Every business knows that they need to be using online marketing and social media to grow their sales, customer base, reputation and business - right? But does every business know how to do this? One of the biggest frustrations that I hear from a lot of businesses is that social media is a time suck, its a waste of time, its annoying and they spend hours on facebook with no results.
What you need to remember is that social media for business sis different from social media for fun. If you are trying to build a business brand you need to have a plan and you need to stick to it. Here are three things you need to be doing every day on social media if you are serious about growing your business.
No. 1 - Engage with your ideal clients
This is massively important, it doesn’t matter how or where you do it but you need to be engaging with those people who are not yet your clients, but who you know you can help. There are lots of different ways that you can engage with them, and we’ll look at these in more detail but make sure you are carving out some time each day for this. Whether its 10 minutes to go into twitter and chat to people, or whether its offering help in one of the Linkedin groups you are part of. The HOW will depend on your target market and your industry. The WHY is because this builds your reputation as an expert and keeps you in your ideal clients mind.
No. 2 - Promote your own work
Whether you are sharing a link to a blog post, a work with me page, a special offer or a testimonial from one of your existing clients, you need to be promoting your own work every day across your social media channels. This doesn’t have to be done in a sleazy, salesy, BUY MY STUFF NOW kind of way - it can be offering value at the same time. If you are blogging regularly then you will always have content to share and this is a great way to build your brand without feeling like you have to be all hard sales. If you’ve written a guest blog for someone else, share that. Just remind your audience that they can work with you, and that you are awesome.
No. 3 - Sharing other relevant content
This is the single best way to position yourself as an expert. I dont recommend you share work from your direct competitors but there is nothing to stop you from sharing other industry relevant articles or pictures that your target audience will be interested in. So if you are a food coach share recipes or articles from Mind Body Green or the Huffington post. If you are a life coach share news stories you find online relating to stress or happiness. Give your readers extra value and content.
If you can make time to do these three actions every day on some or all of your social media channels I promise you’ll soon start to see results.