St. Louis, MO – October 31, 2022 - As an agency professional that helps your clients navigate the digital world effectively, one the biggest challenges you face is keeping up with all the changes in social media.

You would like to tell your clients that “Social Media is My Space,” but you know that is as risky as going all in with your digital on the social platform My Space.

The biggest mistake brands make with social media is playing the game set by the social platform. Chasing algorithms is a mistake made by professionals every day. Trust me when I tell you I’ve made that mistake many times.

I’ll never forget my last spring training with the Cardinals, my staff was convinced the Snapchat would take over all the other social media channels. It was the shiny new penny back then. My staff wanted to devote most of our resources that spring in Jupiter to sharing content on Snap Chat at the exclusion of Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. I felt it was a mistake, but I was made to feel old in my thinking.

Like my son does today, my staff wore me down with their pleas. I relented. I allowed us to experiment with some content, but not at the exclusion of the 2.7 million fans (including my bosses) we had following us on Facebook at the time.

Snapchat wasn’t transparent about the number of followers we had. And no one could convince me that some fan following us there didn’t already follow us elsewhere.

With all of our channels, our basic strategy with social media was to provide our fans insider access to the team they loved on whatever platform they preferred. Our true north was always our relationship with our fan not the platform itself.

I would tell you that your client’s true north is their customer or target audience not the channel they are watching. Channels can come and go, but your content should be yours alone (I’ll defer the intellectual property element of that to another post).

My point to you is don’t play the game of the social platform unless it benefits you and your brand. Don’t chase algorithms, chase your audience. Stories are for people, not robots or code. Stories are for audiences, not algorithms.

Having said that, you need to be aware of the latest changes on each platform. As a PR or Digital agency professional, your clients expect you to keep up with Kardashians on social. They expect you to be the expert to help them navigate and exploit the terrain.

From time to time at the Cardinals, we were guilty of trying to chase the latest algorithm of a platform. It makes strategic sense to do it to reach your audience or build your platform, but only to do that.

The most important thing is to invest in telling your story and owning the content so you can place it wherever your audience is spending time. If your audience is on TikTok, then you should be on TikTok. If they are on Facebook, then you want to be on Facebook. You get the idea.

All of them are on the internet, which is why your website will always be the most important place for you to have your client share their stories. We recently spent some time changing the names of stories we did for a client to help them make better use of the YouTube algorithm.

We want to game the robots to help us reach the humans. It is a solid strategy designed to drive traffic back to their website where they build the relationship with their customer. It is a winning strategy built around helping humans, which should be the true north of all your video storytelling.

About STORYSMART

You have a story to tell, but don't have the time or resources to do it yourself. Telling your story well with video can be hard. And let’s be brutally honest. No app will turn you into a great filmmaker. Few people are capable of producing a do-it-yourself (DIY) video or film we actually want to watch, much less remember.

To do justice to your story on screen, you need the right skills and equipment, not to mention time, money and talent.

That is why STORYSMART developed our premium video storytelling as a service. We are here to help clients tell their story in the amazing way they deserve with a proprietary done-for-you video storytelling service unlike any other.

STORYSMART provides a nationwide premium video storytelling service that empowers individuals, families, celebrities, small businesses and other organizations to have their stories told professionally while still retaining their intellectual property rights.

STORYSMART provides clients an experienced television reporter or journalist filmmaker to help them tell their story following our proprietary high-integrity brand journalism system. Our transparently priced premium services for businesses and families ensures that each client gets an authentic, high-quality story they own the intellectual property rights on forever.

About Ron Watermon

Ron Watermonis the founder and CEO of STORYSMART, a premium video storytelling technology startup that empowers anyone to have their stories told professionally while ensuring they retain the intellectual property rights on their productions.

A creative and innovative communications leader with nearly three decades of experience, prior to founding STORYSMART to provide Storytelling for all, Ron Watermon was responsible for modernizing the St. Louis Cardinals communications by leading the team’s investment in video storytelling, brand journalism, fan engagement and social media.