is the 80% of good, relevant curated content. This content mainly consists of things people actually want to see and will build brand loyalty and recognition for you and your company.

By implementing the 80-20 rule of social media people will be significantly more likely to see your 20% of shameless self-promotion you send out daily. Curating the other 80% helps make social media an environment people actually enjoy spending time in and makes your company more visible to the people you’re trying to reach.

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If you need some advice on your social media strategy, get in touch with one of our friendly consultants and we’d be glad to give you a free social media analysis.