Influencers Archives - The Social Media Advisor

February 15, 2023
Blog, Brand Storytelling, Content Marketing, Relationship Marketing, Social Engagement, Social Media Strategy, Video in Social Media

Influencing the Culture of Your Social Media Followers

Social media is an excellent tool for demonstrating a positive company culture, grabbing the attention of your ideal clients, and attracting and retaining talent. The following tips will help you use social media to demonstrate your company culture and co-create your social media experience with your audience!

Be Transparent

It’s a well known fact that most social media accounts aren’t being managed by the business owner. Or that the posts are being scheduled in advance. And while both of these means of outsourcing can be a great thing for small business owners, it’s important to do this the right way. Your audience needs to know you are there for them. That who you say you are and who you actually are align. That you’ll be there for them if/when they comment and engage. If you want to build trust with your followers, it starts with your authentic presence. You don’t need to show you audience everything about your life, but letting them in here and there will showcase that you are a real person, with real feelings, looking to make a big impact on the world – and they’ll love you for it!

Create Culture-Lead Content

People will be drawn to your online persona based on your content. The type of content you create will have a direct correlation on who follows you and how they engage with your posts. Each post should be designed and each caption written in a strategic manner. Begin by asking these questions about your content:

How do you want the viewer to feel?
What transformational impact are you delivering with this post?
What action do you want the viewer to take after seeing your content?

If you want a highly engaged audience culture, you’ll have to focus on encouraging your audience to respond, reply, and share your post. This isn’t easy. Often simply asking can work but not all the time. You’ll want to create excitement and interest to stop the mindless scrolling and get people to interact with your work.

Connect

One of the best ways to lead the social media culture of your online presence is to be present. If you can schedule time to have live conversations, Q&A events, educational videos where people can comment, ask questions, and engage in conversation with you in real time – they will start to feel truly invested in what you are building. They’ll feel connected with you and your brand. Schedule times to show up and just talk to your people. Yes, there will be trolls but those are easy to block, delete, or ignore. Your target audience will be there too and that is an opportunity worth showing up for!

Anyone can build a Social Media Page, but do they know how to build it correctly with the right social media marketing story and strategy for business, the right keywords and really target your ideal client? We build brands, write searchable copy for your profiles and develop strategies to expand your reach and build relationships using solid Social Media Marketing techniques. Since 2008, our team has provided support to clients Nationwide in online marketing. Find out more at 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, Blog, Google+, YouTube, Pinterest, Instagram, and the tools to manage them.

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

January 17, 2017
Brand Storytelling

#AwesomeBranding – Your Personal Brand is Just as Important as Your Corporate Brand

The Social Media Advisor specializes in training and supporting small businesses in their branding, storytelling and social media strategy. A decade ago the concept of corporate branding was still getting traction. However, today, branding is a must for companies of every size. The advances and innovation that new technologies have brought us are extinguishing traditional advertising methods. This is why branding and permission-based marketing methods are the most effective right now. People are tired of being pushy sales methods. That means that every company needs a solid, clear branding strategy so that their target audience truly understands what they are buying.

“Branding is fundamental. Branding is basic. Branding is essential. Building brands builds incredible value for companies and corporations.” Scott Goodson, ForbesContributor

The workforce no longer needs to be convinced that branding is essential. The concept is mainstream enough today that large corporations and entrepreneurs – all of them invest in a branding strategy. A corporate brand focuses on the feeling or impression that their audienceexperiences when they think of your business. A lot of thought is put into a corporate brand and ensuring all the touchpoints that a person interacts with are infused with strategic branding.

What is a personal brand and why is it important?

Your personal brand is a separate entity from your corporate one. However, the idea is the same. When branding your own persona, the concept is to develop or hone the areas of your personality best suited to what you want your audience to think when they walk away from interacting with you.

Today, people do business with other people… not corporations. They want to build a relationship with their customers, contractors and vendors. Building like, know and trust is more than just a social media construct. This is a cornerstone of relationship marketing. This is why personal branding is necessary. What is your audience seeking? Who will they trust and want to do business with? This is not an invitation to build a fake persona because that is not authentic or genuine and it will turn others off right away. However, it is an opportunity to examine your own personality and interweave it with your corporate brandingto come up with a personal brand that benefits you and, in turn, your business.

Here are five suggestions for developing a strong personal brand:

Keep Your Inner Circle Small

1. Be mindful of what you say. We all have bad days. On days when you are feeling off your game, limit your negative communication to those in your inner circle that you trust. Do not just vent to any random person. You never really know who is connected to whom…and who would love to repeat what you say. Plus, a negative judgment could be attached to you and your business that will last long beyond your temporary moment of weakness.

Personal Branding Follows You

Your personal brand will move, and grow, with you. If you have a career change, parts of that personal brand will go with you. People will associate your personal branding with who you are…not just who you work with.

Consistency

Don’t want to confuse people? You have to keep your branding top of mind and consistent. If you are worried this will be difficult to accomplish, be certain that the foundations of your personal branding incorporate your true personality so that just being you – at your best – is enough.

Blending Your Branding

Be sure that your corporate and personal brands blend well together. If they are contrary in any way, this will work against you.

Accept the Way Branding Works

As with any branding, what others think about you (your personal brand) is ultimately not up to you. You cannot control another individual’s impressionsand thoughts. All you can do is build a branding strategy, follow it consistently, and hope for the best.

If you’ve already spent time building your corporate and personal branding, then it is time to roll out that strategy into your social media marketing and other marketing content. Need assistance creating a great story around your brand? This is where we excel. We can build out your online assets to reflect your branding in the best possible light and get you on the right track to creating quality content that is consistent with your messaging.

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 her Social Media Workshops, Classes and Seminars

September 20, 2016
Relationship Marketing

#BuildYourTribe – Who Are Your Influencers?

Identifying the influencers that impact your tribe is not a complicated task. It requires interaction, paying attention, focusing on what makes them tick, and what piques their interest. These influencers will automatically be gathering the types of clients and customers you want. The largest benefit to this is that they will have their own large tribe of people that might also be interested in what you have to offer. Building a relationship with both your influencers and the individuals that influence your target audience will open up opportunities for growth that you would find both difficult and time consuming to do on your own.

Here are three steps to help you find and engage with your influencers.

You need to understand your community.
This includes your customer base, clients, power partners, followers and brand advocates. Research your target audience. Educate yourself on their demographic, psychographic, and social media preferences. Be prepared to engage based on their wants and needs in the market they’re interested in (make sure you are completely mobile-friendly, for instance). Get to know your customers. This is part of building your tribe. Once you find them, pay attention to what they are following. Who influences them? Where are they finding support and inspiration? What information are they sharing with their own audiences?

Now that you know your tribe and you’ve targeted your audience, you need to where to promote your business, product or service. Your observations should show you where your tribe congregates, so make sure you’re there. Which hashtags are the most popular, what social media shares do they engage in with your posts, etc. are very important. Start building both an online presence and awareness for your signature programs. Before you go courting your influencers, it is vital that you have a handle on your brand and what you bring to the table.

Find your influencers and the people that influence your audience. Follow them. Pay attention to what content they are posting and actively engage with it and make your existence known. This can be a slippery slope since you don’t want to come off as spammy or appear to be poaching from their client base. This works best when you locate an influencer that has a similar audience to you but offers a non-competing product or service. This would be an excellent potential power partner for you and allow you both to refer to one another. Share their content, engage with them, and make your brand stand out. Ask to do a guest post or interview them for your blog/podcast/YouTube channel. This is a nice reciprocal move as you will both gain more online presence and expand your reach.

Keep in mind that any influencer you cold contact will need to benefit from having a business relationship with you. Any influencer is an essential member of your tribe. If you abuse the connection, their influence could swing in the other direction, so keep that in mind.

Follow these three steps and you’ll find your influencers are just waiting for you to connect with them. Be patient, listen, and most of all learn what makes your tribe tick so you can utilize that information to #BeAwesome at what you do and continue to grow your own list and funnel.

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 her Social Media Workshops, Classes and Seminars

April 28, 2015
Social Media Marketing

A Pinterest Success Story – 3 Key Take Away Thoughts

https://thesocialmediaadvisor.com/Training-.html

One of the biggest joys I have in doing a Brand Story in Social Media is watching the life cycle of the opportunity. Starting with a case analysis by measuring clients’ goals, research their competition, discover if their potential clients are present in the platforms they are interested in, then building a strategy around the brand for them. It’s like wrapping a special gift; you find the perfect solution, build a goal oriented box around it, wrap it in a pretty, robust brand and tie it in a perfect bow.

One story I wanted to share with you is a fitness based client who happened to be male. Contrary to popular belief, Pinterest isn’t a platform just intended for women. Although, 70 percent of users are women, they search for different things and (generally) have different interests. You can see some statistics referenced in this great article http://expandedramblings.com/index.php/pinterest-stats/ which not only lists 90 statistics, but will show you a handful of great demographic stats which may really benefit your brand. We followed a step by step process to achieve his goals and he maximized them to achieve his best results.

(1) Know Your Audience

If you don’t know what your niche is, it is best for you to consult with a Business Coach and/or Brand Consultant. Define it, own it and make it you. It is your brand after all and surely you wouldn’t want to market to “anyone who has hair” or “anyone who has skin” (which are popular phrases I have heard from folks who haven’t found their sweet spot yet. Where skin may be important to the make-up consultant, defining an age group, specific service offering or technique may be better ways to approach the “anyone with skin” conversation. I digress. We searched Pinterest for 3 specific targets. The client didn’t believe that his target market would be in this platform, but the best rule of thumb is; “if your target is talking about the service they need … that you have … changes are, this is a really good fit” – Hollie Clere our CEO.

Do you know what we found? Over 1,000 Pins in Pinterest that fit his target demographic.

(2) Build and Effective Story Rich Brand that will Showcase Your Personality and Specialty

A social media friend of mine once described to me the idea of Pinterest and I have held onto it because it is sound advice and a perspective from an active Pinterest user. To summarize without quoting (as it has been too long to do her words justice), think of how you search and what you would want to see in a brand.

Show off your personality. No one wants to look at a series of boards just about “business”. They want to get to know you. Remember, Like, Know, Trust is the most important aspect to sales and social media conversations. People will buy from people they Trust, not just a brand just because it is a brand. Showcasing your interests are perfectly acceptable in this platform.

Pin influencers and other folks that have solid information shared. Sharing original content is good, but building a following and subscribing to others is even better. How else do you start to have social interactions without giving praise to others when they have a successful solution? Why reinvent the wheel?

Don’t build empty boards. You took the time to create it and if it reflects you and the board is nearly empty, what does it say about your brand? Fill it up! You wouldn’t turn in an executive report without all of the information right? You wouldn’t tell a story without getting to the punch line … it will leave your viewer a lacking sense of what you were trying to accomplish.

We established goals, built full, robust boards and he maintained the deliverables we set forth. He wasn’t spammy (just promoting his material), he was engaging and put thought into each item he chose to share with each pin (giving credit where credit was do). You know what was great about that? People appreciated the mentions, took notice of his acknowledgements and he was well on his way to building a reputation in Pinterest.

(3) Maintain Consistency and Engage

You will hear Social Media folks talk continually about consistency and engagement. It’s true if you think about it. You can’t build a great relationship with a client unless you get to know them, remain in front of them and nurture the relationship. Our client did just this. He developed a schedule daily to Pin, Re-Pin, Comment and Reply to things he chose to post to his boards. The routine was solid and he developed relationships that turned into business.

I have always said, it is better to create a brand and presence in platforms that will drive traffic to your website and have the potential for you to grow relationships which eventually will turn into sales.

Check it out, search, do research and only then will you know if this is a platform that will work well for you. Consider taking classes or workshops that will give you tools to optimize each and every Pin.

Cheers to your success!

If you are interested in learning some strategies to optimize Pinterest for your Business, we have a workshop that may be a good fit for you! View the schedule at: http://thesocialpro.eventbrite.com

~ Social Media is changing the way people do business. Don’t get left behind ~

Hollie Clere, of The Social Media Advisor is a “Be Awesome” Developer, Social Media Brand Builder, Conent Manager, Trainer and Author in LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Blog, Google+ , YouTube, Pinterest and the tools to manage them. Click here for her Social Media Workshops, Classes and Seminars

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