Are You Building a Strong Social Media Foundation?
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“Why aren’t things moving faster?”
“Why aren’t I getting any sales?”
“When am I going to see a return on my investment?”
I often hear frustration and comments like the ones above from professionals who are struggling in the social media arena. Many of these people have solid reputations offline and are highly successful in their industry. Understandably, they enter the world of social media expecting the same results they have offline. When the results aren’t what they expected, they quickly begin to wonder just why social media isn’t working for their business. Does this sound like you?
Here’s something that you may not know or like about marketing your business via social media. When you enter the world of social networking, you start at the beginning. In fact, everyone starts at the beginning!! There’s no way to fake it and no way to look experienced in this world unless you actually are! It’s authentic, transparent and anyone can tell how long you’ve been doing it by your numbers, newsfeeds and the conversations you generate. Whether you’re a highly acclaimed expert or simply a local entrepreneur with a good reputation in your home town, your offline experience and expertise does not automatically translate into immediate online social media success.
Everyone wants to jump into social media and automatically have thousands of followers, friends and connections. They want lots of traffic to their blog, a full audience at their webinars and they want to begin seeing a profit and achieve that coveted ROI that everyone is talking about.
Slow down!
Laying the Foundation
Social media success works in much the same way your success offline worked. It takes preparation, hard work and persistence. In order to achieve the desired results you must lay a solid foundation for success. Think about what it’s taken to achieve your current level of success. You may have attended college, pulled a few too many all-nighters, had a few internships, started at an entry level position, changed jobs, networked in a few organizations, and steadily embarked on your career path or paths. Many people these days make several attempts before they settle on a life long career! Whew, that was a lot of work wasn’t it?! Your achievements have required consistency, dedication, determination and time to get you to the level of success you enjoy today. Things happened in a very specific order, starting with your education and time spent building the foundation of what would eventually become a profitable career. It wasn’t possible to jump into a great career without first laying the groundwork for success.
People who are marketing their businesses successfully via social media are spending a great deal of time on the foundation of their social marketing plan. Here are just a few things you can do to build a strong foundation for your own social media efforts:
- Build a great website, with informative content and pages that are easy to navigate. Be sure to include your social media buttons so if someone visits your website they can connect with you across multiple social media platforms in order to learn more about you.
- Include share buttons on each piece of content on your website so your visitors can easily help you market your business by tweeting, bookmarking, liking or sharing your content on Google+.
- Create a compelling opt-in offer to get the email addresses of your visitors.
- Craft interesting, complete profiles on a variety of social media platforms. Create profiles for yourself and your business. A great bio that focuses on the benefits of working with you will do wonders and get people interested in your business. People do business with people, so make sure you include your professional photo wherever appropriate. And don’t forget to include a link back to your website on each of these platforms.
- Create a variety of valuable content to share with your audience. Offering value in the form of blog posts, video and slideshare will allow you to reach a much wider audience than if you’re only using one method.
- Curate and share great content daily – yes daily! When you’re starting out in social media, you need to be present daily to gain traction and build your following.
- Check your messages. All of your social profiles offer the opportunity to interact with your audience. Make sure you are checking to see if anyone is speaking to you.
- Engage in conversations with your target audience and potential partners. Your interaction in the form of retweets, shares, comments, plus’s and likes several times a day over the course of time will help get you on the right track. Start conversations and offer opportunities for offline interaction. Choose a few people who might offer strong partnerships and invite them individually to a phone conversation. Let people know that you intend to be a permanent part of the community. Let them get to know you. Give them a reason to like you.
When will things begin to happen?
With a strong foundation in place some things will begin to happen for you.
- You’ll start getting followers, friends and connections
- You’ll start connecting with your offline friends online
- You’ll notice more conversations directed to you and surrounding your brand online
- People will sign up for your opt-in offer
- More and more attendees will sign up for your free webinars and trainings
- You’ll begin receiving recommendations, leads and referrals
Then, and only then, come the sales! Everything happens according to this funnel one step at a time. Don’t try to skip a step! There are no shortcuts here!
Will this work?
Can success with social media happen quickly? Of course! If you’re investing in the right activities and spending the time it takes to lay the foundation and make the right connections then you don’t necessarily need to wait years to see results. Online efforts offer plenty of opportunities to achieve success much faster than offline efforts!
Social media is about engaging with your audience and peers, creating relationships, building trust, experimenting with what your audience wants, providing solutions and then making the sales! So how fast can you make all of that happen? I often tell people that social media works just about as well as you do!
How well are you laying the foundation for your online presence?
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