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!

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 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.

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!

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.

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:

  1. Post less than 3x a week.
  2. Have no posting plan or strategy.
  3. Aren’t using hashtags at all.
  4. Not engaging with other people or accounts regularly.
  5. Post consistently for a few weeks and then give up. OR
  6. 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.

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!

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.

Top 3 Things to Know About Having a Business Page vs a Personal Page in Social Media

When it comes to social media, there’s two main components when it comes to visibility: personal visibility and professional visibility. Anyone with a social media account has some level of personal visibility on social media. While some small businesses use their personal feeds and accounts to market their business, most companies create a separate professional account or feed for their promotional posts. 

We are often asked: is it okay to post business content on our personal pages and do we really need a professional presence for our business on social media?

This is a good question. Here is our best advice.

No One Likes Spam

You are probably connected to a lot of people who have started a small business who use personal accounts to market their businesses products or services and who add you to groups (without notice), and private message you at random about their products wanting you to buy them based on the fact that “they have seen a result and you should buy because you trust them”. This is called spam. And no one likes spam.

Too many small businesses, especially MLM salespeople and network marketers, use their personal feeds to market their products and services. The idea behind this approach is many small businesses have a much bigger following on their personal pages than they do on their business feed (if they’ve set up a business feed at all). Plus, if you are selling for another company, there can be rules against representing yourself as more than just a salesperson for that business. 

While it’s a sound theory, it has some flaws. 

  • People, unless they are also trying to sell you something, don’t become your friend or follower on social media to get spammed by your advertising. This is an instant turn-off causing your followers to not engage with your posts and, therefore, teach the algorithm to not show them any of your content.
  • Just because they know you or are related to you, doesn’t mean that they are your target audience. You could be spending a lot of time and energy advertising to the wrong crowd.
  • Social media users are smart and they can see a salesperson a mile away. If you want to lose social media friends, start treating them like walking wallets.

You Don’t Own Your Audience

Facebook’s Terms of Service state clearly that you aren’t to use your personal profile for business purposes. If enough people report your posts to Facebook, they can shut down your entire account (and there goes your entire audience with it). 

Because you don’t own your audience, at any time, a social media account can change their algorithm, change their rules, or shut down completely – and your entire marketing list vanishes. There are popular social media channels that no longer exist today. 

It’s much better to provide value-added content that your audience enjoys and engages with and then convert those people to a platform you own – like your email marketing list.

At least with a business profile, you know those individuals want to hear what your business has to say and they are more likely to tolerate a few promotional posts or be tempted to join your email list than random folks on your personal feeds. 

What You Should Do Instead

Top 3 things you can do to build your professional social media audience the right way: 

  1. Network with people, actually get to know them and build trust through your relationships and knowing things about their lives. These are warm leads that will be more interested in what you have to offer. 
  2. Don’t add everyone to your FB groups, instead post about your group and ask people to join of they are interested.  You can even private message them, inviting them that way to join (but only ask once).  Give an incentive, offer a fundraiser to host your party or host an event with a collaborative partner to co-host something instead.  (P.S. – a Handwritten note or mailed invite goes a long way and is way better than spamming!)  
  3. Having a business page or profile will actually help you track numbers, sales, and engagement vs tossing spaghetti at a wall on your personal account to see what fits (and losing people you actually care about.)

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!

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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