Five Methods I'm Using To Grow My Social Media Following

I owe most of my business growth to social media. I get new clients, new readers, and new friends through the different platforms and can’t imagine where my blog and business would be if social media didn’t exist. I learn something new about social media every week and am constantly adapting my plan to help my business keep growing. There are five methods, or ideas, that I have found stay consistent across anything I learn, try, or use in my own practice. These ideas are what I use in my own daily social media practice and I thought that today I’d share them with you, so that maybe they could help you and your business, too!

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FIGURE OUT THE GOAL FOR EACH CHANNEL

This is, for me, the most important and valuable step. I actually consider this as a part of branding and run through this with my clients. The thing to remember is that Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest… they’re all different. They serve different purposes, reach different people, and generate different feedback/interaction. So posting the same things across all of them won’t necessarily work. Instead, I think about what I want to gain from each platform and plan my posting out accordingly.

So, as a visual business, I can use Instagram and Pinterest to generate clients and send people back to my website. Those are two very visual platforms; they depend wholly on pictures. Pinterest, however, has a really crazy intense algorithm and requires a ton of interaction and posting to ‘be seen.’ So I focus Pinterest on just driving traffic to my website, whether it be readers or potential clients. It’s easier to post A LOT on Pinterest and not feel stuck in only posting client work. On Instagram I vary between posting client work and call-to-action posts that talk about working together. I also link to latest blog posts every week and show some behind-the-scenes type images too. With every post I try to ask for interaction, or direct people to a certain link.

For the other channels, I find that Twitter is best for building peer to peer relationships and community, so I focus on sharing other people’s content and thanking them for sharing mine. I’m very active on Twitter and often tell people that’s a great way to get in contact with me, because it’s so quick and simple. Facebook itself, as far as my TheCrownFox page goes, isn’t something I focus on – however, I do focus heavily on Facebook groups. I’m a member of quite a few groups and all of them have helped me with clients, promoting the blog, and establishing myself as a resource (by answering questions). Facebook groups are the one platform that I don’t have a specific purpose for, but instead just try to be very active in every way on there and utilize the opportunities presented (people asking for branding designers, or daily blog posts, etc.). If you aren’t in any Facebook groups I definitely recommend searching for some that relate to your industry, because they are hugely beneficial.

I use Periscope to really build trust and interaction among my audience. I love hopping on there and just chatting and having a quick lesson, and I think it’s a super useful tool to put a face to your brand. Otherwise, I don’t use YouTube often (Yet, but more on that soon!) and I’m not active on LinkedIn. The reason for that is I haven’t found a purpose for those two that grow my business, yet.

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DECIDE BEST POSTING TIMES

There are tons of infographics on Pinterest about this. You could also study analytics, use tools (like Iconosquare), or just study the results yourself. I’ve done a combination of reading through infographics and studying the results for myself. So, as far as my schedule goes:

I post to Twitter very often, sometimes up to 10 times a day, sporadically. My thought process behind this comes from studying the results / how I use Twitter. Basically, I don’t really scroll endlessly on Twitter (like I might on Instagram or Pinterest). I maybe scroll down for a few minutes at the most, and my thought it, most people are probably the same. Therefore, posting every few hours is okay because chances are you won’t scroll far enough to see too much of me. I need to be relevant and recent enough that you would see my post in a quick scroll while you’re eating lunch or waiting in the carpool line.

Pinterest, and its crazy smart algorithms, spreads out your posts anyway, so I don’t focus heavily on what time I post. I've got posts going up all the time thanks to Tailwind* For Facebook, I check the group boards throughout the day, but I post to TheCrownFox page daily, in the morning. I came up with that based completely off of when I saw the most interaction happening and the widest reach. It took a little trial and error, but that’s what I’ve come up with working best for my audience.

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SCHEDULE TIMES FOR INTERACTING

This is something that has been a big plus for my time management. Left to my own devices (and willpower – or lack thereof) I could sit on social media all day. This is not exactly conducive to actually running a business. So, I’ve incorporated block scheduling into my routine and blocked off times for social media. On Monday I have a larger block so that I can schedule out tweets for the week on Buffer. Otherwise, I give myself about 30 minutes in the morning to hop on and check Facebook groups, pin for about ten minutes, and check through Instagram and Twitter a bit. I have ten-minute blocks throughout the day where I can hop in Twitter or Instagram or Facebook and just do a quick scroll and check if there’s anything important or urgent that I need to interact with or respond too. Then, again, at the end of my day I have another 30-minute block to repeat the tasks from the morning.

I have to schedule these times and treat them as any other task on my to-do list, or I end up spending way too much time on social media. If you don’t already schedule your time for social media, I recommend doing that ASAP!

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USE BUFFER + Tailwind

These are two new additions to my process. I came to the realization that the amount of time it would take me to personally do what these two applications do was not a good “bottom line.” It took some convincing, because even though its total cost is less than my daily coffee habit, I still hate spending money. But – the results don’t lie. In just the few short weeks I’ve been using these two programs, my reach and my interaction level has greatly improved. Pinterest is growing exponentially and has quickly become my top referrer thanks to Tailwind*. I’m seriously regretting not using these tools earlier.

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MAKE COHESIVE DECISIONS

This is something that is easy to forget when you are pinning or tweeting in bulk. But – your audience is still YOUR audience and you want to make sure that the content you are putting in front of them is relevant. So, it’s really easy to go through and want to retweet every post you see on Twitter, but, I recommend taking pause and making sure it somehow fits your overall message. Same with things you pin, or share on any other platform. Sharing irrelevant information is detracting from your overall message.

I try to share things that are about branding, business, or blogging – same as the content I would share on my own blog. This is what people have come to expect from me, so I would hate for them to go to my Pinterest and only see stuff about how I want to decorate my living room or the food I want to try and cook. I understand, that stuff is important personally too, but I just use a secret board for things that are really unrelated to my business.

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I'd love to hear what you've been working on for your social media plan. Let me know in the comments below! I've found these methods work best for me, but like I mentioned before, I am an open book to learning new methods!

*The links for Tailwind are affiliate links -  but I wouldn't recommend this program if I wasn't personally using + loving it. Let me know if you have any questions about how to use it!

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4 Ways To Figure Out What Your Target Client Really Needs

Earlier this week we talked about your “how” and making sure it offers a specific solution. But, as promised, today we are going to talk about figuring out what your target client actually needs solved. The thing is, we don’t want to spend time figuring out the perfect thing we want to offer and have no one actually buy it. There needs to be an expressed interest or need for your product or service, so by doing a little research, you can figure out what is a solution to your target client’s pain points. This goes for anything – your services, your products, your courses, your free products, etc.

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FACEBOOK GROUPS

I know everyone loves Pinterest and Instagram, and I do too, but I am still holding onto the value of Facebook groups for business. Facebook groups are easy research, because people use them to ask questions all the time. The hardest thing I found with Facebook groups was finding the ones where my target client hung out.  Eventually, I resorted to a Pinterest search for “Facebook groups for online business owners” (or something similar) and found a ton of articles pointing me towards ones to join. So that is my recommendation to you – spend a little time finding where your people are, jump in, and start reading their questions, struggles, and pain points. Then begin to cater your offerings to answer or fix some of those issues.

Just a disclaimer here, remember that YOU have to do the work once you get a client. Make sure your offer not only serves your target client, but also is something you want to do and are capable of doing!

If you’re in Facebook groups and don’t see these sorts of things come up, check what day you are allowed to post polls/questions and ask people in there questions. I see this all the time! People will ask things like, “are you more interested in XYZ?” or “What would you see more valuable a package with XY or a package with YZ?” Now I am not saying to be spammy or “me-me-me” all the time, because that turns people off, but you can definitely reach out to ask the masses.

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ASK YOUR SUBSCRIBERS

There are a ton of beneficial features to having an email list and subscribers, but one of the best is that you have a resource available to you as a way to communicate with your audience. So, for example, when someone joins my list my welcome email asks them to let me know what areas in branding they feel uneasy about or want to talk more about. Granted, not everyone responds, but those that do have fueled the topics for my newsletter, for my blog posts, and other offerings.

Some people do this as a survey they send out, just to get feedback and ideas generated. That’s a great way to go about it, too. I haven’t done a survey at this point, because it doesn’t really fit my voice/content strategy, but I might do one in the future. For now, I just work on building relationships with my subscribers and making the conversation feel open and accessible – a) because I genuinely do like talking to people and curious about their business endeavors and b) it helps me to formulate what to talk/help with.

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RESEARCH SIMILAR TOPICS

Lately I’ve started researching areas where people struggle in fields related to branding – and see if there’s a solution that I can offer.

This might sound confusing – here’s an example. If someone says, “I’m struggling to bring in business” that might be a business-related problem, but it could also be a branding-related problem and that’s where I come in. So if you know your target audience and you’re stalking them (yes, CREEPY!) on social media or their blogs or wherever and they are expressing hang-ups that they are having, see if there’s a way that your solution might help. Maybe you’re a virtual assistant and you see people saying things like “I spend so much time in my inbox!” They might think they need a better email tool, a more organized approach to their day, maybe a coach – but if you could present your skills as a VA in a way that says “I know you don’t want to spend all day your inbox – I can help you manage that and get it under control!” Then you’ve offered them the solution they never even realized was an option.

This helps you also start to get a grasp on exactly how your target client speaks about their struggles so that you can respond accordingly. So I might say “I offer branding” but that doesn’t tell my target audience anything they want to hear. Instead I say “you’re going to stand out, you’re going to be influential, you’re going to be seen as an authority” which are all things that I’ve read, researched, and heard my target client wish they had (that I am capable of offering).

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CHECK RELATED OFFERING’S REVIEWS

I can’t take full credit for this idea – it actually was something I learned from a Mariah Coz* course at some point along the way. Basically I spend some time looking up books about branding, courses, workshops, etc. and I see where people felt they needed more specific help. So something someone might comment is that they “loved the end result but want to make sure they are reaching their target client” – so then I know to make sure I include a huge emphasis on this part of branding and use that as a selling feature or way to stand out.

Again, this takes work and a little bit of stalker tendencies, but it’s worth it for the intel and ability to cater your solutions to your audience or potential clients. You can see what things work and where they fall short, so you can adjust your own offering accordingly.

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Other ways that you can start to research your target client and see where they express a direct need for something you might be able to offer – checking out related hashtags on social media, checking out quora or reddit, simply typing things into Google and seeing what populates in the dropdown, or ask questions in your blog (for them to comment answers). There are a lot of ways you can determine your business success by skipping over that part where you wonder if something is going to work or going to sell. There’s a sweet spot, where you are doing something you love and someone benefits from it – and that’s the goal to figure out. Let me know in the comments below how you decided on your offerings, I’d love to know!

If you think you need some more detailed help with things like figuring out your target audience and how can you serve them, check out my new e-book Branding 101: Building Your Base. It's currently in pre-sale now, so lock in the best price by clicking below!

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* That link is an affiliate link to the Femtrepreneur Course landing page - basically the courses that will change your life and business. I wouldn't recommend Mariah if I didn't think she was ah-maz-ing.