If you’ve been trying your best to achieve strong social media results but keep feeling disappointed, Zoetica Media founder Kami Huyse knows a sure fire way to help you succeed in driving engagement and getting noticed.
“I want to bring you something that you probably already know instinctively,” she says, and “I want to kind of break it down into a method that has worked for me for actually 20 years now.”
Social Media Platforms Will Always Reward Interaction
Before the creation of social media networks, blogs and online forums/message boards were the two ways people could connect with others online.
But although Kami had one of the early PR blogs, she didn’t see much traction at the beginning. “I was posting on my blog back in 2005 and it was crickets, it was always crickets,” even though “I would really put a lot of time into these posts.”
What she quickly realized is that creating connections with other people served as the single most important way to draw attention to the valuable content she was creating. She eventually systemized her approach and turned it into a method she uses to this day.
The Magic 2×2 Connect Method
The Magic 2×2 Connect Method requires just 15 minutes each day, and when applied consistently, reaps tremendous social media rewards. In fact, it’s how Kami built her network from scratch when she relocated from one large metropolitan area to another.
To avoid spreading yourself too thin, choose one or two social media platforms to focus on at a time. At least one – if not both – should be a platform you love, are already active on, will be beneficial to your brand and business, and that you would like to continue to grow.
Once you’ve decided on the platform, commit to having two short online conversations a day and submitting two replies or comments a day. That is where the “2×2” name comes from.
To initiate a conversation, you can share a post to your Instagram stories, for example, or ask your entire community, a small group of people, or even just a particular individual a question or set of questions. This can be open-ended questions or more targeted ones. Choose whatever works best for the platform and your audience.
Next, engage in a series of replies and comments. Either reply to a comment someone leaves on your original post or go to someone else’s post or comment about a different topic and leave your response there.
In every case make sure you’re substantively adding to the conversation in a positive way, rather than just commenting for the sake of commenting. If done right, you’ll thereby move the conversation forward in an engaging, authentic way.
“People are going to be extremely happy with you,” Kami says. “They're going to be very excited that you are interacting with their content and because of that, you're going to grow a relationship with that content creator.”
Broadening Your Social Media Network
In addition to making connections with the people who comment on your content and those on whose you comment, you’ll also catch the attention of others.
As Kami explains, after reading your post or seeing your comment, “there's going to be a subset of people that click on your profile to find out who you are… they're going to go over to your profile – whether it be on LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, it doesn't matter which platform you want to focus on – but people will check you out.”
That is why having strong content in your profile and on your account is important. “When they check you out, they're going to see what's there [and] they're going to decide whether they want to follow you or not.”
But none of this happens without interaction. That’s why Kami says that interaction is without a doubt the most critical part.
“I've put really hundreds of people through this exercise and gotten dozens and dozens and dozens of people coming back to me and saying ‘this 100% has worked for me’,” she says. “Every time I do it a new person reaches out.”
Engage With Others in an Authentic and On-Brand Way
If you’re not sure how to engage with others in a voice that’s authentic to you and in content that reflects your personal brand, Kami shares this 2 x 2 method as well as other engagement tools in her mastermind group, Smart Social Mastery. It is a unique way to gather with other professionals to grow your brand authentically through time-tested tools and the latest up-to-date knowledge.