One of the many hats you likely have to wear as an entrepreneur is a Social Media Manager; we’re no strangers to learning all kinds of roles to keep our businesses going. The Social Media manager role can seem daunting and time consuming, which often leads to putting social media on the back burner.
But here’s the problem with that – social media is a free and effective tool for marketing. Yup, you read it right, you can attract your ideal client and get real leads for free through a simple but thorough social media strategy for your business. Here’s how:
STRATEGY
Having a plan for who you want to attract, the message you want to give them and how to earn their trust is Step 1. These are all things that are the foundation of your brand. Think about the kind of person you love to work with or your favourite customer. Write down their habits, how they spend their time and where they consume content.
Your message (all of your copy) should be cohesive, consistent and should speak to that ideal client. You want to make sure you’re attracting the right people and repelling others. Yup, I guarantee there are people you DON’T want to work with. THAT IS OKAY. So make sure your brand message is on point, and talks to right people.
PLATFORMS
Once you know who you’re speaking to and how you’re speaking to them, you need to figure out where you’re going to do that. Does your customer spent time on Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter? Look at their habits and see where they pull inspiration from. Concentrate your efforts on one or two platforms to post consistent on and avoid stretching yourself too thin.
Learning one platform and learning it well, will go a longer way than dipping your feet and haphazardly posting to all of them. You want your focus to be clear and there are so many free resources you can access or paid courses you can take on each platform.
SCHEDULING
Scheduling apps will be a life saver. However, most social media platforms have algorithms that prefer you post natively to the app rather than using a third party scheduler. This is where you’re going to have to make a decision. Is it worth the loss in engagement to be consistent? I personally don’t have the time to post natively to the apps every day, so the time my scheduler saves me is worth EVERY lost like/repost.
I use the later app. I have the paid membership so I can have multiple accounts since I run a wedding and branding photography business with different ideal clients. If you’re interested, this link will save you some cash OR you can use the free version!
When posting to any social media, the key is consistency. Not only does this manage expectations for your customer, it feeds the algorithm beast happily. The Algorithms all prefer you post three times a week over posting four times in one day every two weeks or so.
When in doubt, reach out to me! I would be more than happy to help you come up with a solid brand strategy to start marketing yourself for free and attract your ideal clients. We are all friends here and I want to make you fall in love with your business.
