Social media won’t be and can’t be ignored, IF you want to succeed at marketing your products and services so that people buy them. After all, you are in business to make money, right?
There are definite Do’s and Don’ts. I’ve outlined my TOP 6 DON’Ts along with what you should do, below. Follow my lead and you’ll create a legion of Ravin’ Fans who buy from you instead of ignore you.
1. Marketing to your Followers, Likes and “Friends”
I know you’re thinking, “But Carol, you just said that I have to market. What gives?” Yes, you do have to market, but marketing to maybes, tire-kickers and followers that aren’t even committed to you can drain the marketing energy right out of you. You see, all those social media Likes, Followers and Friends don’t belong to you at all, you’re only “squatting” on the “Big Guys’” platforms. The key is to get them over to your website and onto your list, so you can really market to them the way you want to, not the way you’re “told” to do it.
Do this instead: Create an offer that your ideal prospects on social media can’t resist. Post it on social media, when they click on it, they will be lead to your WOW! website to sign up for your newsletter.
[Tweet “The key is to get followers over to your website and onto your list, so you can really market to them.”]
2. Start posting without a plan or a strategy
As the saying goes… “Failing to plan is planning to fail.” The same goes for posting on social media. You MUST, absolutely MUST have a plan in place as to what you will post when and what your expected outcome will be. Without it, you might as well close up your social marketing department.
Do this instead: Take some time to figure out what you want to get out of using social media. Is it more followers, more money, more visibility or all of the above? Once you know the reason, you’re more than half-way there.
3. Create content for “Everyone”
First thing, you can’t market to “everyone;” it’s impossible because they, meaning everyone, doesn’t actually exist as a target market. So that means you need to settle in for the long haul, put your research hat on and find out where your audience hangs out and how they like to be engaged.
Do this instead: You can learn what your audience wants from you by asking them. You can ask them by using surveys, polls and even inviting them for a one-on-one phone conversation.
[Tweet “You can’t market to “everyone;” it’s impossible because they, meaning everyone, doesn’t actually exist as a target market.”]
4. Send 20 posts to your followers at one time
Sometimes you can get away with sending out a lot of posts at once, especially if they’re related or if you’re a rock star tweeting from backstage. However, for the rest of us, it can be annoying for your followers to get 10-20 posts all at once, all the time. The worst part of it is most people only check-in to their social media accounts a few times a day. If you’re “dumping posts” at one specific time, you’ll probably miss them and they’ll never see the great posts you worked so hard to craft. In my program, Social Media Secret Sauce, I reveal my best techniques and strategies that allow you to put your posting on Auto-pilot.
Do this instead: One of my best resources for finding great content to share is Feedly.com. Use it to automatically search blogs, articles, news outlets and other sources for the content your ideal prospects are looking for, then share away.
5. Ignore your blog
If this isn’t the social media sin of ALL sins, I don’t know what is! Your blog is your sales director for your whole team. It’s the one place prospects and future Ravin’ Fans can come to and see the real you, the pulse of your organization and learn how you keep it all together. Don’t ignore it! Enough said.
Do this instead: Brainstorm five topics that your ideal prospects want to know more about and that you can deliver to them. Create a quick outline of what you will write in the blogpost, then sit down and write one post each day for five days. Now, set those posts up to publish once per week for the next five weeks.
[Tweet “Your blog is your sales director for your whole team. It’s the one place prospects and future Ravin’ Fans can come to and see the real you.”]
6. Only use the Big 3 social platforms for engagement
Social media is Big and Vast and if you limit yourself to the Big 3—Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn—you’re missing out on so much more you could be doing to get the word out and gain followers AND paying clients. You’ll need to look beyond even YouTube. When you do, you’ll find sites like BlogTalkRadio, Blubrry, Libsyn, UStreamTV and LivestreamTV, to name a few. In other words, there are tons (literally) of ways to maximize your social marketing exposure. You just have to look for them.
Do this instead: There are social media sites to accommodate every type of business owner. What do you like to do best; write, talk, use video? Find the social media platform that caters to your strengths then use that to get your message out to your followers.
If you’re ready to move to the next level of social marketing to find and engage with your ideal prospects and create your own legion of Ravin’ Fans who buy from you over and over again, then you’ll want to sign up for 6 Day Social Media Challenge.
During this challenge you will discover how to figure out WHO your target market is, WHERE they hang out and HOW to engage with them so they get to KNOW, LIKE, TRUST you, then start buying from you. It’s never too late to begin engaging with your ideal prospects, because they are always ready to buy from YOU, the one person who understands them and who has the answers they are seeking to give them the results they so desperately want.
The challenge starts Monday, December 5 and runs until Saturday, December 10. Each day you will receive one assignment to complete. Each day’s assignment brings you closer to your ideal prospects and gets them one more step closer to becoming Ravin’ Fans of your brand. In just six days, you can go from struggling to success!
