What is the Yin-Yang of Social Media Marketing?

Social media marketing is a delicate balance of well-conceived content, interaction with your intended audience, clear objectives and careful measurement, all of which ultimately produce leads for your business.

Yin-Yang is a fundamental concept in Chinese philosophy where seemingly opposite or contrary forces are interconnected and interdependent on each other. These forces give rise to each other as they interrelate to one another. The interaction between Yin and Yang establishes harmony and gives birth to things.

Social media marketing flow

Those of you who know me know I’ve practiced yoga for many years. I see Yin-Yang philosophy as flow. Yin and Yang are complementary, not opposing, forces that interact to form a whole greater than either separate part; in effect, a dynamic system.

Mastering social media marketing depends very greatly on your ability to understand and capitalize on the power of these two forces in all that you do.

Certain components lend themselves to one or the other but without each one working in tandem, your Social marketing will fail, one way or the other.

Yin is female in nature and Yang is male in nature and they fit together as two parts of a whole.

The male principle is equated with the sun: active, bright, and shining. Linear, logical, even technological.
The female principle corresponds to the moon: passive, shaded, and reflective. Intuitive, devoted and infinite.

Male “toughness” is balanced by female “gentleness”; male action and initiative is balanced by female endurance and need for completion.

Yin-yang is everything we see, touch, hear, smell and feel – unstable and ever-changing. The Great Recession and today’s divisive social and cultural state have caused a lot of us to sit up and take notice of what’s right and not-so-right in our lives. There’s a lot of movement happening right now and social media was born of that movement.

The Yin of social media marketing is:

Creative
Relationship building
Sharing and engaging
Content-driven leads and sales
Non-Linear (one whose output is not directly proportional to its input)

The Yang of social media marketing is:

Analytical
Technology
Tools
Metrics or number-driven leads and sales
Linear (“If you do this, then you get that.”)

Sales and marketing have always been a practice entrenched in Yin-Yang, even though most practitioners aren’t aware of it. Keeping a good balance produces the best results you need. Too much of one or the other impedes flow and fosters failure.

Nothing in the universe is totally Yin or totally Yang. Yin contains seeds of Yang and vice versa. Too much of one can weaken and consume the other. Your social media marketing energy should be spent on making sure you have a nice balance, too!

As you read this, you’re probably thinking about the Yin-Yang of your own social media marketing.

What am I doing right?
What am I doing that isn’t getting the job done?
Is there balance?
Am I getting all I can out of social media?

Reflecting on these points is a good monthly practice, and it’s even more important to take the actions you need to get to your business goals.

I’ve written a lot about social media marketing “best practices” over the past 10 years. Still today, there are so many people who are having trouble finding the right answers.

4 examples of a Yin-Yang imbalance in your social media marketing and what you can do about it

1. “Megaphoning” sales messages

There are still many, many companies who believe that blasting sales content via social media is a good tactic. If you’re doing this, please stop and consider what this says to users. It instills a negative perception on your business that’s often permanent.

Yin-Yang: Shouting messages about your products/services represents too much Yang (male principle). Add a strategy of engagement and concentrate on building relationships using your content. Evoking emotions is the key to successful marketing. Practice active listening and engage with users whenever you can.

Pro Tip: Reserve your sales content for Facebook ads. A well-placed ad, combined with superior profile content will be much more successful than a barrage of unwanted messages.

2. Lack of content strategy

Large or small, every business needs a written content strategy. Posting uninteresting or non-strategic content with no focus on your brand or intended audience signals an abundance of Yin (female principle).

Add some “conscious creativity” to the mix to balance things out. Design a content strategy that increases engagement, leads and sales. Ground your “digital reputation” in a content strategy – it won’t steer you wrong.

Here are the key components to a successful written content strategy:

Determine what your brand stands for and why people choose you over your competitors.
Identify your ideal customers (because social media allows you to laser-target those most likely to buy)
Describe your competitors and what you do better than anyone else.
Outline the types of content you want to create (written, images, video, etc) and the purpose or goal for each.
Determine how often you’ll publish content and run ads.
Resolve the budget you’ll need for content, including ads.
Establish who will create your content and how it will be published.
Ascertain who will be responsible for the results and who will do the reporting.
Pinpoint your measurement, analysis and reporting process, including the frequency needed to make informed decisions.

3. Focusing solely on tools, technology and algorithms

Believe it or not, there are those who spend hours in tiny rooms hyper-focused on these three components of social media marketing and believe that they are marketing. Of course, these elements are crucial to any marketing endeavor but where’s the human-ness?

Every sale begins with a conversation. If you’re not participating in conversations, you’re not selling. And conversations don’t have to be face-to-face or in real time. The customer just wants to know that you care and that communication with them matters.

By all means, pay attention to the metrics but add human interactions into your social media marketing. Here are some ways to do it:

Reply to comments and ask questions
Tag users
Use #hashtags to foster engagement
Are they ready to buy? Ask them to chat via Facebook Messenger, text or email.

4. Not calculating your return on investment (ROI)

One of the best parts of social media marketing is that it’s measurable. I’m always surprised to hear from business leaders who don’t match their objectives with metrics so they can track social media ROI (Return on Investment).

Social media is much more than just posting Facebook updates, tweets, and Instagram images and videos. You must have clear objectives and take time to measure your results. When you can tie your results back to your objectives, you have established return on investment.

Content with no direction = scales tipped too far towards Yin (female principle).
Spending the bulk of your time on tools and technology = scales tipped too far towards Yang (male principle).

Now that social media is an integral part of people’s lives, and companies are spending a larger portion of their marketing/advertising expense on it, it’s never been more important to get a return for your investment.

Yin-Yang balance in social media marketing

In work, life and social media, imbalance causes dis-ease. Your body tells you when you’re out of balance by signaling pain or discomfort. Your customers tell you your marketing is out of balance by choosing your competitor.

Spend time getting right with Yin-Yang by examining your efforts and then take action to improve. Yin-Yang is a proven system that’s thousands of years old. No reason to try to reinvent the wheel when nature can step in to help.

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