Today’s topic is one that I get a lot of requests for. A lot of coaches and wellness entrepreneurs are overwhelmed by social media, confused by it, or fed up with it.
And if that’s you, if you aren’t really sure how to best use social media for your business, or maybe you’re afraid to make a fool of yourself in front of your friends and family, or maybe you’re wondering what the best practices are for using social media for your business but don’t want to get sucked down an endless rabbit hole and lose a ton of hours in your busy week to managing your social media accounts…then you are definitely going to want to keep reading.
Let’s talk about the do’s and don’ts on social media. I want to show you how to use it the right way for your business: the things you should be doing, the things you shouldn’t be doing, and how to be smart with your social media use.
And I have 9 key tips for you.
By the way, if you’d rather listen than read, here’s where you can tune in to this episode:
Now, before we get started…I want to invite you to my brand new free training, it’s a masterclass I created called: The 4-Part Formula For Replacing Your 9-5 Income With A Coaching Business You Love, and that’s exactly what I teach you, inside the class. I’ll tell you a little more about it at the end of this post, but if you’re keen to check out the details now, head over to https://drkimfoster.com/businesstraining to find out what I’ll be talking about, and how you can reserve your seat.
So let’s dive into today’s topic!
Maybe you’re already a social media pro. Or, maybe you’re reading this because you’re not sure how to use social media the right way.
Maybe you’re already out there promoting yourself and the work you do but it’s taking a lot of your time and you feel like there is a lot of work going into it but not a lot is coming back at you.
That is definitely one of the biggest complaints I hear from people. They’re spending a lot of time on social media, creating content, and trying to get some traction, but it’s not resulting in more clients and money in their business.
So I want to give you some very specific tips and tricks you can implement immediately in your business and help you save time and massively boost the effectiveness of your social media efforts.
TIP #1: FOCUS ON 1-2 PLATFORMS IN THE BEGINNING
The first DO is to only focus on one or two platforms at first. Two tops, really.
When you get more streamlined with your social media strategy then sure, you definitely want to repurpose and cross-purpose your content to a variety of platforms, but in the beginning, that is totally overwhelming, and there’s no way, if you are a solopreneur, you can manage that.
I repurpose all my content on a variety of platforms, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Youtube…but I did NOT start out that way. AND I have an absolutely fabulous social media manager who helps me with all those tasks. She is the best. Her name is Shaida, and by the way, if you’re thinking of hiring someone to help you manage your social media, then I definitely recommend reaching out to her. I’ll put her contact info below in the resources!
Expanding your reach is certainly a goal for entrepreneurs and coaches, because it can lead to more clients and more sales. So it’s tempting to apply that logic to wanting to be on EVERY social media platform ever created. However, the real question to ask yourself before signing up for every platform out there is: where is my ideal client hanging out?
Identify your ideal client and find out where they hang out. Those are the platforms you should use. Plus, it’s too difficult, in the beginning, to properly engage on too many platforms. You’ll be spreading yourself too thin. Choose the most strategic platform–just 1 or 2–and really master it.
TIP #2: SHARE PERSONAL STORIES
Tip Number Two is to share personal stories of your own life, and insights into your lifestyle. When you market your business including personal pieces of your own business, your own life, it’s much more authentic, and real, and creates a much better connection.
You want people to follow you because they’re interested in what you’re doing so share your personal life, share stuff about your kids if you’re comfortable doing that, share things about your daily routines….it doesn’t matter what your niche is, this really works to help people get to know you.
You get to make the rules in terms of exactly how MUCH you share, and what pieces of you you put out there, and what parts of your life you get to keep in what I call your Secret Garden. I mean, there are aspects of my life that I choose not to make public. And that’s my call. I get to maintain my Secret Garden, and I get to decide. I also get to decide what I want to share and be visible about, and even be vulnerable about. It’s a good thing. But you get to decide for you.
TIP #3: ALWAYS HAVE A CALL TO ACTION
The next tip I have for you in social media is to have a consistent call to action. When you put out a consistent call to action, that means that people will go to the next step with you, and enter your funnel, and enter that client journey….which is what it’s all about. Doing this will really help you feel like your time on social media has a purpose…instead of just a huge time suck.
Now, I realize I used the word “funnel” there, and if you don’t know what I’m talking about or you don’t really know how to set up a funnel, then that’s okay. I’ll be doing a future podcast episode on the concept of funnels, down the road, so stay tuned, but in the meantime, you just want to be sure that you’re bringing people into your world with a call to action.
A call to action might be “go ahead and download my free guide” or an invitation to watch your webinar, or to join your facebook group, or any number of other ways you can further that relationship, nurture them, and bring them along that journey.
Basically, you always want to give people a Next Step so you can capture their information and later on have a chance at converting them into paying clients.
TIP #4: BE CONSISTENT
The next tip is to be consistent, no matter what. I totally get it, it’s very discouraging to be posting on social media, and to get crickets. No engagement, or likes, or comments, and you feel like nobody is actually watching or reading anything.
But it’s really crucial to play a long game here, and to be consistent. This is not a sprint, it’s a bit of a marathon. And social media platforms are set up so they monitor your activity, the algorithm pays attention to how consistent you are being there, and they are evaluating how valuable you are on their platform.
The first time you post something, you don’t get any engagement. That’s okay, do it again. What I don’t want you to do is post, and then get little response and then say “Oh, social media doesn’t work.” Because that’s not a realistic expectation, to get a positive response in the beginning. It’s over time, when you’re showing up regularly—even when you feel like nobody is watching or paying attention—and over time you will start to grow.
When the social media platform sees that you are a content creator and that you are adding value consistently the algorithm will push your content up, more people will see your stuff, and over time, more engagement will happen.
TIP #5: ENGAGE
The next tip is something you can easily do every time you put new content on social media and that is to come back to your content over the next couple of hours or even days after you post it.
Again, your success on social media comes from engagement, and comments, and Likes and shares. So when you’re putting content out there and somebody comments on it, reply to them.
Ask questions in the comments, try to push your content up over time and even ask people to comment below your post or your video
You might put out a post that says what do you think about this topic — do you agree or disagree? Or maybe you might want to create a poll. People love to chime in and give their opinion.
Try to create engagement and ask people to interact with your content, share a comment and like it, which means your stuff will be seen by a lot more people over time. But definitely be sure that whenever you put social media content out there you come back later to answer questions.
TIP #6: PREPARE & PLAN AHEAD
I am not great at posting or engaging on social media on the fly, or in the middle of my day. So I really find it works for me to plan a lot of it ahead of time.
Carve out a chunk of time when you’re going to just brainstorm a bunch of posts of topics, and create a bank of posts for yourself that you can then drip out over time. Think about all the topics you could be writing about or posting about and categorize them into two different categories.
Category number one is your lifestyle stuff, more personal, behind the scenes things, and category number two is your how-tos, like pieces of advice or info or content that’s more educational and service-oriented in nature. Come up with a list of at least 10 how tos and at least 10 lifestyle pieces that you can pick and choose from and put your social media content together.
TIP #7: DON’T SPAM PEOPLE
This tip is a DON’T. The number one DO NOT DO on social media is to spam people. This should go without saying but there are still people out there who spam on social media. Don’t message random people with cut & paste messages that are super salesy in nature. It’s tacky, it’s obvious, and nobody likes it.
Along the same lines, don’t mass tag people in an effort to get more people to see your post. I’ve seen a lot more of this happening recently, and I’m sure some people would argue with me that it’s really effective, but I just don’t love it. It’s too aggressive for my taste, and after a while just gets really annoying. There’s nothing wrong with tagging a couple of friends, or people who are actually in your post or if you truly want someone to see something specific, but don’t tag a huge list of people who have nothing to do with your content.
The consequences of spamming and mass tagging and just being really aggressive and salesy on social is that your reputation will suffer, people will unfriend or block you, or leave your group, and it just leaves a bad taste in people’s mouths. Your reputation is worth more than that, so don’t do it.
TIP #8: DON’T PRESSURE YOURSELF TO POST EVERY DAY
The next thing you don’t want to do on social media is to pressure yourself to put content out there every single day. What I have learned is that quality is the most important thing on social media.
Again the social media engines look for engagement. They look for quality. They want to see how many people like your post, how many people comment on it and when you create content really think about adding value and choose quality over quantity. That’s also good news for you because it lets you off the hook a little bit and allows you to post only when you feel truly inspired.
TIP #9: LIMIT YOUR TIME ON SOCIAL MEDIA
And the last tip I have for you and a big don’t, and it’s to not let social media suck you in. What you want to realize about social media is that many people use it as a way to promote themselves and it’s not real.
It’s a highlight reel.
Protect your mindset and your energy, don’t fall into the “compare and despair” trap.
When you’re spending a lot of time on social reading posts and consuming all this information it can really derail you and distract you from your own goals. Not to mention waste a ton of time.
Do yourself a favor: get in, do what you need to do, and then get out. Live in the real world, be present in your real life, and preserve your mental state.
And now I would love to hear from you! Do you love social media? do you hate it? What has been preventing you from using social media effectively for your business. Come find me on Facebook or Instagram, and let’s have a conversation. Better yet, I would love it if you would take a screenshot of this episode, and share it in your stories, tag me, and let’s chat!
Okay, so as promised, let me tell you a little about my free online training. As I said, it’s called: The 4-Part Formula For Replacing Your 9-5 Income With A Coaching Business You Love.
In the training, I’ll be teaching you:
- my system for how you can establish a profitable online coaching business.
- the 3 biggest mistakes that I see coaches make that stop them from building a successful business and gaining clients online.
- the 4 exact steps you need to create a profitable business that will replace your 9-5 income…without spending all day on social media or posting endless pretty pictures on Instagram.
And I’ve got plenty of case studies of my clients and exactly how they were able to position themselves as experts in just 3 months, even if they were in the beginning and completely unknown.
So if you have big dreams of building an online coaching business, and you’ve been trying to piece everything together on your own and would love a proven framework and process…then this training is completely for you.
You can register for free right here and then choose from a couple of different times to attend the online training (whatever works best for you)!
Resources & Links:
- Shaida Rabie (my amazing social media manager)
- The 4-Part Formula For Replacing Your 9-5 Income With A Coaching Business You Love (my free training)
- Business Academy for Coaches
- Health Coach Squad (my free Facebook Group)
- The best platform for your coaching practice: Practice Better
- The landing page program I recommend: Leadpages
- The email marketing system I recommend: ConvertKit
- 3 Ways To Get New Clients (my free guide): drkimfoster.com/getnewclients
N.B. some links are affiliate links.
3 Ways To Win New Clients This Week
Subscribe Links:
