There are several forms of social media content that should exist as part of our social media marketing strategy. Along with content creation (which exists primarily to deliver value to your current and potential clients), one of the primary forms of material for social media is what we call ‘social media documentation’.

While content creation’s primary goal is delivering value through education (therefore positioning your business as an authority in a certain niche), the purpose of Social Media Documentation is two-fold:

• It gives potential clients a ‘window’ in to what happens inside your business.
• It allows you to share the experiences and successes of your current clients, building culture.

Let’s focus on the first of these points, giving outsiders a glimpse inside what you do.

Think of Social Media Documentation like reality TV. Reality TV consistently rates as amongst the highest levels of viewership. Why? Because people like to be a ‘fly on the wall’ in other people’s lives. Everyone has some degree of voyeurism.

So what forms should this content take? There are two things to consider. The type of person featured in the documentation, and what they’re doing.

Wherever possible, match the subject of the documentation to one of your avatars, as this falls under a form of marketing (and all marketing should be directed towards one of your avatars). Your potential clients will see someone ‘just like them’ getting involved, which will give them a ‘if they can do it, I can do it’ mentality.

So what should the subject of the content be doing? Above all else, they should be abiding by your Core Values and demonstrating your Unique Selling Points.

Make sure the content matches the culture and external branding you’re aiming to promote. By selecting what you choose to show to ‘outsiders’, you’re effectively filtering what people see, and therefore filtering their perceptions of the business. This ‘selection of detail’ is natural, but again, make sure it’s portraying what you want portrayed. Everything you post should act to draw people towards your business – not away. An example of inappropriate documentation might be posting shirtless guys lifting heavy weights, when one of your primary avatars is a 60 year old female baby-boomer who gets easily intimidated by exercise. Match the documentation of your current clients to your desired clients.

And of course, part of making sure the people in your documentation are living your core values is to show them experiencing positive emotions. Happy, smiling faces. People laughing and having a good time. People celebrating. People excited to achieve something. People enjoying each other’s company.

Ensure the window into your business that you open to the outside world makes people want to climb in and join.

We work with Range of Motion Business Mentoring clients to use several avenues to share this documentation.

We can target all social media platforms and streams, using primarily visual content (images and video) with supporting text.

Some social media platforms are specifically made for this ‘less polished’ documentation. Instagram and Facebook stories are perfect, and you should also make use of Facebook/Instagram/YouTube Live to take advantage of both the ‘happening right now’ nature of this content, as well as the preference the algorithms of these platforms give to live content.. The short-term nature of these media lends themselves well to documentation. Standard Facebook and Instagram posts are also great – and allow potential clients to scroll back through your feed to get a taste of what you do. In fact, this is a great exercise. Scroll back through your social media feeds and ask yourself whether you’re showcasing examples of your avatars living your core values.

Part of the importance of featuring your avatars lies also in featuring the pain points you’ve identified for them. By showing them having their problems solved by your business, you’re demonstrating to potential clients that you can solve their problems too.

A great way to do this is by telling a story. Whether your content is video, image, text, or a combination, you can do this by using the ‘Hero’s Journey’. The Hero’s Journey is a time-tested format for storytelling. It’s a basic plot structure that you’ll see in a surprisingly large number of stories. It’s used in classic novels, Shakespearean plays and modern movie blockbusters. And now, you should use it in the primary media of today – social media posts.

The Hero’s Journey follows a standard format:

• Hero get call
• Hero rejects call
• Hero reluctantly accepts call
• Hero meets obstacles
• Guardian angel helps hero
• Hero triumphs
• Hero returns home

To make this easier, you can use this template:

(hero) knew that (x needed to happen) because (the reason x needed to happen). But (he/she) didn’t think this was possible because (the the obstacle standing in the way of x happening). (Hero) (admitting a change was needed and the first step to make that change to get x to happen). During this process (The obstacles that the hero faced during the process), but with the help from (business/trainer’s name), (hero) was able to (how they overcame the obstacles). As a result (the thing that was achieved) and (the way the achievement was celebrated). (What has happened as a result of this achievement, refer back to the reason x needed to happen). (The next step/challenge/goal).

Let’s have a look at a real world example:

John knew that he needed to lose a few kilos because he was finding it hard to keep up with his son. But he’d failed this process again and again, and his weight yoyo-ed constantly. John took the (sometimes scary step) of reaching out to Range of Motion. Initially, during this process, work commitments and lack of time got in the way, but with the help from his coach, Dan, John was able to build some healthy habits around exercise and nutrition. As a result John has now lost 15kg and celebrated by ticking his goal off on the Range of Motion goals board. He can now keep up with his son – kicking the footy with him for 2 hours last weekend! The next step is to ensure the healthy habits remain for the next decade.

The Hero’s Journey too complicated for you at this stage? No problem, here’s a simplified approach. Craft the stories for your documentation around three things:

• Identify a problem the subject of your documentation was/is facing (match this to one of the pain points of one of your avatars).
• Explain how this problem was solved by your business.
• Hint at the next step – what’s next?

If you have staff, you should build in to your systems a requirement for them each to craft a client journey once a week – leveraging their time in the business to help create content.

Share what you do. Give your potential clients a glimpse into your business, and if they like what they see, it’ll soon be them you’re featuring on your social media feeds.

*EDIT: This italicised text was added to this article on 21/07/20, and cannot be found in the audio version:

There’s an additional form of social media documentation which creates a powerful message to attract people who match your avatar – the use of ‘organic client stories’.

It’s a long- term strategy – and one which, when used correctly, can be one of the most powerful forms of digital marketing you can implement. It is also a strategy that can take advantage of our ability to leverage content to multiple platforms.

The first step of this strategy is to capture short (maximum five second) videos of a single clients experiencing your service. Once again, this is an example of documenting the client journey. You’re capturing their every-day experience. In the short term, these mini-videos are create for platforms like Facebook and Instagram stories. Short, unpolished windows into the day-to-day operations of your business.

But as we’ve hinted, there is a much stronger (long term) strategy into which we can leverage these videos.

Over time (many months), you should be accumulating as many of these short ‘couple of second’ clips as you can. And not just for one client, but for many clients. Store all these short clips in separate folders – one for each client. Over time, you’ll be accumulating a large number of short videos for each client – documenting their journey with you over many months.

Once you reach the point where you have 15 or 20 of these clips, it’s time to use them. Edit them together into a short (under 60 second) ‘training montage’. Overlay an upbeat song. This is now a perfect highlight package for social media. And the beauty of this, is that you’re heroing a client – which not only makes them feel special, but (from an external marketing perspective) lets all their friends (on social media) see what they’ve been doing. By tagging the client you’re featuring, you’ll be showing their journey to people just like them (their friends). This is a great way to attract more of the sort of people you want to have within your business.

For bonus points on this, you could even grab a short testimonial, or do a quick interview with the client. You’ll use the video of the testimonial and use the short clips you’ve accumulated as B-roll (the video that shows as the testimonial is being spoken).