I'm pretty passionate about helping people build their businesses - there's nothing more rewarding than seeing someone turn their dream into a reality and being part of that journey with them.
I'm also hella passionate about communications and social media - so quite naturally I've been gravitating towards doing social media education, and have done a bunch of one on one sessions, and workshop style sessions lately which I'm loving!
The world of social media can be pretty intimidating for someone starting a business, with all the different channels that exist these days - often I find the clients that come to me are scared into a space of stuckness just because they're so overwhelmed. SO I always break it down to the most basic but most important level that we should all be focussing on.
I'm about to tell you the SECRET to social media, are you ready? Get your note taking devices poised!!
Social media is about BUILDING RELATIONSHIPS. In fact BUILDING BUSINESSES is about BUILDING RELATIONSHIPS, and social media is a TOOL to do this.
Let me explain - to get more business, the most powerful thing you can do is to HAVE MORE CONVERSATIONS with people about your business, and social media is a tool that allows us to dramatically boost the amount of conversations we have with people.
But the key words here are RELATIONSHIPS and CONVERSATIONS.
All too often I see businesses trying to use social media to, sell, sell, sell! If I met you in the street and you tried to sell to me straight away, I'd be pretty turned off by that and would probably have a pretty negative view of your company right? So why are you doing exactly that online?
The marketplace of social media is so flooded now and consumers/users are very careful with what pages they like and give their attention to as a result. If I stumble across a new page, I want to know what benefits I'm going to get from that page, and will decide whether to follow it based on the return I get for giving it attention. Therefore I'm looking to see if that company is 'like-minded' and is going to 'add value' to me in some way.
1) Talk to your followers like they're the people they are! Sometimes because we're sitting behind a screen it's easy to forget that all the likes and comments on your social media are actual PEOPLE who have their own lives, interests, passions and challenges - chat to them about this stuff!
2) Build relationships first - don't jump straight into 'sell' mode! People you've built long lasting relationships with will already want to buy your product/service to support you and it will be a much more positive and long lasting transaction than one they feel they've been forced to make.
3) Be a real human/brand and be relatable - it's the only way you'll stand out in the online marketplace these days!
