Are you on Facebook? Instagram? Twitter? Pinterest? Vine? Snapchat? YouTube? LinkedIn?
My guess is that you have at least 3 of these social media accounts. The great thing for you, is that so does every one else.
It’s crazy to think that we’re all so socially engaged through social media (often times more than we are face to face anymore)…
…and when marketing your business online…
The fact that you can connect with billions of people all over the world to share your products and services through social media…
…will mean one of three things for you:
- #1 – A goldmine. You’ll get a highly engaged following that gets you more more leads and gets you more high quality customers
- #2 – A time suck with no return on your investment (monetarily or time investment)
- #3 – A highly engaged following that doesn’t pay the bills (i.e.- they’re engaged and like YOU… but your leadflow and bank account aren’t increasing month after month)
Take a step back and ask yourself if you’re doing anything on social media right now…
Which category do you fall into right now?
In my 4 years of building my business online, I’ve experienced all 3 of the above. I’m guessing it’s pretty safe to say that instead of working through #2 and #3 above (like I did for several years), you’d rather skip that stuff…
…and start profiting on social media with #1 right?
It isn’t as hard as everyone says to create a highly engaged following that gets you leads and pays you, if you start off doing it right from the get-go following these 3 Rules of Thumb.
It will not happen over night, but if you follow these three rules for 30 to 60 days you should start seeing your social media presence skyrocket.
Rule #1: Understand YOUR People
By Google’s definition, social media is “websites and applications that enable users to create and share content or to participate in social networking.”
There are two critical words here: social and networking. If you’re anything like me, you might think of the word networking differently than most.
As a business owner, we think of networking as meeting and connecting with people who are similar to us in order to make new connections that could potentially turn into profitable customers or teammates who will further our business.
But here’s the deal.
Networking for most people, especially on social media…
Means interacting, posting and sharing info with others who like the same stuff they like and care about.
The majority of potential clients, customers and teammates do not come on social media to look to further their business.
They come to feel inspired, to laugh, to get valuable and quick information and to stalk what they’re friends are doing (yes we all do it). So approaching how you market on social media needs to be different.
In order to easily build a highly engaged following on social media…
It all starts with truly understanding who your people are. What I mean is, you need to clearly identify who would be on social media that would like your products, services or would want to join your business…
… and think about what they’d like to see, hear or experience from you that would make them want to follow you.
Here are some good questions to ask yourself to clearly identify who “your people” are:
- How old are they?
- Which social media sites do they like to hang out on?
- What are their values?
- What are their hopes, dreams and desires?
- What do they struggle with?
- What or who do they NOT like?
- Are they male or female?
- Are they married, single or divorced?
- Do they have kids?
- What do they absolutely love to do?
- When are they normally on social media?
- Do they like motivational pictures, articles, videos, group interaction, short and sweet posts to consume?
Yes. You’ll have to do some research.
Start by looking at other top brands, public figures and businesses in your niche that have highly interactive social media pages and check out who they’re attracting. Spend a little time each day for the next few days researching individual profiles and see what they all have in common. Chances are you’ll find your ideal people pretty quickly.
Rule #2: Find Your HUB
Ever been to any of these Airports: Atlanta (ATL), Chicago (O’Hare), Los Angeles (LAX) or Dallas/Fort Worth (DFW)? If you have or if you know someone who’s been before, you’d know that…
…they are ALWAYS insanely busy.
These are the top busiest airport HUBs in the United States and they are built to be that way. They are massive airports that are intended for airlines to use in order to get people to their final destinations.
You should think of your business on social media the same way. It’s job is to be the initial point of connection before they travel off to your blog, capture pages, offers, webinar trainings, opportunity videos, applications for working with you, etc.
When you’re first starting to build a following…
Pick ONE social media site that your ideal customers and clients would be on.
Sure, you can have accounts for Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and the list can go on and on…
But pick just ONE to make your social media HUB. This will be the place where you have the most followers and the highest engagement. That way you aren’t spreading yourself too thin.
Once you build up a massive following on one site that’s getting you leads
and paying you…
… that’s when you know it’s time to build up social media platform.
Make sense?
Ok cool. So what happens next?
Rule #3: Engage Consistently
Think of your social media hub like you’re bringing a brand new puppy into your home.
Puppies need constant attention, training how to interact, plenty of time with you and don’t forget time to play so that they turn into the best grown up dog they can possibly be.
You should treat your social media hub and your followers the same.
Check out my post 6 Surefire Ways To Get Rapid Engagement With Your Fans and Followers on Social Media.
Here are some things to think about when you’re starting to engage on your social media hub:
Be the leader: Give a call to action inside of your posts. Tell them what to do (Click LIKE, share, comment, retweet, repin, sign up for my training at this link here). If you don’t tell them what to do… they’ll do nothing.
Get vulnerable: People LOVE authenticity. The more you let them inside of who you are… the more they instantly get attached to you.
Post Consistently: Look at what other businesses and leaders are doing on that social media site and post just as much consistently. Worried that you won’t know what to post?
Data Knows Best: This will take time, but start paying attention to the posts that get the most engagement from your followers and post more of those.
For example, I found that my Facebook Fans LOVE inspirational images. So I started posting more of those consistently and check out what happened with this one. It’s a great example of understanding what my fans are inspired and motivated by that will get them to like, share and comment:
Be Social: Yes. It’s called social media for a reason. If you want to build a massive following that responds to your questions, shares your stuff and in the end buys your products, then you better respond back to them. Answer their questions, like their comments, respond to their comments. People naturally want to feel recognized and noticed so make sure they feel that way when they take the time to engage on your page.
Social media isn’t going away any time soon. Learning to effectively utilize it for your business and your brand can be incredibly powerful if you start with these 3 Rules above.
If you really want to kick your social media skills into high gear so you can have a social media presence that positions you as a leader and pays you…
Check out how to Recruit 2-3 Leaders per week into your business without leaving your house.
Cecelia Morris
P.S. – If you’re struggling to build your business online and work with the right kind of people that produce results, this formula is exactly what you’ve been missing. It helped me bring in 107 “People Who Like To Win” kind of personalities into my home business in less than 2 months. Click here to learn how to sponsor more reps online with this formula.
