One of my favorite commercials (yes, I have favorite commercials) is for the Banjo Minnow. If you like to fish, then you’ve probably seen this lure in stores. I liked that commercial so much that my dad eventually went out and bought the kit for me.
When you watch the commercial, you’ll hear reference to “genetic response” which is referring to how the lure is designed to trigger a genetic response in the fish so they “have to” bite the lure. It’s a very convincing commercial that uses a lot of solid direct response triggers.
So, yes, I own the Banjo minnow and I can tell you first hand it does work. I remember how excited I was driving up to my parents’ cabin to use the lure for the first time and I wasn’t disappointed. Unfortunately, the pond at the cabin is mostly full of pickerel so I spent a good part of my day trying to get the Banjo minnow out of pickerel’s mouths without losing my fingers! Those fish have lots of really sharp teeth.
But here’s the thing… I have since tested lots of other lures and I’m convinced the Banjo minnow alone is nothing special. In other words, it’s not so much the lure as it is the system that is included in the kit. I forgot to mention earlier that when you buy the kit, you get a video tutorial on how to use the lure correctly and of course I watched that training as soon as I got it. :)
That is the key takeaway from this article and I’ll explain more as I walk through the 3 steps to social media marketing success. You’ll see that one step alone doesn’t do much for your business. You need all three working together…
1. Build Your Audience
This should be obvious, but social media relies on first building an audience. If you don’t have an audience then no one is going to read your posts.
When you’re first starting out and you don’t have an audience, it’s like fishing in a pond or a section of a pond that has no fish. It doesn’t matter if you’re the best fisherman using the best gear, you’re not going to catch any fish!
That means you need to adjust your goals in the early stages of social media marketing. If you expect to drive sales right away, then you’re going to be disappointed. Instead, focus on tactics to build your target audience first.
2. Engage Your Audience
Now we get to the true secret behind the Banjo minnow. When you watch the training video, you learn how to cast and reel in the lure to give it the lifelike action described in the commercial. Again, if you just cast and reel in the lure normally, then the Banjo minnow does not work! I’ve tested both ways. You must use the technique in the video.
The reason why the lure works is because the action engages the fish — it catches the fish’s attention. That’s the secret to fishing right there. You need to use a lure combined with the correct action to get a fish to bite.
The same thing is true with social media. You must engage your audience with the right content, at the right frequency, to maintain the attention of your target market.
3. Convert Your Audience
Finally, we get to the step we all tend to focus on: conversion. As I mentioned earlier in step 1, it’s not realistic to expect conversions when you’re just starting out with social media and you do not yet have an audience. It’s also not realistic to expect conversions if you are not yet engaging with your audience as explained in step 2 above. As you can see, the order of these steps matters greatly.
When you’re fishing, you need to first pick a spot where you know there are fish. That’s step 1. Then the next step is to find the right lure and action that engages the fish you’re targeting. In my case, the Banjo minnow is perfect for catching pickerel! The final step is to reel in the fish. That’s the conversion step. It’s also the part of fishing where you have the most fun. Everything up until the reeling in is basically hard work and trial and error to find the most engaging lure and action.
In other words, focus on finding the right types of content (informational, educational, inspirational, entertaining) for your social media, and then step 3 will get a whole lot easier (and more fun).
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