This episode goes into depth on what a pre-sales social media consulting call would look like, and with that six ideas to improve your social media that go above and beyond social media.
Key Highlights
[02:04] Importance of Social Proof
[03:10] What Should You Do to Acquire More Followers?
[03:37] Let's First Work on Your Message
[04:24] People Need to Have A Crystal Clear of What You Do When They View Your Website
[05:18] What I Find In A Lot of Startup Businesses
[05:52] Utilizing Your Employee Through Employee Advocacy Program
[06:50] What is Affiliate Marketing
[08:02] Integrating Affiliate Marketing Into Your Website
[08:42] Step #3: Build Your List
[09:35] Step #4: Blog
[10:07] Leveraging the Visual
[11:08] Paid Social
Notable Quotes
- I'd rather have a small army of passionate fans than a large army of crickets.
- And you may see success stories of some companies that were lucky in the right place at the right time had that one special person find their content and share it to their million followers. But for 99.99% of us, that really doesn't happen. If it did happen, it would just be too easy.
- For me, the social media followers, yeah, you can use social media to help amplify your message. But what is your message, let's first work on that.
- And that's why with social media, your websites are more important than ever.
- Once again, instead of trying to have you go against the world, you then as part of your program, begin to do a blogger outreach program or influencer marketing campaign where you start to reach out to people and say, hey, you know, I have a product that I think would be genuinely aligned with what you do for a living, would you be interested in it.
- But genuinely having people promote your product and sharing the wealth with them. And if they believe in your product, they will do that, right.
- All you need is a handful of them in social media that can really help amplify your message in a way that you yourself can't because you're a brand and they're a person, and they already have a loyal following.
- How can I leverage the visual to create a magnet, that's going to be not only more engaging with my readers, but also that I can utilize social media to help draw more people to my content to my presence?
- I'd rather you complement your organic efforts with a little bit of paid, you know, five bucks, 10 bucks, 20 bucks on Facebook, can help you generate a certain amount of results that can help complement everything else that you're doing.
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Welcome to maximize your social actionable 10 minute advice on how your business can maximize your social media presence. Now, the host of maximize your social, social media author, speaker, consultant, founder of maximize social business, and soon to launch Social Media Center of Excellence, Neal Schaffer. Hey, everybody, this is Neal Schaffer, and welcome to a another episode of maximize your social hope you're enjoying this time of the year, it's getting? Well, it's getting cold, even in Southern California, in my home office where I used to be in T shirts and shorts, I am now in a sweatshirt that covers my T shirt. So that gives you an idea that yes, it does get a little bit cold. Although if I look at my home office thermometer, we're still at like 7475 degrees without any heat. So I suppose I should be thankful for that. So today, I want to cover something, obviously, I do a lot of social media consulting and coaching. And for those that I've met in person, hey, you know, let's talk about how I might be able to help you and just sort of do a pre sales call about real easy things that I can see that can help this company or whoever I might be talking to, and I want to share that with you. Because it's funny, when people focus in on the social, sometimes they sort of miss the entire view of their business. And as I always say social media, you know, replaces nothing but complements everything. And because I obviously work in the industry that we call social media, I will get questions that are specifically related to social media. But I want to talk a little bit about how sometimes the answer you're looking for is actually not in social media, although part of it is so let me explain. So this is a situation that a lot of people I talked to were in their startup, or they have a company, and they're a startup in terms of social media. And they're doing stuff organically, but they're just not getting any traction. They understand that part of what social media is good for is social proof that when someone finds a page or you know, a LinkedIn company or Twitter handle, and they have 1000 versus 50 followers, that there's a little bit of social proof attached to that. On the other hand, they don't want to buy their followers because that does them no good, right. You know, as I like to say, I'd rather have a small army of passionate fans than a large army of crickets. And you can imagine for Facebook, how that's really important for your EdgeRank as well. So this is a very, very typical situation of companies that hey, I'll just go out there and social media, I'll just start posting tweeting and, and things will happen. It's the Field of Dreams. And yes, it is the field of dreams in the sense that that's where people are these days. But there's obviously a lot of noise out there. And you may see success stories of some companies that were lucky in the right place at the right time had that one special person find their content and share it to their million followers. But for 99.99% of us, that really doesn't happen. If it did happen, it would just be too easy. And you don't need to hire people like me. So, you know, what can you do? And really, the question that I got, and I get from a lot of people is, you know, what should I be doing in social media where I can acquire more followers? And I take a step back and say, Look, you know, what exactly do you do for a living? What is your business? Do? What are you trying to sell? What is your business model? How do you plan to monetize that traffic you're getting from social media, right? For me, the social media followers, yeah, you can use social media to help amplify your message. But what is your message, let's first work on that. And immediately I saw on the website, they were trying to sell its, I guess you could call it an E commerce, they're trying to sort of sell a service, but it's a service it's never been actually offered. So my initial thing is, I go to the website, I don't understand the service, I need, you know, I need to understand what I'm getting myself into, before I'm gonna sign up for something, or even maybe like even social media, because I don't know what you stand for. I don't know what you're trying to do. And that's really, you know, it's the same thing with a LinkedIn profile, whatever you do on LinkedIn, is going to bring people back to your profile, right? So therefore, your profile should be very, very clear. As to your personal branding, your call to action. You know, what are your strengths? How do you differentiate yourself from everybody else? It is similar way if I go to your website, and I don't have a crystal clear view as to exactly what you do. Even if you're doing something that no one else has done, I need to know. And that's where, you know, I suggested and this is going to be one of the six things I'll talk about today. And I seen a lot of websites, you go to the first page and all they have is a video they just want you to see the video, they want to explain exactly what they do in plain English because they know you're not going to understand otherwise. And if it's a 75 to 92nd video that looks interesting. I find you know I find myself clicking through and looking at and I'm sure seeing how many of these videos I've seen deployed, that it's been a successful ploy Are many companies. So that's really the first thing is have you set yourself up for success, right. And I'm not talking about your social media profiles, I'm talking about your website. And that's why with social media, your websites are more important than ever. Similarly, on LinkedIn, your LinkedIn profile is more important than ever. So let's, you know, let's look at it that way. And what I find that a lot of startups or companies are new and social, is they're so close to the product, that they hadn't thought about that. Right, I'm hopefully assuming you're nodding, and maybe some of us with our own companies. And in the same way, it's only when you ask someone that's unrelated to your company, to get a third party objective opinion. And that's one of the advantages of working with a consultant, you begin to see the light, so to speak. So that's point number one, point number two. In social media, you can be an army of one or you can be an army of 100, or 1000, or a million. If you are a big company, you can utilize your employees as part of an employee advocacy program, to help share the brand awareness or help share you know the message into your company out there to help your company achieve brand awareness or whatever you want to achieve in social. If you are part of an ecosystem, we have a lot of marketing partners, you can find ways to work with your marketing partners to try to, you know, share each other's messages and social media. If you have a bunch of salespeople out there, whether they're working on comp only, or what have you, you can work with them as part of a social selling program to try to get your message out there. What if you have none of those, you're a small startup, you don't have a lot of employees, you don't have a you know, commissioned or non commissioned sales force. You don't have marketing partners, it's you against the world, what do you do, and this is where especially if you have an E commerce product, is where I like to introduce affiliate marketing. Now affiliate marketing is not MLM it is a way of saying, Hey, we have a product that I think would be great for you to help us promote. And if you do it, and you generate sales, we will give you a commission. Everybody is looking to create passive income these days, businesses are trying to do it, people are trying to do it. And a lot of you know, quote, unquote, influencers, people and a lot of social media followers, people that are bloggers do it all the time they do it left and right, Amazon offers an affiliate program, iTunes offers an affiliate program, Barnes and Noble, all of the leading retailers are offering them so it's not going to devalue your brand, if it's done in the right way. But it once again, instead of trying to have you go against the world, you then as part of your program, begin to do a blogger outreach program or influencer marketing campaign where you start to reach out to people and say, hey, you know, I have a product that I think would be genuinely aligned with what you do for a living, would you be interested in it. And there have been lots of companies that have been very, very successful developing this way. Once again, I'm not talking about some sort of MLM pyramid scheme. But genuinely having people promote your product and sharing the wealth with them. And if they believe in your product, they will do that, right. But you know, looking into doing that, it doesn't cost a lot of money to actually integrate an Affiliate Marketing System with your website. It's sort of like integrating PayPal. And there's lots of different affiliate marketing websites out there. So I just think it's a natural thing you should be doing when I launched Social Media Center of Excellence, I plan on having an affiliate component of that, because I think it fits well, with a lot of people. You know, it's a value add to what they promote, and if it helps generate passive income, I mean, look at the worldwide bestseller for our work week. It just goes to show how many people are trying to do that. All you need is a handful of them in social media that can really help amplify your message in a way that you yourself can't because you're a brand and they're a person, and they already have a loyal following. Step number three, email marketing, build a list maintain mindshare. What are people doing when they're on a computer? They are in social media. So you need a social media presence. They are searching, we'll talk about a Google strategy and the reading emails, email marketing. While less effective than I might have used to have been with Google adding these social and promotion tabs is still a great way of maintaining mindshare. I've invested more in email marketing this year with maximize social business. And I think that everybody should be doing it. And you know, one effective way of doing it, if it fits your product is you know, a tip a tip a day, sign up for tip a day, sign up for a tip every week, sign up for three tips every week, you can literally build an auto responder, just spend a day doing it. And immediately you you have an automated marketing funnel that will hopefully bring people back to your website, but at the least maintain mindshare with them in their inbox. Still with me. Let's go to number four. Number four is the blog. How is Google going to find your website? If you only have a few pages, they're not the blog gives you not only the content that's going to help Google index you but it also gives you a voice to have in social media. It also gives you a way of generating backlinks because no one's going to link to your product page unless they're an affiliate, but they will link to your content if it is relevant and is of thought leadership material or resourceful to others, right? Number five, here's where we start talking about the social leveraging the visual, you have to leverage the visual, it is 2000, it's very close to be 2015, you have to figure out a way to include visuals as part of your strategy. And visual, there's a lot that goes into it, there's a lot of work that's required, you know, go to the maximize social business facebook fan page, you're gonna get some clues as to how I do it, and how I've been able to use that to generate engagement to get more hopefully relevant people to like the page. But when I present content now, I'm always thinking visual first, yes, you need a text component for Google. And when you post, you know, a title and description, but how can I leverage the visual to create a magnet, that's going to be not only more engaging with my readers, but also that I can utilize social media to help draw more people to my content to my presence. And finally, paid social when I wrote maximize your social back in early 2013, already saw the paid social was the biggest no brainer and social media marketing, everything I talked about requires a lot of time, there's some automation that you can do. But I'd rather you complement your organic efforts with a little bit of paid, you know, five bucks, 10 bucks, 20 bucks on Facebook, can help you generate a certain amount of results that can help complement everything else that you're doing. And it doesn't have to be Facebook, it can be Twitter, to be LinkedIn, or whatever network but leverage the paid. Even if it's having a budget of $20 a month, I'd rather have you have that and and start a program than not doing anything because it's going to help you get hurt. It's going to help you achieve whatever objective you might have for social media. So my podcasts have actually been going over the 10 minutes that I originally promised you. And I want to deliver on my brand promise, I'm going to try to keep them a lot more tighter, a lot more concise, and therefore not keep going on forever and ever. But hopefully you will appreciate some of these six points that I talked about. Even if one of these points was relevant to your business. I'm really happy. And I hope you can leverage you know, my experience and the conversation that I had with a potential client for your own business. Hey, appreciate all the iTunes ratings, the comments, keep them coming. You want something covered. Think there's a great person that I should interview for the show. Keep those emails come in. You know where to find me on social media. Neal Schaffer, maximize social business, maximize your social Social Media Center of Excellence. I got a lot of brands because I got a lot to say and a lot of experience to share with you. So tune in again next week for another great episode of Maximizer social until then everybody, wherever you are in the world, make it a great, positive, effective social Day. Bye Bye, everybody. Thanks for listening to maximize your social. We appreciate your iTunes subscriptions, ratings and comments. If you would like to appear on this show or recommend content, please contact Neal Schaffer at Neal at maximize your social.com Please also make sure to check out Neil's new community, the Social Media Center of Excellence at social media ce o e.com. Thanks again and make it a social day.