Celebrate Your Social Media Marketing Goals

At the beginning of this year, did you commit to getting on social media? Being more present on Facebook (or Instagram, or YouTube)? Did you decide to be more consistent with your posting or more present for your audience?

Whatever social media marketing goals you set for yourself this year, it’s time to honor what you accomplished and celebrate your social media wins!

Branding & Messaging

Is your messaging on social media the same as it was at the start of the year? In the last six months, has your market, audience, culture or team shifted? Taking a look at your brand and your vision for your business and company culture is important for staying relevant and on brand. It’s common for a small business owner to become so focused on getting the work done that they stop being intentional about what they put out in the world.

If you are regularly updating and staying on top of your messaging on your website, when connecting in-person, and on your social media channels – then it’s time to celebrate!

Channels & Platforms

When was the last time you did a social media audit? Do you know which social media channels are performing better than others? Do you know why you are seeing success on one platform but no progress on another? Take time right now to evaluate your time, money and efforts so that you can focus on what works. Share what you’ve learned or what’s working for you on social media. Your audience may resonate with this process, have some advice for you to tweak things and be better, or may be eager to learn from your efforts.

Engagement & Community

One of the hardest things for most small businesses to achieve on social media is engagement. What goals did you have for social media engagement at the beginning of the year and how is that working out for you now? Perhaps it’s time to spark a culture of engagement on your social media channels by starting meaningful conversations, sharing your new ideas or direction, or educating your audience on what is and isn’t working for your business right now.

Brands who are open about their successes and their struggles bring an air of authenticity to social media that people crave. Be brave and celebrate your wins (and your failures) publicly so that meaningful conversations are being had on a regular basis.

If you have made progress at all so far this year on social media, then pat yourself on the back! That means social media marketing has the potential to help you build your brand and grow your business. It’s easy to focus on what doesn’t work but often that leaves business owners hopping from one marketing method to another and getting disappointed in the lackluster results. Success in social media is a marathon, not a sprint, so it’s important to pay attention to what is working and build on that success.

Sharing your successes on social media can be SO beneficial for your small business. Did you know that every social media platform is searchable? Each channel is its own search engine and also appears in the results of popular web browsers (like Google). Every word matters. Have you completely filled out your social media profiles? Is your messaging current? Have you optimized your opportunities to be found in search using your social media accounts? If not, now is the time to get your channels revamped! You’ll be amazed at the results. Book a discovery session here and ask us about Robust Profile Optimizations.

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.

Using Testimonials in Your Social Media Can Build Your Business

Testimonials are gold to showcase how well someone appreciates your product or service. Popular sites for recommendations and reviews include: LinkedIn personal accounts, Facebook Business Pages, and Google My Business. Other sites are out there that we don’t currently endorse for a variety of reasons not be shared here.

When someone takes the time to write out a recommendation, you can hear the intentional selection of words. Give them a template to use or some clear, simple directions to follow to get testimonials that make a bigger impact. The easier you make the process or request, the more likely you’ll get a positive, quick response. You don’t want to end up in someone’s to-do later list or folder.

Here are some examples we use when asking for feedback.

Examples:

Thank you for working with me the last few months on your social media!

Would you mind taking a moment to recommend my work with you on the             ?

Would you mind taking a moment to recommend my work with you on XYZ?

Looking for details on:

– How I teach?

– What we did on the XYZ?

– Was the information at the right pace?

– How you felt when you started?

– How you felt when we completed?

– What you look forward to implementing?

– Ongoing support for XYZ?

– Would you recommend me to others?

I would love your support. I am seeking recommendations in Facebook, Google and LinkedIn. Here are the links:

 

Make certain you give them the actual links. To encourage people to respond quickly, you want to make the process as easy as possible.

If you don’t want to overwhelm them with all the links at once, switch your focus each quarter to boosting your recommendations on one of these channels. Perhaps you focus on Facebook the first quarter, Google the 2nd quarter, and LinkedIn for quarter three. Take a break off for the holidays and start the cycle all over again in the new year. Whatever works best for you.

Regardless of the platform, repurpose those testimonials by also posting them on your website and sharing them in your social media channels. We commonly create testimonials graphics for our clients and share them on their social media to get more reach with this amazing feedback!

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 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.

 

 

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