5 Things You Need To Do Before You Even Think About Posting On Social Media
Do you have a small business you want to grow online but are struggling to get found by your ideal audience?
Are you confused by social media? Do you post and post on social media but find that only a small group of the same people, mostly family and friends, are engaging with your content?
Before you jump into all things social media, we need to start with the foundation of all marketing, no matter what the platform.
Step 1 Understand Your Brand
Before you start marketing your business online, get out a pen and paper and write down some business branding basics. This might seem trivial but, trust me, when it comes to messaging, it is so much easier to create content and so much clearer to communicate your message when you are coming from the right place.
What is the mission of your business? What are the business values? If your audience could summarize how they feel about your company, what would they say currently? What do you want them to say about your company?
Write down some adjectives that you want your company to be seen as “relatable, professional, trust-worthy, bold, fun, out-of-the-box, creative, innovative, stable, etc.”
Keeping these values, keywords, and mission front of mind will help you stay clear and focused on what content you create for your brand.
Step 2 Understand Your Audience
Before marketing your business it is vital to understand your unique audience. This can be referred to as your ideal client or ideal audience. Businesses that try to reach everyone fail to reach the individual. You want to communicate to the heart of the individual person to make that emotional connection.
Get really specific with the small group of people you help.
Step 3 Give People A Reason To Follow You
When creating content, remember to keep your ideal audience in mind. Create content that brings them value. This is where knowing your audience's pain points and what they are looking for help in your marketing.
You can be entertaining, informative, inspiring, educational, funny, smart, artistic, and inspirational.
Step 4 Start A Blog
Think of social media as your advertising strategy but you need a home for your leads to come to where they can find more information and actually purchase from you. A blog on your own website will allow you to create content that can get found in Google Search. You’ll build authority with your audience with a blog and be seen as an expert as well as gain authority with Google.
Your blog is also where you can grow your audience by capturing them onto an email list. You don’t want your leads to visit once and never come back again. An email list allows you to stay in contact with your leads. Studies show that conversion rates on emails are around 3% whereas social media has about a .5% conversion rate. So, your blog and email system is a priority to set up before you start bringing in leads via social media.
Step 5 Know How Each Social Media Platform works
Social media is not a one-size fits all solution. Each platform has a different culture and different algorithm. Find out where your ideal audience hangs out and focus on that one platform. You don’t need to be on all of them.
Facebook is ideal for building relationships, ideally within groups. You can generate leads by building relationships in these groups or creating your own group.
Instagram is great for inspiration, education, and entertainment. It’s a little harder to build relationships on Instagram but great to get found by new leads.
LinkedIn is perfect for B2B (Business to Business) relationships and making business connections.
TikTok is no longer the dancing app from 2020. TikTok is quickly becoming a great way for businesses to find new leads and build relationships at the same time.
Do you need consistency in your branding on social media?
Get a fully customized branding toolkit designed around your brand
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How To Get Your Business Found Online By Your Ideal Audience
Do you have a side hustle, a small business or network marketing business you want to grow online but are struggling to get found by your ideal audience?
Do you post and post on social media but find that only a small group of the same people, mostly family and friends, are engaging with your content?
Are you growing followers on social media, but none of them are buying?
Are you wanting to open your circle of influence to a specific niche audience?
Let me tell you, I’ve been there myself.
Do you have a side hustle, a small business or network marketing business you want to grow online but are struggling to get found by your ideal audience?
Do you post and post on social media but find that only a small group of the same people, mostly family and friends, are engaging with your content?
Are you growing followers on social media, but none of them are buying?
Are you wanting to open your circle of influence to a specific niche audience?
Let me tell you, I’ve been there myself.
I tried to grow my side hustle for 3 years on social media. I did everything my team told me to do to grow my business online. I read all the books, listened to all the podcasts, I was active on Facebook groups and on Instagram hoping to grow my business.
However, my content was not getting shared and was not reaching new eyes. I had to make a change.
When I switched to keyword-rich blog posts instead of just social media, I was shocked to see my audience grow. My email list grew from 0-500 within the first year, and was getting around 4,000 monthly visitors.
To this day, I am still generating visitors and leads from blog posts I wrote 3 years ago!
The difference between using a website vs. social media to get your business found online:
When creating content on a blog or YouTube, your content will continue to circulate forever. A continual marketing lead generation machine. With blog posts, you are able to get really specific with your keywords so that you are attracting your ideal audience and getting found in search engines.
What are the major search engines you can get found in?
Google, Pinterest & YouTube
In contrast, when you create content on social media, your posts usually lose their ability to show up in feeds within days. This is why you constantly need to create new content on social media. The search function on social media is much harder to get found in.
Step 1: To Get Your Business Found Online: Know Your Ideal Audience
You need to be careful about who you are really trying to attract. Get really specific. If you’re in network marketing, I especially want you to think more about the kind of person you are looking for, and don’t fall for the “everyone” mentality. That will lead you nowhere.
Think about who will relate to your content the best? What stage of life are they in? Do they have babies, teens, pets? Do they exercise, cloth diapers, read books? Are they crunchy homesteaders? Or are they busy, fast-food-loving soccer moms? Get really specific in these details.
Once you have nailed down your ideal audience, create a brand statement that tells your audience who you serve and how you help them. Download my free brand statement formula here:
Step 2: To Get Your Business Found Online: Research Topics
Once you know who your ideal audience is, start to research topics that your ideal audience is ACTUALLY searching for. DON’T GUESS!
So, how do you find out what your ideal audience is searching for? ASK THEM! If you already have access to this group of people, ask them what they are struggling with, what they search for on the internet. Then think about how your offerings and services can help solve their problem.
Go to the top search engines and use the search function to research topics. Notice the top articles that show up. Use the “suggested phrases” that google and Pinterest suggest people often search for. Look at the “People also ask” section of google and Pinterest.
Step 3: To Get Your Business Found Online: Create Content Using Key Phrases
Once you found a topic that your audience is actually searching for, use the EXACT PHRASE to create a blog post or YouTube video in your 1. headline, 2. your subtitles, 3. your image alt tags, and the 4. URL slug. This repetition of the keyword phrase will help your blog post rank higher.
A long-tail keyword is better than just a keyword. A long-tail keyword is a phrase not just one word. This is good because you’ll more likely show up in a search result for a narrowed phrase like “health benefits of walking” rather than a common keyword like “health.”
You can also use an extension like Keywords Everywhere to see metrics on how often a keyword is searched. You want to stay in the area of 100-1,000 searches per month as a newbie.
Step 4: To Get Your Business Found Online: Share Content on Social Media & Pinterest
Now that you have a keyword phrase-rich blog post that you know your audience is searching for, share it everywhere. Make a Pinterest graphic for it on Canva.com and share it to a board on your Pinterest account.
Make a social media graphic for Instagram and Facebook and share your blog post on social media.
You can even make a reel or video about your blog post and let them know at the end to click the link in your bio to read the entire post. This will bring people off of social media and to your website.
If you’d like more info on Keyword phrases and how SEO can help your business grow, make sure to check out my SEO masterclass here
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