What is the 60/30/10 rule?
The 60/30/10 rule is a social media marketing technique that helps you maximize your social media impact by leveraging engaging content, sharing information from non-competitive businesses and local or industry organizations, and promoting products and services.
We typically recommend posting to social media ten to fourteen times per week depending on the social media platform. How can you possibly think of that many things to say and share with your audience? Following the 60/30/10 rule and using SnapRetail makes it easy. It allows to you stay at the front of people’s minds without spending all of your time creating content.
The 60/30/10 rule states that 60% of the posts you create should be engaging content that gets people reacting, commenting and sharing, 30% should be shared content, and 10% should be promoting your products & services, sales, events, etc.
Post engaging content 60% of the time
You’ll find engaging content to use in 60% of your posts on The Calendar and the Social Media Library in your SnapRetail account. Engaging content is designed to get people to react to the post, comment, and share regardless of whether they are ready to buy or not. These are things that are going to get people excited when they see your Facebook page in their newsfeed or could even get people to start to go directly to your Facebook page. For example, let’s say you are a home & garden retailer, then a portion of the 60% could be gardening tips or home decor tips. If you are a jewelry store, this could be jewelry cleaning tips. These things will help you stay top of mind with your customers.
Another strategy you can use for the 60% would be asking customers questions. For example, “What is your favorite product that you have bought at our store?” Another example would be a This or That post. In the SnapRetail Social Media Library, we have a post that asks “What is your favorite winter drink? Coffee, tea, or hot chocolate.” If you are a bookstore that has a coffee bar this post would be perfect. However, if you are not a business that this would be relevant for, you could give a shout-out to a neighboring business and use this post. For example, “What is your favorite winter drink? Coffee, tea, or hot chocolate. Ours is coffee, and we always get our morning cup at Joe’s Coffee Shop, they are the best!”
Post shared content 30% of the time
Next, 30% of what you post should be shared content. You should share things that are relevant to the local community or a non-competing business. This strategy will help boost your business’ awareness in the community. If you give a shout-out to a neighboring, non-competing business, they’ll be likely to reciprocate in the future. If you are on a Main Street, a shopping plaza, or an indoor mall there are plenty of opportunities to do this. As part of the 30%, you should also share content from national thought leaders or national organizations that are involved in your industry.
Post sales & promotions 10% of the time
Finally, 10% of what you post should be sales and product or services information. Many businesses that we work with are shocked that only ten percent of what they post should be this type of content. However, social media is supposed to be social, not salesy. No one wants to be inundated with sales on social media platforms. Each sale or new product arrival should feel like a special event – something people will look forward to. By only posting sales & promotions 10% of the time you are accomplishing this while still adding value to your business. This decreased frequency creates a sense of exclusivity that you wouldn’t be able to achieve otherwise. One or two posts a week selling product or service may seem low, but social media is all about building your brand, getting in front of your audience and staying top of mind. If you are posting engaging content that people are reacting to, commenting, and sharing then when they are ready to purchase the type of product or service you sell, then they will think of your business. With this technique, you won’t need to push your products and services in front of people. They will naturally think of your business, because they are interacting with your posts. Also, Facebook will show more of your posts to those who interacted, because of the way their algorithm works.
Implement the 60/30/10 rule
To begin to implement the 60/30/10 rule, first, head to The Calendar in SnapRetail. On the Calendar, you’ll find a social media post suggestion for just about every day. They are designed to follow the 60/30/10 rule, so you’ll different types of post suggestions for any business. Just click on a post, make it yours, and schedule it. Then, head to the Social Media Library. Here, you’ll find thousands of posts to pick from to accomplish the 60%. To save time, pre-schedule these posts onto your Calendar. You can schedule them as far in advance as you would like. You’ll find posts that pertain to almost every holiday you could think of, all of the different seasons, and much more. Also, you’ll find thousands of stock images to include with every post! In addition to the 60%, you’ll find posts pertaining to the 30% as well links to engaging articles found around the web. Finally, you’ll find ideas for sales & promotions; for example, give a 13% discount on Friday the 13th. You’ll be sure to find posts that inspire you to write your own as well!
Experiment
As you start to post more frequently, you can start to adjust the percentages and post types based on what your audience reacts to. However, don’t let one post determine your strategy. For example, if you post a question to your customers and you don’t get any responses, don’t get discouraged. Try another question. If that doesn’t work, try giving customer answer choices rather than leaving the question open-ended. If you consistently post questions and do not get responses then change your strategy. Maybe try giving tips instead. You need to find what gets the most engagement for you. Is it every time you post a new product you get a lot of engagement, or maybe it is every time you post a picture of a customer or an employee? You’ll want to increase the frequency of what works.
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