Hollie Clere, Author at The Social Media Advisor

April 4, 2021
Blog, Social Engagement

What Does a Hybrid Event Hostess Do?

Even with all the chatter about Zoom fatigue, virtual meetings, conferences, and other events aren’t going away. They were popular before the pandemic and even more people (and business owners) are comfortable and familiar with how they work. There is still appeal to a virtual event whether the attendee is out of the area, overscheduled, can’t find child care, or simply prefers a more introverted environment for learning and connection.

Regardless of the reason, hybrid events (events that have both in-person and virtual components) aren’t going away anytime soon.

However, hybrid events come with their share of challenges as well:

Tech Issues

Imagine you are rolling into the second hour of your hybrid event and suddenly your online audience loses connection. Are you even aware that they are gone? Who is there to ensure they can see, hear, and interact with the event? What if the sound is too low or too loud, the screen isn’t sharing, your mic isn’t working, or that key video isn’t playing?

Hybrid events require an individual that can spot these problems quickly, touch base with your tech person or team, and get things resolved without needing to disrupt the entire program.

Audience Neglect

The biggest offense when it comes to hosting a hybrid event is to neglect your virtual audience. As someone who has hosted many in-person events, it’s easy to get caught up in the energy, connection, and Q & A in front of you and forget about your online audience.

Just because an event is virtual, doesn’t mean that attendees don’t always want to feel seen, heard, and connected. Simply hooking up some A/V equipment is not enough and you can’t be in two places at once. You need someone dedicated to engaging with, connecting with, and working with your online attendees.

Social Engagement

You need to do more than simply show up for your online audience, they need to be engaged. You want them to walk away from your event amazed at the experience they’ve just had. How can you manage engagement with your virtual attendees from the stage? You can’t. In trying, you’ll find that you disappoint both your in-person and virtual audience at the same time. For a superior experience at your hybrid event, hire a person dedicated to engaging with, communicating, and entertaining your virtual audience.

A hybrid event can be an excellent experience and a wonderful opportunity for people to attend that wouldn’t have been able to attend in-person. However, you want the takeaway to be just as amazing for your virtual audience as it is for your in-person folks.

Do you host events, workshops, seminars or conferences? Many people still want to attend virtually for convenience. However, many event hosts are offering hybrid events and not taking into consideration the experience of the virtual attendees. A hybrid hostess is the gatekeeper; keeping things safe for attendees, working with on-site tech for high quality sound and visuals, communicating with the on-site team remotely, maintaining engagement with polls, breakout rooms, chat moderation, and facilitating games. Let’s chat about how this could benefit your virtual and hybrid events and keep your audience engaged so they keep coming back!

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Hollie Clere of The Social Media Advisor is a “#BeAwesome” Developer, Social Media, Brand Builder, Content Manager, Trainer and Author in LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Blog, Google+, YouTube, Pinterest, Instagram, and the tools to manage them.

Click here for Social Media Training, Speaking and Strategy Consultations.

March 28, 2021
Social Media Marketing

Using Social Media Marketing to Build Relationships with Your Audience

Many people believe they can make the cash register ring without building a presence on any of the social media platforms. While there are exceptions to every rule, most businesses need to establish an online presence, show up consistently, and post interesting content to attract their audience.

Maybe you’ve got a website but a website alone is not enough. You have to drive traffic to that website. It’s unlikely that people will just find it on their own.

Perhaps your main focus is in-person networking and word of mouth? These are both important but they scale so slowly and if the world shuts down, so does your connection with your audience.

If you are ready to build your online audience, here’s where to start:

Create a Business Page or Account

You can’t have a social experience with your community without being on social media. Sure, your friends and family will follow you first (on your business page), but if you are trying to build a business and want to run ads or look at numbers, you have to first have a personal account and then create a business page or account. Then you have to have a strategy to build the audience and you have to stay on top of your analytics to determine what is and is not working.

Do It Right the First Time

Business owners get overwhelmed with setting up a social media account and will often rush through all the steps. Done is better than perfect, right? Well, it’s better to have the business page than not have it – but there is so much potential when it comes to building out your social media account profile. Do it right the first time by building the profile out properly and fully with a robust bio, keywords, and brand messaging.

Creating & Sharing Content

Once your profiles are created, it’s time to experiment with what to share. Develop an effective strategy through posting different types of content (including videos) and tracking what your audience responds to most. Consistency and commitment are important here. Many biz owners start strong and then fizzle out.

Reach More People with Advertising

Once you have an idea of the days of the week, times of day, platforms, and content that works best for your people – it’s time to invest in a targeted ad strategy. Create a low-dollar offering and experiment with targeted ads and custom audiences to test your results.

This is the path to finding and building your online audience. Once you have an engaged audience, you’ll find that the other parts of running your business begin to sort themselves out.

Is it a struggle each month to create and post social media content for your business? Do you just not have enough time in the day to get it all done? The Social Media Advisor team are experts in helping you stay consistent online! We’ll work with you to create an editorial calendar, messaging, and branded images aligned with your culture and promoting your business so you don’t have to worry about it anymore! Find out more about our Monthly Social Media Support package on our website.

Be sure to Follow us and Let’s Engage!

Click here for Social Media Training, Speaking and Strategy Consultations.

March 21, 2021
Social Media Marketing

How Do You Build Authority Using Social Media Marketing?

Whether you are marketing your small business, looking to become a thought leader in your industry or community, or want to be more effective in supporting your community, building your authority online is a must. Social media is a great way to build authority for your business since it is accessible, easy to use, and your audience is already there!

What does building authority mean for your business?

Authority, basically, means trust.

Should I trust this person or business?
Are they credible?
Are they the go-to person in this niche, industry, or local area?

If you have no online presence, it can be difficult to establish authority. Most prospects will do their research before connecting with you. If they have never heard from you and can’t find out anything about you with a simple Internet search, your lack of authority is working against you. Here are some best tips for using social media marketing to build trust for your brand:

Consistency

Here we are talking about the importance of being consistent online again, but it really can’t be overstated. This is especially true if you are trying to build authority online. There are plenty of spammers and bad actors on the Internet and the search engines and social media algorithms are constantly shifting to counter the bad experiences these create for users. The best way to teach these tech giants that you are for real is to show up consistently with content for your audience.

The content you post should include keywords, phrases, and search terms that your audience might use to locate someone who can help them. The more people interact with your posts, the more seriously the Internet will take you as a business owner. Consistency is the way to build authority with Google, Facebook, and any other online channel you use.

Get Out More

As someone who has always put a big emphasis on networking, I can’t recommend getting out into the world enough. If you want to build authority as a business, people need to know who you are. They need to see you, hear about you, interact with you, and have conversations with you. Each of these interactions builds your authority by increasing trust in your brand.

While you are out in about, take advantage of the opportunity to post about your location, your environment, and support the businesses and people that surround you. Get comfortable with checking in on Facebook, tagging other businesses on Instagram, and showcasing your local power partners, business owner friends, and companies in your community. This not only gets you in front of people more often but is often reciprocal in nature. When you recommend businesses, they are more likely to mention and recommend you!

Get Comfortable with Video

Video has been a big deal for a few years now. It’s still one of the best ways to be visible as a business owner and to build authority and trust with your audience. Whether it’s live or recorded, get comfortable with video. People will only buy what you are selling when they know who you are and trust you. Your audience can’t connect with you if you don’t show up.

Not sure what to video? Daily thoughts or insights around what you do, behind-the-scenes footage, and showcasing things you are excited about are all excellent ways to show up on social media. The more you press record, the more comfortable you’ll be doing video.

In the simplest of terms, building authority for your business requires that you show up – both online and offline, as much as possible. This creates the trust your audience needs to make a qualified decision about whether or not to work with you.

Be sure to Follow us and Let’s Engage!

Click here for Social Media Training, Speaking and Strategy Consultations.

March 14, 2021
Social Media Marketing

Why Posting Consistently on Social Media Will Bring Your Business Success in 2021

It’s a saturated world out there and it’s easy to become discouraged about social media marketing. We see a lot of business owners give social media a try when it comes to their business strategy but they give up early because they don’t really understand how to make it work for them and they aren’t seeing the results they’d hoped for.

They either:

Post less than 3x a week.
Have no posting plan or strategy.
Aren’t using hashtags at all.
Not engaging with other people or accounts regularly.
Post consistently for a few weeks and then give up. OR
Fail to fully build out their profile areas.

If you are ready to ROCK your marketing and enhance your business success this year, posting consistently is the first step.

Building Trust

Your audience is easily distracted, tired of being sold something everywhere they turn, and seeking support and community. By consistently posting on social media, you are earning trust with your audience. They know you will show up and be there for them when they open up their device. They’ll get a feel for your posting schedule and make an effort to interact with you and your content. However, if you are not consistent – it teaches your audience something else entirely. It tells them that you aren’t reliable. That you may not be there for them and that you aren’t taking your online marketing seriously. Perhaps you aren’t a serious business owner? Assumptions, whether they are accurate or not, can damage brand trust.

Encourages Growth

The growth you may be thinking of is business growth – more money and more clients. However, social media marketing can contribute to another type of growth as well – it teaches you about your audience, what appeals to them, and what doesn’t work when it comes to marketing your business. Posting consistently on social, and then paying attention to the analytics, is an effective way of getting a feel for what does and doesn’t work for your people. When they engage with your content, you are also getting valuable feedback that you’d be unlikely to receive without an online presence.

Algorithms

The social media algorithms do not exist to keep you down. They exist because there is more content being shared in a day than any human could possibly consume. How does the software determine what does or does not get into feeds? Well, it’s complicated but the basics are that the system pays attention to how people use the platform and ranks all the content based on the likelihood of an individual engaging with it. The top possible options are what people see in the limited time they are browsing their feeds.

As someone who shares content on social media, and wants their audience to see what they post, it’s imperative that you are creating and sharing content that your audience actually enjoys enough to like, comment, share, save, or click. Each time they interact with your posts, it trains the system to show more of your posts to that individual. However, the system will downplay your content if you aren’t posting consistently.

If you want to be taken seriously, you have to post on a consistent basis.

Be sure to Follow us and Let’s Engage!

Click here for Social Media Training, Speaking and Strategy Consultations.

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Author: Hollie Clere

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