The bad news: Great social media support is NOT for the faint of heart!
The good news: Once you get a high end system in place, you will see massive growth in your business.
I meet people at events all over the world, most of these events are geared to digital marketing. I get asked the same question over and over, no matter what the event.
“What tips can you provide me, I’m starting a social media support business?”
Without asking a single question, I answer “Double your prices”
And I get blank stares. WHAT???
Here’s what I know for sure. Almost every person who supports businesses with social media tries to cut corners. They accommodate requests like “I just want 3 Facebook posts per week.” NO ONE is going to have a successful digital marketing campaign with 3 Facebook posts per week! Maybe they want to pay you $50 for that. They’re throwing that $50 out the window. It’s a lose – lose situation.
NOW, imagine if you doubled your prices. You built in enough profit into your packages and services to offer RESULTS BASED MARKETING. How awesome would that feel, to both you and to your clients? One very simple way to do that is to build some PR strategies into your services. NO ONE is doing this. I want to change that.
Take a look at this infographic for a place to start. It’s chock full of the strategies Christina Daves and I use with our private clients.
[Tweet “Check out this infographic chock full of social media and PR strategies!”]
Drop a comment below if you have any questions or just want to share YOUR ninja social media and PR tips with us!
And when you’re ready for more, we’ve got a FREE e-book that details our three part process for supporting our clients with high end social media and PR strategies.
Snapchat is an image and video messaging app that creates a platform to send content that can be viewed for a short amount of time. Businesses have been utilizing snapchat more recently to create a personal and behind the scenes connection with their customers, but it can be tricky to get the hang of how to use snapchat to make a profit.
Here’s a list of everything you need to know A-Z about using Snapchat for your business:
A – Ask customers to send you snapchats of them using your product in creative ways and post them on your snapchat! This will make them feel valued and help others discover different uses for your product
B – Behind the scenes footage will get your customer’s attention and make them feel like they’re actually part of the experience; have fun with it!
C – Create a call to action. Start a story on your snap story and invite followers to finish the story on your website
D – Demonstrate you daily morning business routine. Show your followers how much of your heart and soul you put into your business first thing in the morning. You can be really creative here, so don’t be afraid 🙂
E – Excite followers by asking them to screenshot a snapchat you’ve posted to earn a discount, everyone loves a good saving!
F – Feel free to post your “Snap Code” on social media with a caption about something interesting you posted that day or informing about a snapchat only sale. This is an effective way to gain new followers that will stay around likely for a long time
G – Get creative. Draw some fun designs on your snapchat! This could take some time but it never goes unnoticed by your followers, get creative and feel free to be silly!
H -Help your followers by creating a snapchat only sale! Post the sale keyword on your story. This will help you earn more followers interested in participating in the sale and they will stick around!
I – Interviewing others in short snap videos is an easy way to give your
J – Join Snapchat and follow me for more tips 🙂
K – Keep it short and interesting, your snaps can be gone in a second. Make a lasting impression!
L – Let viewers see your product in action. For example, post a video of someone wearing your dress or reading your book
M – Make videos about how your product is made. Interesting snaps like this will keep followers interested in what you are posting 🙂
N – Never create a story longer than a minute or two as it becomes tedious to tap through long stories.
O – Organizations around the world utilize snapchat for their business. Follow them and see what they are going to keep their followers interested!
P – Personalize your snaps to be about you and why you have passion about what you do. Engage your followers!
Q – Questions engage your followers. Invite them to snap you back with their answers! This creates a personal relationship with your customers.
R – Raw content can make followers feel like they are part of the behind the scenes work you put into your company. Post snapchats of things people would never get to see if they didn’t follow you!
S – Send your snaps to your story. This lets your content be viewed by everyone who follows you 🙂
T – Talk about all the exciting things you have coming up in your week. Let followers know what they can be looking forward to by following you.
U – Utilize the fun filters! Both the color filters and the fun face filters can be used to create fun snaps that will keep your followers interested in what you are posting. Have fun with it!
V – Visuals could help your followers what goes on behind the scenes at your business
W – Work to create personal relationships with your followers. They are more likely to be repeat customers if they feel a connection to you 🙂
X – XOXO, send your fellow business friends some love! Promote them and they will promote you right back!
Y – Yell for all to hear! Let your snapchat presence known on all social media platforms.
Z – Zero followers to millions, these tips will help you grow your snapchat platform!
Are Your PR Efforts Tag-Teaming With Your Social Media?
I’ve been working with a business partner for a while now and have seen great success. With her focus more in the PR domain, and mine in social media, we have been able to create program after successful program combining our individual expertise. More and more, I realize how these two areas of marketing can work together to support your overall business.
If you do it right, of course!
Time is money, and social media is a big beast … I know. So, here are some tips for how you can leverage PR with your social media campaigns to get the most bang for your buck.
How to Rocket Your Marketing Efforts Into High Gear
1. Start by doing research on Twitter, industry-related websites (and more specifically, their blog post topics), and LinkedIn updates.
Find out:
Who is writing about what you are an expert in
Which reporters (online, TV, magazine) report on your niche
Who is talking about what you want to talk about
2. Connect with these people on Twitter. Create a Twitter list called “Media,” make it private, and add these names to the list. This will help you organize your connections, and allow you to keep tabs on their updates (which can give you plenty of ideas).
But first, make sure:
Your Twitter profile is professional
Your Twitter description is interesting and has strong keywords
You engage with a call to action somewhere in your profile
3. Connect with this same list on LinkedIn. In your connection request, be sure to mention, “I just read your article/saw your segment, I loved it, and would love to connect with you here on LinkedIn.” Stay personal, authentic, and real. Similarly to your Twitter list, you can tag connections on LinkedIn as “Media” to keep them organized.
Check to see if:
Your LinkedIn profile is rock solid, polished, and professional
Your summary and experience really speak to what you want to do and who you want to connect with
Your profile picture is up to date
You’ve posted a few updates recently that show up in your “Posts” section
Now that you’ve built your foundation, it’s time to make sure they know you exist!
4. Schedule a few times per week to dip into that Twitter list you created. Research who has tweeted what and see if there are tweets that are relevant to your expertise and niche.
With these tweets, it’s always great to:
Favorite them — it never hurts to give your contacts a good old ego boost
Retweet them — if you think something is interesting, share it
Reply to them — engagement can really grow your following on social media
5. Do the same on LinkedIn. Schedule a few times per week to research your connections. Sort them by the “Media” tag you created, and then go through that list of connections.
You are looking to:
See what they’ve shared recently
Comment on posts that are relevant to you
Like and share those posts through other networks
Why You Should Do This Sooner Rather Than Later
Do these five steps NOW to set the stage for reaching out to contacts as resources, prospects, or collaborators later on.
Make sure your name is recognizable to them as someone who adds value, is an expert, and is generous with sharing their content. This is where you begin to build the relationship — long before you ever contact them directly. It’s always better to make connections before you need to tap into them. That way, when you have an idea, a pitch, or a prospect, you’re approaching them as a warm contact.
No more cold emails, cold connections, or cold calls. This means the possibility of a successful outcome skyrockets. Your target contact is much more likely to respond favorably to your request.
These media contacts can be of huge value to you, because one nicely placed media shout-out can bring you tons of new business!
The best part? These five steps are all free and very easy to implement. It doesn’t take a huge chunk of time either, if you spread them out over a week or two. And when you put in the maintenance of a few minutes a day, a few times a week, you will be seeing the return very quickly.
So, how do my business partner and I make this work? While my partner finds and pitches influencers, I’m on the back end making sure the social media part is supporting her efforts, and guess what? Our clients are killing it: TV spots, magazine columns, paid speaking gigs, products on QVC and HSN, and more! I have absolutely no doubt you could do this too.
Have questions on how best to get started, keep going, or who to target? Join me in my LinkedIn Group and ask any question you have!
I talk a lot about social media and frequency of posting, in fact that IS a mainstay of my own personal business model. I still maintain 22 or more tweets per day, a few posts per day on Facebook, and multiple blogs a week (well it’s my goal that’s for sure).
As someone who is hired to do this for corporations, big business and small, I understand the pace is difficult to match. But remember I have to do all these posts, tweets and prompts for myself too!
A lot of the day to day questions I get are regarding strategy: online business social media strategy to be exact and I often address the answers in varying topics on this blog. However where is strategy if you just don’t know what to post?
Strategy is nowhere, that’s where.
You can’t start with strategy you have to start with the conversation. So in an attempt to provoke some inspiration on what to talk about when you have no idea what to talk about I thought I’d compile a few of my best “strategies” on social media writers block.
A Few of My best “Strategies” to Tackle Social Media Writer’s Block
ONE: Always always always start with what is trending that day on your chosen social media platform.
The day I am writing this (usually only a couple weeks ahead of when it actually posts) Twitter was trending with a really great topic: The Best Books of 2015. You can see everything that is trending that day and for how long on the lower left hand side of your Twitter home page. Anyone know why The Best Books of 2015 is such a great trend? Because there are so many different and interesting things you can say about it!
You can talk about:
The books you have read or want to read
A specific book and do a book review
Your opinion that a certain book should be on the list
Your followers opinions and take a poll (Hint: use this for future research!)
Quotes from some of your favorites on the list – everyone loves a good quote
And the list goes on. You can even create your own Best Books of 2015 and post that! Because everyone loves lists and your future clients want to know what you think.
Sometimes we aren’t so lucky on all platforms. Take a look at what is trending on Facebook today:
Not much positivity there, nor is there much you can focus on as a business. But hey this is where imagination comes in – have fun with it!
Why don’t you:
Use the trend of Yahoo’s CEO severance package post and ask your followers what they would do with $150million.
Ask if you should read the book or just watch the show in regards to the Game of Thrones post.
Mention how much you love Dancing with the Stars and who your favorite contestant was?
All of these are fun, inviting, add personality and also engage your audience while at the same time getting you more bang for the buck with each post. Every time you attach to a trending topic with a hash tag or subject you have a better chance of being found and read because more people are talking and reading about that very same thing! Make sense?
TWO: I take a look at what my competitors are doing.
What are your competitors talking and blogging about these days? What is on their mind and in their wheelhouse? Do you see a trend or a topic or two you haven’t covered yourself in awhile? Well then get to it and be inspired to write the best blog post or the most interesting Tweets this side of Tennessee!
Today while researching this post I found a random list of the top ten social media blogs of 2015 (of which I am not on…YET!) So I decided to take a look at what these top ten had to say.
What some of my competition is talking about:
Facebook ads, and a tutorial for them
Sponsored content – when, how and why to use it
Snapchat promotions
Video content creation
This encouraged me to keep talking about LinkedIn and all my strategies because it was not being talked about as much, so from there I can stand out in the crowd.
This research also showed me that maybe I could add a few new topics to my upcoming blogs such as how to create a great video to post to attracting sponsored content to using other platforms not included in the big 5 (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Instagram).
THREE: Pay for a little help.
There are all sorts of tools out there that help you pick topics, popular posts, and viral trends to capitalize on when creating your own social media marketing and I won’t go into all of them here but sometimes all we need is a little leg up. There is so much content out there already one of the best ideas to get eyes on and likes on your page is to share posts that are the most popular already. Typically these are image driven posts, possibly with a quote or a video.
One such application is Post Planner. Membership starts at $5 or $7 a month and if you have multiple business pages on Facebook this is definitely a plus for you. They have a tool called the Viral Photo Finder that will allow you to search pages in your niche that have posted a photo that has gone viral (number of shares in relation to number of fans) you can then share that photo which may prompt the same response from your fans. Photo credit is always given automatically when you click the share button. You can even add it to your scheduler queue right from there!
Now I haven’t used Post Planner extensively nor am I an affiliate but I wanted to show you that there are options out there when you are stuck staring at a blank screen knowing you need to get something out on social media, but not sure what.
Want to test out a post or a Post Planner Pick? Join me in my LinkedIn group and lay it on us! Myself and 600 other members will be there to help you out!
I have to admit, I love Social Media. I’ve connected with some wonderful colleagues, influencers and ideal clients there. Thanks to Karen Y’s tutelage with LinkedIn, I enjoyed almost immediate results by getting a new client within a week of updating my profile. And of course, the awesome Twitter. It’s incredible how one succinct message in less than 140 characters can serve to inspire, connect with like-minded people, and share our business’ unique message with the world. And, last but not least, my beloved Periscope. I love the direct interaction with people. It’s helped me to decrease the time it takes to build the know, like and trust factor with potential clients. Every time I scope my email list increases and I’ve generated sales for my digital products and private coaching as well.
Why is social media so good to me? The answer’s revealed in the first sentence of this article… I love it. It’s the mindset I have in my approach to it that has set the foundation for my results with it.
Here’s the thing…
We can receive the best social media strategies in the world but unless we have the right mindset, we won’t enjoy the results we want from the time we invest in Social Media. The Must-Have Mindset for Social Media is to engage with a positive Emotion-set.
[Tweet “The Must-Have Mindset for Social Media is to engage with a positive Emotion-set. @simonecraig”]
Emotion-set is a term I coined that speaks to how you predominantly feel. It’s said that one of the key ingredients to success is having a positive mindset. And there’s some truth to that, of course. But it’s not the complete truth.
What I’ve found to be more powerful and effective towards success than a positive mindset, is a positive Emotion-set. What emotion or set of emotions are you set to? Feeling positive emotion during your time on Social Media is vital to having success with it. The powerful Law of Attraction tells us that like attracts like — like energy attracts like energy. So if you want Social Media to bring you sales, but you mostly feel frustrated by it, and your thoughts about Social Media are that you don’t like it, you don’t want to be doing it and you don’t care what other people are saying in just 140 characters, then things won’t likely go well for you.
Your time is yours and your business is yours. It’s 100% your choice what you do with it. What if it were possible to enjoy interacting on Social Media AND makes money in your business? Sound good? Here are 3 ways how:
Set an intention for how you want to feel after spending time on SM.
Bring heart, passion and excitement to every interaction Social Media.
Only post something that excites and delights you. Every time you ReTweet something or Reply to someone, infuse it with joy, excitement and kindness.
When you make this emotional shift in your approach to Social Media, people will FEEL that and take notice. They’ll want to hear more from you. They’ll want to stay connected with you in some way. They’ll share your message with others. And, it can increase the chances of them wanting to buy from you.
In the comments, tell me one mindset shift you will make related to your time on social media. Then share how it feels!
Good luck!
Simone Craig shifted her mindset in 2007 to deliberately create over $7,000 a month in her first business, after only 15 months, by leveraging the Law of Attraction. She helps entrepreneurs manifest quick money wins with her Free 3-page PDF report: How to Manifest a Money Win in less than 24 Hours. Click here to download her Free Report.
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