Social Media Naturals

Talented social media nat­ur­als are rare to find.

This art­icle will explain the concept of social media nat­ur­als and why they could be an asset to your business.

As a digit­al strategist, I can often tell wheth­er someone work­ing at a com­pany “gets” social media. In my exper­i­ence, hav­ing a social media nat­ur­al in charge of your brand accounts is more efficient.

How do you recog­nise a social media natural?

Here goes:

Social Media is Easy (For Some)

Having done my fair share of media train­ing, I’ve learnt that most people have their pre­ferred means of com­mu­nic­a­tion.

In many ways, social media has opened up a whole new array of human com­mu­nic­a­tion forms, thus increas­ing the chances for each of us to find a par­tic­u­lar style of com­mu­nic­a­tion that suits our personality.

Social Media Naturals: Definition

Sure, most online influ­en­cers are also social media nat­ur­als — but not all of them. Influencers are influ­en­tial online because of their cap­ab­il­ity for social inter­ac­tion and their abil­ity to attract and enter­tain an audi­ence.

Social media nat­ur­als don’t need large fol­low­ings; they use social net­works to con­nect deeply with oth­er like-minded people around their pas­sions and interests. 

Read also: The Influencers in Public Relations

Why Social Media Naturals are Valuable

In future gen­er­a­tions, almost every­one will be a social media nat­ur­al. But until then, organ­isa­tions will have to find — and hire! — them.

Hiring a social media influ­en­cer to execute the digit­al strategy can be a hit-or-miss enter­prise. I’ve seen this sev­er­al times from a close-up perspective. 

Influencers tend to care mostly about their brands; for them, it’s always about pos­i­tion­ing them­selves in the mar­ket­place. However, a niched social media nat­ur­al can find an organ­isa­tion with match­ing passions.

Identifying social media nat­ur­als with­in an organ­isa­tion is often more straight­for­ward than one might think. This is because they can­’t stop con­stantly inter­act­ing on social media with the top­ic of their interest. 

Many organ­isa­tions have experts who are already using social media to dis­cuss and con­nect, but no one might have invited them to con­trib­ute pro­fes­sion­ally to the organ­isa­tion’s social media strategy.

How To Empower Social Media Naturals

When look­ing for a com­munity man­ager, I always invest­ig­ate their per­son­al social media presence. 

I’d look not for massive fol­low­ings but for the ease of use, pas­sion, and will­ing­ness to exper­i­ment. I’d look spe­cific­ally for someone with no prob­lems find­ing the right ton­al­ity for vari­ous social media situations.

Once with­in the organ­isa­tion, I’d sug­gest cre­at­ing a frame­work well-suited for social media naturals:

PR Resource: Why We Share on Social Media

Spin Academy | Online PR Courses

Why We Share on Social Media

“People want to be loved; fail­ing that admired; fail­ing that feared; fail­ing that hated and des­pised. They want to evoke some sort of sen­ti­ment. The soul shud­ders before obli­vi­on and seeks con­nec­tion at any price.”
— Hjalmar Söderberg (1869−1941), Swedish author

When we share on social media, we share for a reas­on. And that reas­on typ­ic­ally has some­thing to do with ourselves:

• We share to make ourselves look smart.
• We share to fit in and to stand out.
• We share to express individuality.
• We share to belong to our in-group.
• We share to be loved.
• We share to pro­voke reac­tions for atten­tion.
• We share to extract sympathy.
• We share to make us feel bet­ter about ourselves.
• We share to get ahead.
• We share to grow an audience.
• We share to com­pensate for our shortcomings.
• We share to get the respect we need.

If you can get social media to work for you, great. But you should also be mind­ful not to let the pres­sure get the bet­ter of you.

“A status update with no likes (or a clev­er tweet without retweets) becomes the equi­val­ent of a joke met with silence. It must be rethought and rewrit­ten. And so we don’t show our true selves online, but a mask designed to con­form to the opin­ions of those around us.”
— Neil Strauss, Wall Street Journal

Learn more: The Narcissistic Principle: Why We Share on Social Media

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PR Resource: The Follower Contract

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The Follower Contract

How can brands bet­ter under­stand fol­low­er engage­ment? Think of every fol­low as an invis­ible contract.

Dear Brand,

• Yes, I’m now fol­low­ing you. Congratulations (to you).
• I fol­lowed you based on what you’ve demon­strated in the past, so don’t be sur­prised if I stop enga­ging (or unfol­low­ing) if you do oth­er stuff.
• You now have my per­mis­sion to provide me with the type of con­tent that first attrac­ted me to your brand.
• I, the fol­low­er, will determ­ine any involve­ment on a future case-by-case basis.
• My fol­low is not a ‘pay­ment’ for your past accom­plish­ments; my fol­low is an ‘advance pay­ment’ for what I expect from you in the future.
• It would be best if you always pre­sup­posed that I’m inter­ested in myself and my friends first and then, maybe, in your brand.
• Until we part ways, I expect you to be clear about my poten­tial involve­ment in your cause.

Best regards,
Your New Follower

Think of every single fol­low­er, fan, and sub­scriber hav­ing such an agree­ment with your brand.

Read also: The Follower Contract

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PR Resource: Influencers in Public Relations

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The Influencers in Public Relations

In PR, influ­en­cers are indi­vidu­als who have man­aged to grow a sub­stan­tial audi­ence, which has the poten­tial to affect a spe­cif­ic organ­isa­tion either pos­it­ively or negatively.

“Influencers in pub­lic rela­tions are emer­ging stake­hold­ers who gen­er­ate a state of opin­ion in the digit­al com­munity that sur­passes tra­di­tion­al pub­lic opin­ion.”
Source: The Role of Prosumers in the Interactive and Digital Processes of Public Relations ²Polo, M. (2020). The Role of Prosumers in the Interactive and Digital Processes of Public Relations. 161 – 174. https://​doi​.org/​1​0​.​4​0​1​8​/​978 – 1‑7998 – 3119‑8.ch012

Establishing and main­tain­ing good rela­tion­ships with stra­tegic­ally chosen influ­en­cers for the organ­isa­tion is often crit­ic­ally important.

I recom­mend using the fol­low­ing tiers and nam­ing con­ven­tions for cat­egor­ising dif­fer­ent types of influencers:

• Nano influ­en­cer. Nano influ­en­cers are indi­vidu­als with a small yet engaged fol­low­ing, typ­ic­ally between 1,000 and 10,000 fol­low­ers (but this will vary based on both the plat­form and the niche), often focus­ing on niche interests and hav­ing a sol­id per­son­al con­nec­tion with their audience.
• Micro influ­en­cer. Micro influ­en­cers have a mod­er­ately sized audi­ence, ran­ging from 10,000 to 50,000 fol­low­ers (but this will vary based on the plat­form and the niche). They are known for their expert­ise in spe­cif­ic fields or indus­tries, lead­ing to high­er engage­ment rates and a loy­al fanbase.
• Macro influ­en­cer. Macro influ­en­cers pos­sess a more sig­ni­fic­ant fol­low­ing, usu­ally between 50,000 and 1 mil­lion fol­low­ers (but this will vary based on the plat­form and the niche). They have estab­lished them­selves as influ­en­tial fig­ures in their respect­ive fields, often col­lab­or­at­ing with brands for pro­mo­tions and partnerships.
• Mega influ­en­cer. Mega influ­en­cers are high-pro­file indi­vidu­als with over 1 mil­lion fol­low­ers (but this will vary based on the plat­form and the niche), often includ­ing celebrit­ies and pub­lic fig­ures, who have a massive reach and can shape trends and drive con­sumer beha­viour on a large scale.

Learn more: The Influencers in Public Relations

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