How To Build A Social Media Strategy For Your Business

Do you struggle with any of the following:

• Gaining new followers on social media?
• Getting leads from social media?
• Selling products and services through social media?

If you answered "yes" to any of these questions, then chances are your social media strategy isn't as locked in as it could be.  Social media can be one of the most powerful tools for your business . . . if you know what you're doing.  It can also be one of the most frustrating places if you DON'T know what you're doing . . .

So today, we want to help you develop your OWN social media strategy, so you can start taking advantage of the best free advertising in the world (in our opinion).  Social media shows NO signs of slowing down, and more and more, people are now choosing to buy products and services based on the social media profiles of the businesses they see.

Today, I want to talk to you about the 5-step process we use and what we teach our clients when helping them develop their own social media strategy, in hopes that it helps you going forward create more business for yourself online!

The first thing you're going to want to do is to figure out exactly where you should start when it comes to being on social media for your business.  If you remember back to when you talked about your niche and ideal client avatar, we dove deep into figuring out exactly WHERE your ideal audience hangs out online and where they spend most of their time . . .

This is where that research pays off.  Most business owners (us included), simply start on Instagram because they think that's where they're SUPPOSED to be, or because they think that's the default social media platform for business owners.  And while I agree, yes, every business as of right now SHOULD be on Instagram, that doesn't mean that's where you should start.

If I'm being completely honest, I believe we wasted 6-9 months starting with Instagram, rather than TikTok and Pinterest.  We struggled for months on Instagram, not really gaining any traction, and not growing as much as we could have.  When we branched out to TikTok and grew 100K followers in 30 days, that's when our business really started to take off.  So even we were guilty of making this mistake.

You have to ask yourself: where is the place MOST of my audience hangs out?  Because if you get that right at the beginning, then your business can start to grow a core following on social media, and you'll get product sales right away, which is vital not only to your business but to your confidence as well . . . because nothing is more deflating as a new business owner than not growing on social media and not making money.

Now that you've figured out what social media platform you should start on, and for this example, let's just use Instagram, it's now time to develop your strategy for that platform.  The first thing you're going to want to do is research people in your niche on Instagram, and see what kind of content they're creating:

• What's working?
• What's not working?
• What type(s) of content do they create?

All of this will give you an idea of what type of content your audience wants to see.  Too many business owners simply create content that they THINK their audience wants to see, then wonder why they don't get the engagement that they're hoping to see . . .

It's because you're creating content for yourself, not for your audience.

I'm now going to talk to you about the most important part of this whole equation.  Something that if you DON'T do, none of the other things I'm teaching you will matter, and that's to be consistent.

If you've followed us on Instagram for a while, then you know we've been talking about the importance of being consistent, and I can't state just how important this really is.  So I'll just be blunt: if you can't be consistent on social media for your business, you might as well not be on social media at all.  The reason I say this is because if you're not being consistent, there are plenty of people who do what you do that is, and they'll be the ones getting the business!

Don't let your business fail over something as stupid as not being consistent.  Create a social media calendar, hire a VA, hire a social media manager, whatever you have to do to be consistent!

Now that you've figured out what platform to be on, and you've created a consistent strategy for yourself, you can begin to start thinking about branching out.  Obviously, you want to wait until you've got a solid Instagram routine down before branching out, because like I said before, the last thing you want to do is be inconsistent.

Now the question to ask yourself is: "What is the next most popular social media platform my audience is on?"  You should already know the answer to this question based on filling out your ideal client avatar, so you shouldn't have to do any research or even think about the answer to this, which makes it all the easier.

So for this example, let's say Pinterest is the next platform that makes logical sense for your business to branch out to.  Then you would simply repeat the same process we did with Instagram: figure out what types of content work on the platform based on your competition, then create a plan to stay consistent on the platform.

The added bonus you have with branching out is that you now have Instagram content you can re-purpose to Pinterest, making it easier to build up your portfolio and stay consistent.  For example, you can re-post your Instagram Reels as Idea Pins on Pinterest, and use them to start building a core group of following on Pinterest.

This process can be repeated over and over until you're on every social media platform that you believe makes sense for your business.  You can keep re-purposing your content as you branch out to more platforms, making consistently a lot easier as well. 

I know that a lot of people's argument is that you should only focus on ONE social media platform for your business, but personally, I think that's very risky!  Because let's imagine for a second if that platform goes down like Instagram did 5x last year . . . what would you do then?  You'd have no way of talking to your audience, effectively halting your entire business, all because you relied on one platform.  Don't let that happen to your business!  Make sure you diversify!

Now that you've built out your social media profile(s) and you're creating consistently great content, it's time to funnel all of these amazing followers and leads OFF social media, so you can start to build community and develop a relationship with them further.  Social media can sometimes feel crowded, so you want to take all of those new followers, those hot leads from a place someone ELSE owns to a place YOU own,

And this is where having an email list or an SMS list is vital!

No matter how many social media platforms you're on, there's always the chance of SOMETHING happening, because you don't own any of them, and you can't control what happens.  All you can do is pull as many people OFF those platforms and onto a platform that you, in fact, do control.  When you have an email/SMS list, it allows you to:

• Have a safeguard in case something happens on social media
• Deepen your relationship with your community
• Share more of your personal side
• Know which of your audience are leads
• Sell your products/services in an organic way

So how do you get people onto your list?  By offering them something valuable.  Typically, you see people do this in the form of a "freebie," but there are so many different ways you can do this.  The main thing is to figure out WHAT problem can you solve for your audience, then help them solve it by getting onto your list.

This last tip is more of a personal suggestion, and one that I've seen over my time in marketing, and that's to always be growing.  My favorite quote that illustrates this goes something like, "If you're not moving forward, you're not standing still . . . you're going backward."

Whether it's your social media following or your email list, you always want to make sure that you have a plan to keep consistently growing these platforms.  Nothing is greater for a business than momentum, but nothing is worse for a business than stagnation.

Keep creating great content, keep creating new freebies to build your list, and keep branching out on social media, because momentum is something that can take a business and turn it into a force!  We see it time and time again of people growing exponentially off the momentum they create on social media, and you can too!  You just have to have a great plan, and consistent action to back it up, and we hope this plan does just that for you!