I talk a lot about LinkedIn and Twitter these days and have for awhile. One reason because they are two of my favorite platforms in regards to democracy, the easy ability to grow a following, and the reach they can provide you as a business owner.
I realize though that some businesses are firmly ensconced on Facebook because that is where they find their fans.
Or maybe because Facebook is familiar and comfortable to them, and that’s not a bad reason either.
So I wanted to pay attention to all my Facebook users out there today in this blog post.
Let me first ask you, “How many times a week are you posting on Facebook for your business?”
I bet this number is not enough. The school of thought for Facebook posting frequency is about 4-6 times a day. The more the better, because this helps to get around the Facebook algorithm that reduces page views to non-promoted posts.
So how do you come up with enough ideas to create that many posts?
[Tweet “How to come up with enough ideas to create enough posts on Facebook.”]
Good question. Today I’m going to help you!
1. One of my biggest pieces of advice that I give my clients and my friends when talking about what to post on social media is: always always always post about other local and online businesses. You can never post too much good stuff about the other businesses that you frequent or run across online.
Why? Well first off because this type of posting is easy to integrate into your daily routine. Jot down a few notes before you leave their biz, or directly post to social media from their website.
Some questions you can ask yourself to create an interesting post: Do you like their business because of convenience? Did a certain employee go out of their way for you? Do they always have what you are looking for? Is their brand appealing to you? Does their business “why” stand out to you? Second because typically these businesses will share the love back. Finding partnerships and making alliances in your business niche, and outside of it, are key to winning the “war” of visibility online.
Finally the big question for you to always include the answer to in your posts:
What would be the message you would want to relate to your clients or fans in regards to this business or experience?
2. Second, write a goal oriented post. You must have a goal for every post. Ask yourself, what is it that you want to achieve here? For Facebook this answer can matter even more because this platform is a bit more informal and you want to make sure you hit all spectrums of “types” of posts.
Sometimes you want to have fun, make people laugh and engage with you. Other times you want to educate about your product or service or ways you can increase the quality of life for your customers. And some posts are going to be about your business “why” with a call to action to buy.
3. Third, write a behind-the-scenes post. One of the best performing Facebook posts seems to be one that allows your followers a peak behind the scenes into your daily routine.
Maybe a post:
of you on vacation reminding followers of what they can achieve if they follow your advice.
of you and your team working hard to bring a project to life.
about how you get motivated and stay motivated in your day to day business.
of your home office and time management tricks (or epic time management flops!)
Once people start to comment be sure you are ready to respond and engage. I still believe people on Facebook are looking to see that you read their comment and acknowledge it. Whether with a simple like, or with a short comment back, or with a comment and a tag mention, any way you decide to go is fine just try not to leave them hanging.
4. Fourth, use Facebook for research. This valuable method is one I definitely like to use Facebook for. Simply asking a question can lead to many interesting results and valuable information that you can use later in blog posts, web copy, or even in product creation.
5. Finally, when in doubt use a fun prompt to get the juices flowing! I use this particular resource here and highly recommend it! I love the prompts and the ideas throughout this hefty resource, you can get a prompt and post idea for every day of the year! Often if you just tweak the perspective, you can use the same prompt in a different way as well too. There is so much value in here so give this product a try, you can sign up to get one full week FREE too before you buy.
For additional help, advice, and to belong to a group of people ready to cheer you on (and like your post) join me in my LinkedIn group! Don’t wait, join today, we would love to see what you have to share.
In last week’s blog post I talked about words that sell, words to use and words to entice your followers and fans on social media.
This week I want to focus on words to avoid.
In this post I discuss 5 types of words that I want you to think twice before using in your blog posts, web copy, and especially in your social media.
Why so important in social media? Because you have a much shorter time to make an impression so you want to make a good and intriguing impression, fast.
[Tweet “With social, you have a much shorter time to make an impression so avoid using these.”]
5 Types of Words To Avoid When Posting on Social Media
1. Avoid words that focus on the negative.
Words like:
Can’t
Do not
Unfortunately
Impossible
Mistake
Problem
That doesn’t mean your prospect client doesn’t have a problem you want to (and can) solve. It means you need to word it differently.
Instead use words like:
Your benefit
It’s best to
Success
Value
Show you understand where your reader is coming from and how your service benefits them to keep reading, to sign up, to click, or to buy.
2. Avoid using the words THING or STUFF or IT.
I actually wrote this sentence in this post and had to go back and change one above because I realized I used it when I could have been more specific. Always, always, always be specific. Be clear, tell your followers what you want them to focus on so they have clear takeaways.
What was the sentence above I had to change?
Tell me what you think of the difference when I followed my own advice…
Before: Show your reader how it benefits them to keep reading, to sign up, to click, or to buy.
After: Show your reader how your service(or product) benefits them to keep reading, to sign up, to click, or to buy.
Small difference but a big one nonetheless. Don’t you think?
3. Avoid the word REALLY.
This word is a descriptive crutch. Just like a lot, and very. If you are describing something that you want to emphasize and you can’t think of a good adjective then grab your thesaurus or go to thesaurus.com (my personal fav) to get inspiration. Or just delete the word altogether and your sentence should be strong enough to stand on its own.
Example: You really need to buy my service if you are suffering from a lot of fear that posting on social media is difficult and are very nervous about spending money on ads.
Change to: Buy my service if you suffer from fear that posting on social media is difficult and you are nervous about spending money on ads.
Just removing those words made your statement much more clear and powerful!
4. Strike out “I believe” , “I think” and “I feel” , from your posts.
People assume the words they read are the author’s opinion, unless you are quoting a fact. Using these “I” statements sounds wishy washy, reduces the power of what you are saying, and leads to a decrease in your perceived expert status. So don’t do this, instead just take those words out of the equation and let your sentence stand on its own.
Example: I believe you should revamp, revitalize and renew your LinkedIn profile so you look professional and polished.
Now take out the “I believe” and notice how the focus stays on the reader and you sound much more persuasive!
What do you think?
5. Never use the word JUST.
I read a fascinating article recently. The author talked about some personal research she did on the word just. She found that a much higher proportion of women used this word in communication.
“I just wanted to check in on …”
“Just wondering if you’d decided between …”
“If you can just give me an answer, then …”
“I’m just following up on …”
The author (Ellen Leanse, Business Insider) makes a fantastic point about the word just and why women seem to use it more. This word is a way of asking permission, showing deference to who you are talking to (whether they deserve it or not), and most often dramatically reduces the power of the communicator who uses it.
Striking this one word from the sentence strengthened the sender’s message and clarified it too. Isn’t that something we always look for in communication? I know I do.
So I challenge you to take a look at your communications you send today and see how many justs find their way into your emails, and then delete them!
I bet you will feel a little more powerful and confident in your request, and just might (will!) get a faster, clearer response.
Want another word list to keep handy? Here is a great one: 297 words and phrases that rob your writing of power. Check it out!
Have you found a great resource of words to use or words to avoid? Share with us in my LinkedIn group! I bet you will learn another smart business tidbit or two to use in your social media marketing plan. Join us!
When I talk about ‘social selling’ I often talk about being authentic and conversational.
But there is also an art to what you say and post online.
Even now as I craft this blog post I will try to:
Create a title that people will find if they Google questions regarding similar topics
Write using words that engage and vary my paragraphs to entice you to read more
Give a lot of value, because your time reading this is valuable to ME
Be real and authentic so I can find my ideal clients (who will respond)
And the same process can be said of anything we post online really. Even that Facebook status update – you want people to click like right? OF course you do. That’s validation that your message, whatever it is, was read, heard and accepted by the crowd.
Back to me writing this post. I wanted to write about “words and phrases that sell” because while I may use them more naturally now, in the beginning it was definitely difficult to come up with the right ones.
[Tweet “5 words or phrases that have power to SELL what you are talking about online.”]
5 main words or phrases that have more power to actually SELL what you are talking about online.
To be successful use these in your:
website copy
email marketing
social media posts
and maybe with your kids too! (Let me know how that goes will ya?)
Number One: This first one is a ‘twofer” – first, the word YOU and second, your prospects name. These rank high from research that measures emotion evoked from words. Why? We are adapted to enjoying the sound of our own name, and the word you means it is about us, and we like that.
So make sure a lot of your copy is geared toward your prospect client – even your about page – because that taps into our natural need for things to be “all about ourselves.”
Number Two: Best-seller. Do you have a popular product or service? Maybe you haven’t gotten that far with customers yet, but it’s a hit amongst your family and friends – that’s great too! The reason best-seller is such a powerful and proven word is because it shows social proof that the product or service your customer wants to buy is worth their time and money. That’s a big deal and you can understand that right?
Just think of your own online buying habits. Any site that mentions a “Best -Seller” category, or best-seller in the description copy has more of my attention. I don’t have time to cull through all the varied lists of products and offers, I just want to know which one is the best. And I take best-seller seriously as proven by others who want the same product or service as me.
So make sure you have the word “best-seller” in your product description, in your tweet, and in your post, to help drive people right where they already want to go.
Number Three: Words that say “This won’t be difficult” when you read my post, enter my contest, or sign up for my online course.
Words like:
easy
simple
step-by-step
quick results
2 minutes or less
Instantly
The reason? Because we all want a quick fix. I’d like to stress that I work with a lot of clients who want a quick fix to their social media marketing and I have to reiterate that patience and consistency truly win the race. But in my copy for social media posts, on my website, etc, I try to showcase the quick tips that can really make a difference. Take a look at my social media quick tip that I post regularly on YouTube.
What product or service do you offer that you can break down into some simple step-by-step quick tips for your prospective clients? They will see a quick result if they apply it and then begin to trust that you are an expert in your field. And that is a result worth waiting for.
Number Four:Use words that show exclusivity or newness. As humans we always like to know that we are the first. At least some of us do! But this need for exclusivity and interest in the new is fairly common among most people, even if you aren’t an early adopter.
Some good words to try:
Exclusive offer
Members only
Available with subscription
New (simple is sometimes best!)
First time ___ (offer, challenge, sale)
Now
Use these words in your headlines, bullets, subject lines as well as your calls to action so people know right away what they are getting, that they could be part of an exclusive crowd, and that this is a new offer never before seen. Make doubly sure when you are launching a new product or service that you use these words.
Number Five:Because. “Because I said so,” never really worked for me as a parent and this phrase probably wouldn’t work to encourage your prospective clients to sign up, buy, enroll or any other action you wanted them to take. But research has shown that adding the word because with a reason makes people 30% more likely to agree to your request! Here is the study to read for yourself – it’s actually very interesting!
The takeaway here: When you are asking your reader, prospective client, or follower to do anything: sign up, subscribe, buy, comment, by adding a reason, no matter how small, silly or foolish that reason may seem, you are 3 times more likely to get them to do it, so add a reason!
Here are a few requests and reasons to try:
Will you join my group? Because it will make you smarter.
Comment on my post! Because then I will feel less lonely.
Can you email me back one reason why you would rather not buy at this time? Because then I can make my product/service better.
Try one of those today in your posts, and if you do will you let me know how it goes? Because I’d love to know! (See how that works??)
Which word or phrase will you try today? Still feeling stuck? Read this guy’s funny post about 1500 words and phrases that sell. While I cannot guarantee the veracity of his claims, the phrases he listed did trigger some chuckles and creative ideas and that is always worth the time.
So join me today in my LinkedIn group will ya? Because the rest of us always enjoy new blood! 🙂
You want to know the secret reason my clients hire me?
Sure you can guess the usual suspects:
They don’t have enough time
They want to grow their business and find new markets
They are excited to showcase a launch or product
But the secret reason? Because of a little bit of fear.
Isn’t that why we hire experts? Someone who knows more than we do, can tell us from their experience the right thing to do or say, and will get us out of a jam (if we ever find ourselves in one).
Sometimes diving into posting on social media platforms feels like talking to the popular crowd.
Do you find yourself wondering if you are saying the right thing, using the right hashtag, mentioning the right people?
Do you find yourself thinking: “is everyone watching?” and yet also thinking: “oh my, what’s the point, no one is watching!” ?
Have no fear my fellow social media students (we are all students this stuff changes all the time) I want to tell you 7 steps (and a bonus!) you can take to boost your social media confidence online right away.
[Tweet “7 steps and a bonus to boost your social media confidence!”]
7 steps (and a bonus!) you can take to boost your social media confidence online right away
First: Get yourself a great headshot. A professional, classy, and well done headshot gives you instant expert quality. Invest in a professional photographer along with hair and makeup to get an instant online confidence boost wherever you see your photo. Believe me others who view you will also get a confidence boost in you and your skills. Check out what one of my business partners’ says about ‘your portrait’, I love the way she explains the power of a professional headshot!
Second: Make sure you have a polished and professional LinkedIn profile. Take that headshot and update your LinkedIn image! This platform is where most of the professionals ‘hang out’, and if you want an instant confidence boost take the time to clean up, add to, update and revise your LinkedIn profile until every time you look at it you want to hire yourself! I’m not kidding those words were used by a novice LinkedIn user after signing up for my LinkedUp in 30 course that walks you through step by step how to make your LinkedIn profile shine. Sign up here!
Third: Network! Do your research and join a local group of successful entrepreneurs and business professionals. These local groups can be a great way to gain new clients and attract new partnerships but you also get a chance to talk about who you are and what you do over and over again in a small, less “threatening” group dynamic which boosts confidence when you translate that well rehearsed ‘pitch’ to social media. A confidence boost also comes from consistently spending time with successful people. I know you’ve heard the saying, ‘You are the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with” so hang out with successful business owners you wish to emulate!
Fourth: Use influencer marketing. Across all of your social media position yourself as if you are peers with the most influential in your industry. This is EASY to do on one of my favorite platforms, the democratic Twitter. Connect and engage with these influencers on Twitter as well as on LinkedIn, which is another great place you can reach well known, even famous, people in your niche, and they very well might engage with you right back! Think of the confidence boost then! I love Twitter especially for that very reason – where else could I “talk” to Oprah?
Fifth: Guest post. Gain confidence by spreading the word about you and your business far and wide through other people’s networks. Guest posting will help you be seen by a larger audience and then watch your fan base grow. The more you talk or write about what you do the better you get at explaining it, selling it, and showing your value to others, namely those followers that turn into clients.
Sixth: Sign up for HARO. This gem of a resource allows you to get emails from reporters all OVER who are looking for experts to quote in their articles and other media. HARO stands for Help A Reporter Out, and sure enough there are enough topics to go around – I get a few emails every day! Get quoted as an expert and watch your confidence quotient hit the sky!
Seven: Make sure a component of your social media plan is to grow followers. As your followers grow, your confidence will too. More people will be ‘nodding their heads’ along with you as you post about your business and beliefs on social media and that is a great confidence boost.
For some great tips on how to grow your followers check out a few of my blog posts: here, here and here. OOH and I like this one: here.
Bonus #Eight: Build your confidence by always practicing the first seven seconds of your speech or video post. For all of you YouTubers and Periscopers out there – it is proven that the first seven seconds of a speech is where you make the most impact – use that time wisely! Boost your confidence on social media by making videos that use humor, empathy, and share valuable information that will drive fans to you. With new platforms and apps it’s never been easier to get into the world of video social media posting!
So tell me:
Which is your favorite confidence booster of the list above?
What action will you take today?
Need some support? Come on, you know it’s always easier with support right?! Join me, and other business owners and entrepreneurs like yourself, in my LinkedIn Group.
We look forward to discussing our favorite confidence boost in the group soon – see you there!
I love when my time online translates to learning the little tricks that social media platforms have but don’t often advertise.
And I definitely love when I can share these new features with my clients and other busy business owners like you. These tricks make social media a little more FUN for everyone out there who has little time to really dive deep into online platforms.
[Tweet “9 tricks that make social media a little more fun for everyone out there.”]
9 tricks of social media that you might not know about (but will be happy to start using)!
1. Save Facebook Links. A friend of mine sends me direct messages on Facebook all the time with a link and: “I wanted to save this link but didn’t know how so I’m sending it to you so I can find it again!” Maybe it’s a recipe, or a video, or a great article you want to read, so I’m here to say: now you can! Just click that little drop down arrow to the right of each post, click on save link, and Voila! that link is saved in a saved list for you. You can find this list via your Home page in the left hand column under your news feed and favorites list. (pssst M. you can stop messaging me those links now!) 🙂
2. Create a playlist on Facebook of your YouTube videos, Periscope Videos, Family Videos and more. Head to your Facebook Main screen, click More (it’s on the right side of the tabs under your header) and then click on create playlist. Now people have instant access to your YouTube feed or Periscope Videos, it’s a great way to organize all of your content, drive traffic to other areas of the web that are all about you, as well as preserve those family memories you want to keep handy.
3. Use your Facebook Personal profile to lead people to your business – no matter how private you like to keep it. I totally understand the want to keep your personal profile on Facebook locked down and very private. In this day and age though people interested in your business and what you have to offer will very likely search you out. So feel free to keep your personal profile locked down except for one tiny section: your work/position information to the left hand side on your timeline screen.
Edit this section in this way:
Click the pencil icon to edit Work and Education
Where it says Position I edited mine to say: Click here to visit my page
Make sure you change the privacy settings to Public. Even if the rest of your page is private leave this one section as Public so everyone viewing can click through to your business page.
Make sure to save the changes.
4. Analyze a search term or hashtag on Twitter. A fun site called Topsy.com helps you do this. Enter a search term in the search bar and you get to see numbers of tweets mentioning this term from 1 hour to 30 days out, the most recent or most popular, and topsy even gives you a “sentiment score”. I searched the ever popular “cute dogs” to see what information I could glean. And as you can tell, cute dogs is still a popular subject.
But of course regardless of what keyword you search much can be gained by knowing who is talking about these terms in your niche, why they are talking about them, what they are saying exactly and how often.
5. Organize your social media via Twitter Lists. Create a private list for your clients, your current partnerships or future want-to-be business partnerships. I keep all my lists private because Twitter sends a notification when you are added to a list. From these lists on Twitter that you create you can easily share the word of your clients and others who are important in your business circles. I follow over 24,000 people, and to search through that to get to a Tweet I want to share from a client would take some time. Using my Twitter list I can quickly share, retweet, and favorite all sorts of great content that people in my niche are talking about. It’s good for me, and it’s good for them, a win-win!
To create a Twitter list just click on your profile Icon in the top right of your home page and then click list! From there you can create and add at will.
6. After you connect on LinkedIn create a custom TAG to organize your connections. With 500+ or even 50+ connections it’s easy to get the names, organizations, and reasons for connecting lost in the shuffle. LinkedIn allows you to create a little “cheat sheet” to help you with this. Once you connect with someone go to their profile page, click on the star icon just below the blue Connect button. From there you can add notes about who they are, how you met and when, what you want to follow up on with them, as well as create tags (sort of like how I create and use Twitter Lists) to place them in a group based on how and where you want to further this connection.
Tags you can use:
The name of the networking event you met at
The type of business niche they are in
Prospect client or prospect business partner
Anything that works for you!
7. Don’t just LIKE a Facebook Business Page, make sure you receive their notifications. Liking a business page these days does not guarantee you will get their updates so you have to go one step further. Head over to a business page on Facebook that you enjoy following and hover over the Like Button, click on the down arrow and then click on Get Notifications. This step is important because now you can share their posts, be more active and visible on social media, and serve those businesses that you feel deserve to be known. So go ahead and think about what businesses you want to engage with, head on over to their Facebook page and get their notifications!
8. Customize your LinkedIn Public URL. When you sign up for LinkedIn you are given a generic URL filled with letters and numbers. But you can change it to a custom link that looks very professional that you can use everywhere!
Go to your profile and click on the little pencil icon that is next to the URL under the blue View profile as button. From there you can change this URL to anything you want!
If your name is taken I recommend trying:
Your name with a middle initial
Your name with your location of business if locale is important to your niche
Your name with one of your top skills ie.) karenysocialmediaexpert
Do this now and then add the new link to at least one of your social media bios!
9. Finally do you ever want to add bold, italics, or underline emphasis to your posts? As someone who is an enthusiastic speaker and because I write how I speak, the inability of most social media platforms to do this easily sometimes drives me crazy! (And causes the use of excessive exclamation marks.) You currently can only use a Unicode Text Converter to do this at this time – similar to how we add symbols to our LinkedIn profiles. But here is a little known fact of Google+ platform: Surround any text with asterisks to turn the text bold, with underscores to make it italicized, or with an underscore followed by an asterisk to make it both bold and italicized. Do this to add a little punch to your posts!
So there you have it – 9 social media tricks that many people might not know about.
Try one today and share with all of us in my LinkedIn Group (please join if you haven’t) which one you tried!
A few years ago I held a workshop called “How to Make Money in Your Reiki Practice.”
It triggered some interesting responses and a lot of emotion from many. Those who were most upset believed strongly that Reiki was a gift they should freely give and the idea of monetizing that into a business and charge to make a profit was inherently wrong. My idea that this gift has value and practitioners should charge for that was not taken too kindly by some and I had to wade through a bit of a backlash during and after my workshop launched.
Last week I wrote about how to deal with toxic people online, and today I want to discuss some of my personal experiences and thoughts on dealing with what, at times, can be a hurtful and stressful situation.
First I want to say that the more visible you are on social media, the more opportunities for negativity to come crawling out from the online ether. So I knew the fact that I was attracting that kind of attention was actually a good thing.
[Tweet “How to deal with negativity online. “]
I knew I couldn’t take the anger and frustration from my commenters personally and I tried to take it as constructive criticism. In the instance of the Reiki workshop, I took the comments as an opportunity to engage in conversation. I replied back with a few other rational “arguments” to try to bring the conversation to a healthy give-and-take debate.
One of my key points was the idea that if you are working at a day job and doing Reiki on the side you are only able to help a few people because you are beholden to time on that job. But if you are able to charge appropriately and run a business then you don’t have to work a full-time job and you can use your gift to help many many more people out there because you have the time and energy to do so.
I also realized that while my stance was not popular with everyone it also gave a group of struggling Reiki practitioners “permission” to charge (or charge more) for their services so they could help more people and also make a living.
I’m also a huge fan of Tip #2 from last week – take appropriate action – and I deleted any post or comment that I didn’t like the vibe of during that time of the workshop. My team who helps me with social media, knows my stance, and had my permission to do so as well.
After my workshop experience I thought long and hard about the person I wanted to be out there online and I decided to take a big picture view and be a role model for others. Instead of acting out of a feeling of “lack” and fear, I realized that if my business ideas caused someone to unsubscribe from my list or post something ugly online that I have to delete, I’m okay with that because it means they are not the right people for me to work with.
If 10 people liked one of my posts but 1 person had something negative to say – that is ok! I decided the important perspective was to focus on the people who did like what I created, those people were the people I could help. I chose to implement the 90/10 rule (or 80/20), a great rule for diets, life, and business. There will always be that 10% or 20% that aren’t your customer.
If people are unsubscribing or un-liking my page I now just happily let them go because I know they aren’t the right people. My goal is to be a role model for how to treat each other online, and be ready to serve the clients that need and want what I have to give.
So let’s recap, when negativity reaches you and your business online:
First, don’t take it personally. Truly dig deep, find compassion and let it go.
Second, think about engaging in a respectful way by taking their comments as constructive criticism and as input to think about.
Third, take action and delete when you need to and instruct your team to do the same.
Fourth, be a role model. Take the big picture view. Show others how you want to be treated and let those who don’t wish to hear what you have to say, go.
More importantly remember: the more visible you are online the more opportunity you have to attract the negativity and toxicity that is out there, simply because more people are seeing your stuff. And that in the end is the best thing for your business because it means your reach is growing and you are attracting attention!
Need a boost or a pep-talk? Join my LinkedIn group! There you can connect with me and other business owners like yourself who are in the exact same boat. Visit us today!
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