Social Media Marketing – Understanding The Basics
You’ve built your website and your brand, now you want people to visit your site and hopefully buy but how do you let them know your website is ready?
One of the easiest ways to provide free access to advertising is through social media. Almost everyone has access to a variety of different platforms where they have successfully built a following.
The problem with blasting advertising on a social media platform is wasting your time if you use the wrong type of content for that particular platform.
In this blog, we look at some of the more common platforms and the type of content to use to get your website in front of the right people.
Still, one of the most popular social media platforms, with an estimated 2.74 billion active users, it can be one of the most difficult to fathom especially when they keep changing the algorithm and your content is frequently deleted.
Facebook has two sides the personal timeline and the business side. Navigating how to use both can be tricky especially when content is frequently deleted or not shown to your audience. You will also need to set up a personal identity and a business identity.
On my Facebook platform I have Karen Newton as my personal and Karen Newton International as my business persona.
Facebook Personal Account
From a business point of view, your personal timeline is your social proof. Proof that what you are selling works.
I’m a wealth coach helping clients build online businesses and invest their profits. Making money is about being able to live your dream lifestyle, whatever that means to you. So, my timeline consists of lifestyle posts. I live in Spain, by the sea, and share a lot of beachside photos and posts. I also share posts about client’s success. This includes joint ventures, hitting share market targets and when they buy investment properties. It’s the social proof that what I do works.
When you are posting to your personal timeline keep the posts positive and showing results. Negative posts will gain a huge response but damage your credibility.
Facebook Business Account
Through the business profile there are two options for marketing a business.
Pages – these are the shop window for the business and how you attract customers to stop and look at what you have to offer.
On pages you can include anything related to your business. However, don’t share your content from a business page to your personal timeline. It is often deleted. Instead, use your personal timeline person to share the post from the business page. It’s a subtle difference but one I’ve found works well.
Groups – a page aims to get viewers to stop and look at your shop window. Groups are the inside of the shop. It’s where you have a targeted audience who are interested in you, your business and your products.
The bulk of my social media sales are generated through Facebook Groups. The members of the group get to know, like and trust me – essential components in marketing – and are willing to buy when I release a new product or service.
Facebook Meta
This is the back office management for the business. Here posts can be created and scheduled. Advertising campaigns are created and managed.
Meta can also be used for scheduling and posting to Instagram.
As a business, Facebook wants to help you build your business but they also want you to use the tools they offer in the right way.
Where Facebook is more about social proof and running a separate business identity, Instagram encompasses many of these features but with more focus on the type of content on offer. Reels are very popular as is Instagram TV.
Instagram devotees want more information about the products and services on offer. Instagram is more about taking the shiny wrapper off the product and showing what is left.
Instead of saying I’m a wealth coach here’s my product, I’ve had this success with it. Instagram viewers want to know what the product offers. So, I show more about the content of the product such as the course Zero to Millionaire which consists of 12 parts and I will give an overview of what each part of the course. Provide the wow not the how.
Engagement with your followers is also key to building a following on Instagram.
As someone who tries to spend as little time as possible on social media while I do have a presence on Instagram the amount of engagement needed to build followers means I tend to let this platform fall by the wayside.
To build an Instagram following you need plenty of time for conversations.
X
Formerly Twitter, X is like your breaking news TV channel. If launching a new product and/or posting titbits of information about your product then X is perfect.
Content on X is short and to the point – the headlines. However, content can be connected through a series of posts using, for example, a series of 5 posts which would start 1/5 or 2/5.
Twitter was the first social media platform that I used and is one I still like for releasing information quickly.
YouTube
If you want to know how to do something you’ll find it on YouTube. This is where you get to showcase your skills and knowledge. Show not tell.
YouTube is the 2nd largest search engine in the world, behind Google which ranks #1. YouTube is also owned by Google. A presence on YouTube is essential.
This is a platform that pays you to create content. It wants you to provide the type of information that audiences are looking for. How to do something.
My YouTube Channel has very few subscribers. Most of the videos are unlisted. I use YouTube for hosting videos for coaching sessions and for content on websites.
Many people use YouTube for income generating and building backlinks to the website for SEO rankings.
The main thing to remember with YouTube is it is the “how to” part of your content, product or service.
Podcasts
A great way to get in front of an audience and talk about you, your business, products and services. There are many platforms for hosting podcasts. I use Hello Audio.
The most successful podcasts are interviews that last about 45 minutes to 1 hour.
I use my podcast for interviews but also I create short-tip podcasts that last about 10 minutes.
My podcast – Let’s Talk Investing – provides a wide range of topics covering business, property, shares and commodities.
Recently, the podcast was connected to my YouTube channel so people who prefer to watch the interview can and those who prefer to listen still have the podcast channel to listen when outdoors or driving.
This is your creative outlet the one where pictures speak volumes about your business.
While I am on this platform, it isn’t one that I use much as writing is more my creative outlet rather than creating images.
Networking has always been a good way to grow a business. You get to meet other entrepreneurs who may or may not want your product or service. However, networking is about building relationships so when a person needs something in the future your name is the first one they think about.
LinkedIn is your online network. It is where you build the relationships.
Like all social media platforms, it takes time to build your audience and followers. LinkedIn offers both a free option and a paid-for option. The paid version helps with ranking and access to people. However, a lot can still be done with the free version.
TikTok
Reels have become the next best way of marketing thanks to the popularity of TikTok. The trend has spread to most of the other social media platforms that are offering reels as part of their service.
Reels are short snippets about a person or their business that last for about 30 seconds.
Think of TikTok as your TV advertisement break.
When you watch a movie or a television program on mainstream television there are usually breaks and adverts are played. These are short ads trying to get their message across in a short time.
Another way TikTok is used is for snippets again think of a trailer for a movie. You get snippets of the movie. Create snippets for your business, product or service and they will be perfect for a TikTok account.
One of my clients uses YouTube as his main business social media platform. He uses TikTok to advertise his YouTube content and drive traffic to YouTube.
Other Platforms Worth Mentioning
Quora – ask a question and get an answer. For best results on this platform engagement and answering questions is how you build your following.
WhatsApp – instant messaging and advertising opportunities. Great for building networks of people interested in your products or services.
Facebook Messenger – used for creating group chats but becoming more and more utilized for paid advertising.
Reddit – for up-to-date news and trends.
Understanding the Basics of Social Media Marketing
Many social media platforms have their nuances, as described above. As an Online Entrepreneur, it is part of the learning curve to understand how each platform operates. Once there is a clear understanding of each platform content can be created and repurposed for each one.
Creating content and advertising in the right format gets you in front of your perfect client. It will also help grow your business presence online with SEO backlinks.
Just a word of caution, no one can build all the social media platforms at once. Find one or two that resonate with you and focus on growing those.
As I previously mentioned, Twitter was my first platform followed by Facebook. I grew an audience of 12k on Twitter and an audience of 7k on my Facebook page. Now I can look at building another social media platform.
The first focus was to get the content right on a platform and find the right clients.
Once this is mastered your business will grow exponentially
