T’was the age of Delorians, valley girls, yuppies and mullets. The seemingly distance 1980’s. But I remember a different 80’s icon. None other than Richard Dean Anderson…who? MacGyver. 1985-1992 @ 8pm. I clearly remember our classic wood- box floor TV. The smell of lemon Pledge in the air. It was thrilling to watch him fabricate such effective devices from the most basic resources. The “devices” were always simple. But the brilliance was in that simplicity. And regardless, they always got the job done. Plus MacGyver never complained about what he had to work with. He’d simply bear down and put them to use them in a creative way. These characteristics would’ve made him a social media marketing machine. All website owners – new and old, feel “social share” pressure. It’s downright depressing when content you slave over attracts little or no attention. The dreaded “I just spent 6 hours creating this awesome post but only got 2 shares and 1 tweet”. Let’s look social media marketing from a MacGyver perspective. After all, who’s better at dealing with pressure?

1. leanmeanmarket ing.com http://www.leanmeanmarketing.com/social-media-marketing
by Andrew Hiddleston
What MacGyver Can Teach You About Social Media Marketing
T’was the age of Delorians, valley girls, yuppies and mullets.
The seemingly distance 1980’s.
But I remember a dif f erent 80’s icon.
None other than Richard Dean Anderson…who?
MacGyver.
1985-1992 @ 8pm. I clearly remember our classic wood- box
f loor TV. The smell of lemon Pledge in the air.
It was thrilling to watch him f abricate such ef f ective devices
f rom the most basic resources.
The “devices” were always simple. But the brilliance was in
that simplicity. And regardless, they always got the job done.
Plus MacGyver never complained about what he had to work
with. He’d simply bear down and put them to use them in a creative way.
These characteristics would’ve made him a social media marketing machine.
All website owners – new and old, f eel “social share” pressure. It’s downright depressing when content you
slave over attracts little or no attention.
The dreaded “I just spent 6 hours creating this awesome post but only got 2 shares and 1 tweet”.
Let’s look social media marketing f rom a MacGyver perspective. Af ter all, who’s better at dealing with pressure?
You’re focusing energy on the wrong thing
This may sound counter-intuitive but it’s not.
STOP spending so much time social networking!
That’s right.
Time is a precious resource. And is truly limited.You can’t go out and buy more of it…like traf f ic f or example.
So much time is wasted attempting to engage or entice people on social networks. This valiant ef f ort to self -
start the social share process rarely produces results.
Social sharing is a dish best served natural. So it’s your job to know what your readers like and dislike. People
share, tweet and comment when subjects resonates with them.
But it’s not all doom and gloom. Here’s some good news…

2. Testing clearly shows the majority of social sharing is done based off the headline alone. Not the body
content.
So what would MacGyver do?
Spend countless hours trying to jump-start sharing? Or identif y the headline as the simple “device” to solve the
problem?
Headlines.
Invest more time writing headlines and less time networking.
If you don’t know your audience then try dif f erent headline styles.
Top X of Y
How To
What X Can Teach You About Y
Track and measure your page views with Google Analytics. You can start identif ying what is popular and what is
not. If you have really popular posts considering turning it into a series.
Did you know about the f ree heat map in Google Analyics?
Too many choices often results in a bad choice
Guess what comes with a marketplace f ull of people hungry to get tweets and shares?
A crap load of plugin’s, apps, content lockers, social pop-ups and on and on it goes.
You can literally spend a small f ortune testing new gadgets and gizmos all of which are sold to you promising
to get more shares. And sure, some of them probably work.
But today MacGyver is calling the shots.
And there’s no way he’d approve of that stuf f . Much too complicated.
We need a simple solution that still solves the problem.
Let’s look at some sites that already get lots of social shares. MacGyver always had good intelligence on any
“big” players he was against.
How about Copyblogger or ProBlogger? I’d categorize them as big players.
Right of f the bat it’s obvious nothing is f orced upon you.
The social element isn’t even noticeable at f irst.
The sharing buttons are neatly tucked at the top and bottom of the post. They don’t demand you share…or
put you in an armlock until you like. But people still share the content like wildf ire because:
1. These sites have conditioned their readers; but more importantly…
2. They write REALLY f antastic headlines
That’s interesting.

3. A lot of social shares and good headlines…hmmm.
The solution is simple and perf ectly matches our f irst point. MacGyver gives a thumbs up.
You need to invest resources in the right places
Remember how talked about time being the most valuable resource. And because it’s limited we must invest it
wisely.
You must spend your “time resources” where you’ll see the biggest return.
So instead of new gadgets and plugins invest in creating better content. Spend more time writing headlines.
Create even more targeted content. Survey your readers, subscribers and customers to f ind out exactly what
they want.
And then bear down and make it!
It’s about them not you.
Of course you can test content lockers…you can do whatever you want. It’s you website.
But inf ormative content made specif ically f or the reader and produced on a regular basis will achieve f ar
greater results.
I’ll admit I do like the “click to tweet” idea. MacGyver would agree.
It’s simple. Nothing to install. I setup the example below in just a f ew seconds.
“Almost everyone in the world, in every field of human endeavor, is desperately searching for
someone to believe in. Be that person and you can write your own ticket.” ~ Gary Bencivenga
Awesome quote f rom a real legend. Click to tweet
But the best investment you can make is your content. And the headline is where to can get the most bang f or
your buck in terms of social shares.
Focus on your core business metrics
If you only get 20 tweets in a week but sales or sign-up rate increased 7% do you really care about the
tweets?
MacGyver always f ocused on the primary objective…the end game.
Don’t lose sight of your core business metrics. I’ve seen the allure of social seduce several people when in
reality they should have been f ixing other areas of their business.
Track and optimize your key metrics and you’ll smash it. Regardless of social media.
Sharing and tweeting is great. But avoid ruining a good conversion rate in an attempt to squeeze out more
likes.
I saw this recently and it was ugly. From a very healthy sign-up rate, conversion rate was cut by 2/3 af ter adding
a dumb social media pop box. It wasn’t even a nice pop box.

4. The problem was f ixed in a f ew days but it amounted to tens of thousands of dollars (lif etime value) lost all
because they wanted more Likes on their Facebook page.
Your prospects are sharp. You need to create positive emotion not negative.
No need to ram a Facebook f an page down their throat and FORCE the Like (shotgun to the head style). They
will f ind your f an page by simply providing a link.
We (website owners) mostly love social media. And all the various benef its it can provided. However don’t
f orget your readers and subscribers may not all f eel the same way.
As f or me? I’d rather have a customer than a f an any way.
What do you think?