Growth with social media marketing
As our world gets more connected, our phones, laptops and tablets have become a necessary extension in our day to day operations. No longer is social media used for just connecting with friends and family, but instead it’s also being used on a daily basis to build relationships with consumers and creating brand awareness like never before.
After some research and studying, these are the 4 key points that I am finding useful in my own entrepreneurial journey.
I. Personal Growth
One of the most common themes I keep coming across as I dive deeper into entrepreneurship, is that in order to reach your goals you need to understand that as a small business YOU are the brand, culture, and the future of your company. Meaning, the brand that you’re building is entirely based on you and your personal growth alone. One of the most valuable lessons I’m starting to learn and apply is
the importance of investing in yourself. This brings knowledge and value to your own life, but it will also provide the necessary tools to keep growing and branching out your business. Bottom line to grow your business: begin putting yourself in uncomfortable environments modeled to teach you a new lesson, begin studying areas of business you haven’t looked into before, look into what is trending now in today’s market, and take a step back and learn from your consumers. There is an emerging market within the millennial generation with disposable income. These men and women are not driven, motivated, and most importantly engaged in the same ways you are. Study, Learn, Test, Retarget and Repeat.
II. Bring Value
One of the most valuable marketing strategies is word of mouth. This is when your friend, family member, or neighbor gives you their own thoughts and opinions on a service or product they purchased. 88% of the time you will go out and seek said product because you trust their judgement over traditional advertisement. This trust was built on a relationship formed through family relationships, friendships, time invested etc.. As a business, you have the ability to build these same relationships with your clients. When reaching out to your target audience, try to bring them valuable and useful information. Not every Facebook post has to be a sale’s ad. It can simply be you sharing your knowledge about the industry you’re in, bringing value to the guest engaged. This begins building a conversation, rather than a sales pitch. When a potential client values the content of a conversation, it opens the door to the first step of building a relationship between your business and said client. which shows that you’re knowledgeable in your marketplace and that you’ve put in the work to understand your specialty. In time, when a potential customer is seeking a product or service in your industry, they will already know who to seek when it comes to valuable advice, and if you really know your stuff, they won’t hesitate to come to you for your business as well.
III. Reverse Engineering
Gary Vaynerchuk, one of the most successful entrepreneurs of our current time. Probably uses the phrase “Reverse Engineer” probably two or three times before he’s done with his breakfast. This isn’t something new, but it’s something very useful if applied correctly. When it comes to social media marketing knowing where you want to be in a month, six months, a year from now can become quite handy. Once you have your goal defined, all you need to do then is reverse engineer the steps that will get you there. Break down said goal in quantitive benchmarks and track your progress.
So if your goal is to have 1000 likes on your Facebook page in six months, then you must understand that by month 2 you’ll need to be funneling traffic through other social media platforms to said page. That by month 6 you should be closer to 700 members, whom a percentage drives organic fans by sharing your content. This only works because you’ve already spent the first 5.5 months building relationships across all platforms and in your target market. Understanding the value of having a measurable goal will help you keep your sanity through the ups and downs of living in entrepreneurland. So reaching these tangible benchmarks along the way will give you a measurement of success on how you are executing your strategy, and if you can measure your growth you can improve your methods.
IV. Know Your Place
This sounds a bit harsh but the intention is to get you back on the ground with your hands in the dirt. A lot and I mean A LOT of small business today, that have been around for 10, 15, or more years. Are stuck in this mentality, Once you’ve become stablished the market, it will take you in with open arms and keep feeding you business. This is what is going to drown out stubborn business owners, over the next few years. Reality is that the world that we live in today has made it easy for every business to showcase their message, product, or service. This change in communication has made it evident, that the traditional way of marketing is slowly phasing out. Being replaced by mobile social media marketing.
know your place in your current time in business, learn and embrace the social age which currently determines the trends in the market in every single industry. Stop relying on your former education and begin to branch out to new platforms. Ask your kids for help if that’s what it takes, because If you don’t explore it, you’re going to get swallowed up or disappear. Don’t be that business that has a great service or product that had to close it’s doors because your potential millennial client could not find you.
