How To Grow Your Business On Social Media

Blog

Dec 31

Do you have a small business you want to grow online but are struggling to get found by your ideal audience?

Are you confused by social media? Do you post and post on social media but find that only a small group of the same people, mostly family and friends, are engaging with your content?

Are you growing followers on social media, but none of them are buying?

As a business owner myself, let me tell you, I can totally relate.

But before we jump into all things social media, we need to start with the foundation of all marketing, no matter what the platform.

Step 1 To Grow On Social Media: Understand Your Brand

Before you start marketing your business online, get out a pen and paper and write down some business branding basics. This might seem trivial but, trust me, when it comes to messaging, it is so much easier to create content and so much clearer to communicate your message when you are coming from the right place.

What is the mission of your business? What are the business values? If your audience could summarize how they feel about your company, what would they say currently? What do you want them to say about your company?

Write down some adjectives that you want your company to be seen as “relatable, professional, trust-worthy, bold, fun, out-of-the-box, creative, innovative, stable, etc.”

Keeping these values, keywords, and mission front of your mind will help you stay clear and focused on what content you create for your brand.

Step 2: Understand Your Audience

Before marketing your business it is vital to understand your unique audience. This can be referred to as your ideal client or ideal audience. Businesses that try to reach everyone fail to reach the individual. You communicate to the heart of the person and thus make no connection.

Get really specific with the small group of people you help.

Step 3: Give People A Reason To Follow You

When creating content, remember to keep your ideal audience in mind. Create content that brings them value. This is where knowing your audience's pain points and what they are looking for help in your marketing.

You can be entertaining, informative, inspiring, educational, funny, smart, artistic and inspirational.

Step 4: Know How Each Social Media Platform works

Social media is not a one-size fits all solution. Each platform has a different culture and different algorithm. Find out where your ideal audience hangs out and focus on that one platform. You don’t need to be on all of them.

Facebook is ideal for building relationships, ideally within groups. You can generate leads through building relationships in these groups or create your own group. Instagram is great for inspiration, education and entertainment. It’s a little harder to build relationships on Instagram but great to get found by new leads. LinkedIn is perfect for B2B (Business to Business) relationships and making business connections. TikTok is no longer the dancing app from 2020. TikTok is quickly becoming a great way for businesses to find new leads and build relationships at the same time.

In the beginning of marketing and putting my business on Facebook, I quickly became frustrated. It seemed that no matter what I did to attract my ideal audience, only my immediate family or tight circle of friends were seeing my posts.

I took classes in how to grow on Facebook and Instagram. I was a good student and did ALL the things I was taught. After 2 years of trying to gain new leads on Facebook and Instagram, I had to face the hard truth. I had officially made zero sales from social media.

Yikes.

It’s hard to argue with numbers. I knew I needed to pivot.

First, I decided to learn a more tried and true way of marketing my business. I learned about blogging, SEO, and Pinterest. Within just a couple of months of implementing my new skills, I had my first viral blog post via Pinterest. A particular post brought in 6,000 monthly viewers to my website. That one blog post continued to bring in visitors to my website steadily over the next 3 years and still does to this day.

Creating a funnel to turn followers into customers:

Now, before you put time and energy into creating social media posts, make sure you are creating a “funnel” system for your followers. The entire point of posting on social media for your business is to grow your business.

Think of social media as your advertising strategy but you need a home for your leads to come to where they can find more information and actually purchase from you. A blog on your own website will allow you to create content that can get found in Google Search. You’ll build authority with your audience with a blog and be seen as an expert as well as gain authority with Google. Your blog is also where you can grow your audience by capturing them onto an email list. You don’t want your leads to visit once and never come back again. An email list allows you to stay in contact with your leads. Studies show that conversion rates on emails are around 3% whereas social media has about a .5% conversion rate. So, your blog and email system is priority to setup before you start bringing in leads.

Go check out my other blog post on how to use a blog to get found in Google

This blog post on “Why you need a lead magnet”