How to Stay Busy in Your Business During Slower Seasons Using Social Media Marketing

In the 15+ years of running The Social Media Advisor, I’ve had plenty of conversations with small business owners about summer and how their work tends to slow down in the warmer months. Whatever time of year happens to be your slow season, there are still ways to put your business out there, front and center, and earn new business.

Here are some of our best ideas for staying busying and getting new leads using social media marketing:

Dive into Video

Whether it’s going live on social media, or filming videos and posting them later, video is still an important aspect of any businesses’ content marketing strategy. People may be less likely to attend business functions during the summer, but they are still scrolling their favorite social media channels. If you haven’t dived into video yet, your slow season is a great time to start.

Social Advertising

If you are creating and sharing great content, and you’ll know it’s great content when your audience engages with it, then the next, logical step is to put money behind that content using social advertising to ensure that more people in your target audience get to see your marketing efforts.

Connect, Connect, Connect

Even when in-person networking opportunities slow down, you can always find virtual or online groups to meet new people and businesses. Websites like Eventbrite or Meetup have connection events being posted every day. People can’t do business with you if they don’t know who you are. Part of running a business is taking time to connect with others in your community so they can grow to trust you and want to work with you.

By intentionally posting videos and running ads during slower months, you can easily support the efforts you are doing through the use of newsletters, phone calls, handwritten notes, and attending networking events. If you are finding yourself moving slower, plan to increase your knee to knee activity by having virtual or in-person meetings with more people and share your experiences with that meeting online.

As a social media user, I bet you have noticed that people engage more with social media content when they relate to the post or resonate with the message. As a small business, are you ready to define your story and build a long-term relationship with a loyal audience? Sign up for a Discovery Session to see which social media marketing programs best fit your needs.

Be sure to Follow us and Let’s Engage!

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.

 

How to Become an Influencer in Your Industry Using Social Media

My guess is there are at least a couple of people or businesses you follow online and look forward to when they go live, post content, or schedule times to connect with their audience. It could be someone as big as Oprah or a small, local business where you enjoy spending time or shopping. Whether it’s a coach, an expert, an entertainer, a podcaster, or an author – we all have a list of people we enjoy following and connecting with online. These individuals are called influencers and influencer marketing can be a highly profitable model for your business.

What is an Influencer?

Influencer is a popular term, basically labeling you as the expert that people think of first, in your industry. As an influencer, your audience will look to you for tips, ideas, value-added education, and connection. They will rely on you to provide timely support, engaging responsiveness, and thought leadership in your field. It used to be that becoming an influencer required that you had hundreds of thousands of followers, but it turns out now that even a small audience works if they are engaged and look forward to your online presence.

Social Media as a Gateway to Influence

One of the major reasons that digital marketing is so popular is because, in an online space, the potential for audience growth is boundless. In-person networking can be profitable but it will never scale the way a successful online marketing campaign can. Since online influence is so much about connecting with people, social media marketing is the ideal tool for building influence and growing a massive audience. People are already on social! You don’t have to convince them to sign up or join, they are there already. Billions of people log into social media platforms every day. This means the potential to use social media as a platform for your message is immense. The challenges lie in getting the attention of your audience and convincing them you are someone worth following.

Courageously Consistent

Influencer marketing is incredibly successful and there are multiple streams of income that may develop from getting that bigger audience, outside of your normal products and services. Everything from affiliate marketing to sponsorships to membership groups opens up when your audience expands.

However, to become an influencer on social media, you are going to have to commit to two extremely important efforts… consistency and presence. To keep your audience engaged, and to maintain their trust, you have to be consistent. Many small business owners have good intentions but just aren’t making their social media a priority on a consistent basis. If you promise your audience that you are going to go live every Tuesday at noon… well, that’s exactly what you have to do. When building influence online, the people who follow you will notice when you don’t show up. Do that enough, and you’ll lose them.

The Power of Presence

The second commitment you’ll need to make is to be present. Social media marketing is not a post it and come back in a week type of project. This is especially true for business owners trying to build their audience and influence online. The more present you can be, even when your audience is small, the more loyalty you will earn in return. This doesn’t mean you have to be tuned in 24/7. Schedule 15 or 30 minutes a day to engage with other people online and start/participate in conversations. That will go a long way in building your influence and social proof.

Influencer marketing isn’t for everyone. It does take a certain level of passion for creating and building relationships online to be a successful influencer. You can find success with social media marketing without making becoming an influencer an end goal. Some super successful businesses on social may find that they stumble into becoming an influencer just due to the size and engagement of their audience.

As a social media user, I bet you have noticed that people engage more with social media content when they relate to the post or resonate with the message. As a small business, are you ready to define your story and build a long-term relationship with a loyal audience? Sign up for a Discovery Session to see which social media marketing programs best fit your needs.

Be sure to Follow us and Let’s Engage!

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.

 

 

How to Grow My Business Using Social Media

Small business owners know there is value to be in had in social media marketing. However, they either aren’t certain how to get started or the attempts they’ve made in the past just haven’t worked for their business. Often, this is because the approach used is no longer effective. Social media has evolved quite a bit since the early days of Facebook business pages and massive organic reach and it’s no longer a simple task of ‘post it and they will buy.’

The most effective companies on social media today are building community, telling amazing stories, connecting with their audience, and using their reputation and influence to make a bigger impact.

Here is our best advice for setting up your social media marketing for success:

The Power of Storytelling

“If your stories are all about your products and services, that’s not storytelling. It’s a brochure. Give yourself permission to make the story bigger.”
Jay Baer

People are so tired of being sold to 24/7. You can’t turn on a device or round a corner without a marketing message being pushed at you from somewhere. It’s not that marketing is the problem. We all have money and we are consumers. We spend that money with businesses we want to work with. The issue is most companies, especially smaller businesses, make their marketing about them – their company, their product or service, their features, their expertise and experience. And, honestly, that reads like a resume. It’s not inspiring nor does it grab anyone’s attention in a positive way.

Human beings are drawn to stories. Throughout the ages, we’ve used storytelling to craft our personal experiences. Stories will draw your audience in and keep them around. The biggest secret when it comes to using storytelling in marketing is… make the story about your customer. That’s bound to get them to pay attention.

Know, Like and Trust

“We don’t do business with companies. We do business with people.”
Simon Sinek

Unless you are already a large, well-known corporation, today’s modern consumer gravitates towards someone they can trust. There are rare, few businesses that offer a unique product or service that can’t be found anywhere else.

I bet that you have plenty of competitors in your area. How does a client or customer narrow down their choices?

It’s all about reputation, credibility, and trust.

A lead’s decision-making process often involves asking some of the following questions:

  • Who do I know that offers what I need?
  • How do I know them?
  • What are other people saying about them?
  • What do I already know about them?
  • What sort of relationship do I have with this company?
  • Can I trust them to provide quality work for an acceptable price?

When putting together a social media marketing strategy, it’s essential that you are addressing these questions. How do you reach your audience so they can get to know you? What content can you create that will grab their attention and encourage them to engage with you so they can grow to like you? What can you do to build the relationship and your professional credibility so they begin to trust you?

Social Proof & Influence

“When you say it, it’s marketing, when your customer says it, it’s social proof.”
Andy Crestodina

Social media is more than just a tool for marketing your products, services, and offerings. It’s also the place people go to vet influencers and businesses. They use it as a search engine and a research tool before deciding whether or not to sign up or sign the dotted line. There is also the ever-so powerful method of having conversations with others to help make a big decision – such as signing up for your program, service, or offer.

However, if your brand is nowhere to found on social media then leads can’t do that research, have those conversations, or make that decision to pick you over your competition. This is especially true if you have no website or a website that just isn’t robust enough to persuade and influence traffic. (That’s if you can get people to find your website at all!)

Social proof is more of an outcome than a process. The more visible you are online, the more social proof and influence you generate. This brand awareness and accessibility are important for staying top of mind, connecting with your leads and customers, and generating credibility for you and what you do.

As you can see, success on social media marketing is SO much more than simply posting your monthly special or sharing someone’s inspirational quote. Any business under-utilizing this amazing marketing tool often find they also experience under-whelming results for their efforts.

As a social media user, I bet you have noticed that people engage more with social media content when they relate to the post or resonate with the message. As a small business, are you ready to define your story and build a long-term relationship with a loyal audience? Sign up for a Discovery Session to see which social media marketing programs best fit your needs.

 

Be sure to Follow us and Let’s Engage!

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.

 

Social Media Marketing Training from Your Sofa!

After more than a decade of experience in social media marketing, our team understands how confusing and frustrating it can be to keep up with all the social media platforms, news, updates, algorithm changes and best practices required to build a solid social media marketing strategy for small business owners. That’s why we created the Social Power Program.

The Social Power Program is an online training program for companies and business owners looking to be more deliberate and educated with their social media marketing efforts. From the comfort of your desktop or computer, access a library of social media knowledge and expertise that you can view when it’s most convenient for you and your schedule.

Facebook Group Resource Center

One of the most powerful tools we’ve created for our Social Power Program students is our Facebook group. Available to subscribers of the program, this is a supportive community where business owners can turn to for valuable information and connection. We like to think of this area as both a mastermind learning and connection opportunity, as well as a place to find accountability partners or support and to keep you on track with your social media marketing goals.

Monthly Ask the Expert Sessions

Got a question that can’t be quickly answered in our online group? Our Monthly Ask the Expert sessions bring the community together for virtual learning, collaboration, and step by step instructions to break through social media marketing challenges. Each session is recorded and available to all members so if you can’t make it live you still get the benefit of the training and information. Our subscribers love this time of connecting and learning from each other in real time.

Are you looking for social media training you can participate in, right from the comfort of your home?  Join others utilizing our 40+ video training series that you can participate in, at your own pace, from your home.  We have a Private Facebook Support Group, Monthly Ask the Expert Mastermind Sessions, FREE Ebook and regular new videos to support your marketing. Learn everything from creating the editorial calendar, to creating custom branded images, to the best use of hashtags, to paid ads and reporting by joining the Social Power Program.

Be sure to Follow us and Let’s Engage!

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.

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