The Solopreneur Social Media Checklist?

90 percent of businesses say social media is crucial to their marketing. But the point is, are you doing yours right?

Related Article: Your Image Based Social Media Impact?

In a world where (according to an Adweek study), over 90 percent of businesses say social media is crucial to their overall marketing strategies, solopreneurs arguably have the most to gain and lose via social networks.

Sure, those platforms often have a reputation for being total time-sinks or wastelands of marketing ROI. But savvy solopreneurs understand how to use platforms like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter to spread the word about their businesses. In many cases, these same solopreneurs are growing those businesses and bottom lines without spending a dime.

But, when you're using social media to pursue networking opportunities or seal the deal with new customers, how do you know whether you're using your time wisely or merely spinning your wheels?

Fear not. The following checklist is a guide for solopreneurs looking to pinpoint their social strategy and use their time on these platforms wisely, to build their investment in their business.

Related Article: The Art Of Winning Social Media Conversions?

1. Pick A Primary Channel

Simply put, you need to decide on a single social channel that's going to command most of your attention. That's not to say you can't focus on both Facebook and Instagram, for example, but trying to be in multiple places at once will inevitably burn you out.

For many solopreneurs in the B2B space, Facebook is the number one channel to focus your efforts. There's a good chance that your clients and customers are already connected to the platform in some way, shape or form, especially considering that users spend an average of 50 minutes on Facebook per day.

Niche businesses, however, are booming on Instagram, especially those within B2C industries such as fashion and beauty. Growing and monetizing Instagram followers is arguably easier than ever; meanwhile, Instagram has one of the highest average order values via ecommerce, at $65 per order.

When in doubt, you can pick your primary channel by answering one simple question: "Where are my clients and customers hanging out?" If there's a clear answer, then you know where to start.

Related Article: The Social Media Platform For YOUR Business?

2. Don't Spread Yourself Too Thin

Despite popular belief, you don't need to be active on each and every social site. In fact, there are no "must-have" networks for solopreneurs, truth be told.

But, think about it: There's absolutely no way you can effectively manage a presence simultaneously on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and LinkedIn by yourself. If you try, you'll neglect at least half of your social sites.

Solopreneurs have two options when it comes to attacking the various social channels available.

• Pick a primary channel coupled with one or two secondary channels (for example, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn).
• Focus on a primary channel while using a social automation solution to help push content and maintain a presence on secondary channels

For example, apps such as Buffer and Sprout Social allow solopreneurs to curate and queue content to their social network of choice without lifting a finger. While such solutions do require a monetary investment, they allow your brand to be in multiple places at once, so to speak.

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3. Never Stop Networking

The old adage, "Always be prospecting," rings incredibly true for today's solopreneurs on social media. There are seemingly endless opportunities to connect with new clients, win over customers and share your business's content all at once.

Private Facebook groups based around your industry represent potential gold mines of new business. Likewise, sites such as LinkedIn put you on the same level as CEOs and industry bigwigs.

4. Position Yourself As An Influencer

Oftentimes, making yourself heard via social media means playing the role of a bigwig yourself. By positioning yourself as an influencer, you grow your authority within your niche and make yourself more attractive to potential clients and customers.

Related Article: The 30 Top Social Media Influencers?

Some smart yet simple positioning strategies on social media include:

• Thoughtfully responding to questions and comments on industry-related Facebook or LinkedIn groups
• Republishing your own content to the various social channels, including LinkedIn's own publishing platform
• Regularly commenting on the updates of major players in your industry, showing that you've got the chops to be a bigger player yourself

Any combination of these strategies not only puts your name out there, but also publicly displays your commitment to your industry.

5. Look For Opportunities To Curate Social Proof

Especially if you're a new solopreneur, social media represents a great place to curate social proof on behalf of your business.

Ever leave a comment that got tons of positive feedback? Created pieces of content that just about went viral? Have clients who've given you a digital "thumbs up" or a public "thank you" via social?

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If so, you can use such social proof as a way to seal the deal with future clients and customers.

By highlighting your positive social experiences either on site or throughout your marketing materials, you can break down the trust barrier for any skeptics who may not think you're the real deal.

6. Professional Imagery Goes A Long Way

This point is crucial but so easy to ignore: Something as simple as your professional headshot can make all the difference when it comes to networking via social media.

If you want to be taken seriously, present yourself accordingly. Bathroom selfies and party pics aren't going to cut it if you really want to make an impression on your audience.

Related Article: Your Image Based Social Media Impact?

7. Don't Let Your Profiles Gather Cobwebs

Finally, don't let your social presence fall to the wayside. Period. Consistency is key to gaining followers and traction via social: The more you post, the more you will grow an audience that's hungry for what you have to say.

On the flip side, if a certain channel is netting you absolutely no engagement, don't be afraid to cut it loose for the sake of your time and energy.

Today's solopreneurs are living and dying by their social presence. By sticking to this checklist, you can save yourself from scrambling for a social strategy and focus on what really matters: growing your business.

Guest Authored By Nathan Chan. Nathan is the publisher of Foundr Magazine, a digital magazine for young, aspiring and novice stage entrepreneurs. He has had the pleasure of interviewing rock star business leaders to find out what it takes to become a successful entrepreneur. Follow Nathan on Twitter.

Related Article: YOUR Social Media Platform Persona?

“Today's solopreneurs are living and dying by their social presence.

By sticking to this checklist, you can save yourself from scrambling for a social strategy and focus on what really matters:

Growing your business..”

• 

  Authored by:

  Fred Hansen Pied Piper of Social Media Marketing at YourWorldBrand.com & CEO of Millennium 7 Publishing Co. in Loveland, Colorado. I work deep in the trenches of social media strategy, community management and trends.  My interests include; online business educator, social media marketing, new marketing technology, skiing, hunting, fishing and The Rolling Stones..-Not necessarily in that order ;)

Media Company Social Media?

For years, ad execs and editors at major publishing houses ferociously resisted any sort of relationship with influencers.

And yet, over the past 18 months, we've seen the exact opposite happen: Publishers are now embracing influencer marketing and integrating influencers into their advertising and editorial operations in a big way.

Related Article: YOUR Social Media 2.5 Billion User Reach?

Publishers ranging from Hearst to Conde Nast to Univision (full disclosure: Hearst and Univision are partners of Reelio's) and many more are now embracing influencers, and you shouldn't expect the magnetism to stop anytime soon.

So what flipped? What was the original orientation that created such resistance between the two parties, and what is the new orientation that is generating such pull? From my perspective, after hundreds of conversations with dozens of publishing executives over the past several years, the single biggest shift has been that publishers have moved away from an orientation of quality to an orientation of scale. In other words, publishers have stopped seeing influencers as content creators who can't pass editorial muster at Cosmopolitan and Esquire and started seeing them as scaled distribution channels, ripe for monetization.

Contributor Models Help Media Companies Keep Up With the Never-Ending Content Cycle

Advertisers care about engaged audiences. This puts media companies in a position where they must produce enough relevant content to draw attention and keep up with traffic and to ensure that the content earns a high watch or read time. The pressure is on to fulfill quantity and quality demands. Whereas influencers initially didn't meet media companies" quality standards, those companies eventually realized that they themselves were incapable of meeting their audience's quantity standards.

Related Article: YOUR Marketing As Good As YOUR Content?

In today's content-saturated world, producing sufficient content flow can be difficult.

In order to maintain an influx of readers, many media companies have chosen to adopt a contributor model that relies upon influencers to create content for the publication. In fact, Forbes has built a contributor base where content creators, who have their own individual audiences, are writing content for Forbes and bringing their audiences with them. By doing so, Forbes doubled their audience. While this contributor model is text-based, it can be applied to any kind of media and platform.

And more content leads us to higher watch/read time, a statistic that lots of advertisers care about. User-generated content in influencer marketing is proven to generate, on average, seven times the watch time -- of content created by advertisers themselves.

Surprisingly, media companies found that it is through the sheer volume of that content contributor models generate that enables them to create quality content that maximizes watch time. The more experimental content you publish on your site, the more data you'll have around what is retaining audience's attention and what isn't. But of course, once you create the content, then you have to distribute it, and that's where influencers" value to media companies is most important.

Related Article: Successful Social Media Content Marketing?

Influencers Provide Additional Scaled Distribution Channels With Incredible Economic Value

Media companies are more than just the content they create. They also provide the channels through which that content is distributed. Today, that power has been eroded. And the channels through which media companies distribute content are no longer ones that they own or control. The previous dynamic was to fight this shift. Now they're embracing it.

When you start to think of influencers as not only sources of content, but also as viable distribution channels themselves, then the win-win relationship between media companies (with their massive archives of owned content and other intellectual property like characters, brands, etc.) and influencers becomes even clearer.

Not only are content contributors more likely to republish the content they make for these media companies on their own channels, but the content they create can be used for various distribution efforts and see a better return on distribution.

Machine Zone, for example, used gaming influencers to create content around their new app and then used the YouTube video that had the highest watch time in a television commercial.

It's a simple answer to the question of efficiency. Why try to produce higher watch time/read times on your own instead of using content creators who are already maximizing watch time/read time on the content they're producing?

Related Article: Influencing The Social Media Influencers?

Repurposing Old Content And Leveraging Intellectual Property Also Helps Media Companies Scale

Content creators don't always have to produce entirely original content either. Once you find a theme that has stuck with an audience (by looking at great watch time rates), content creators can work with it to remix and redistribute. This is a bit different than just re-sharing content.

On a large scale, how do you re-engage new audiences with <em>Star Wars, a well-known classic? And how do you get more viewers to jump on the newest season Game of Thrones? You repurpose licensed content and distribute.

Media companies (sports networks and entertainment companies in particular) are remixing and leveraging intellectual content to drive more audiences. Take, for example, HBO's Game of Thrones Beginner's Guide video. The idea is to catch up new interested viewers quickly and easily using the original licensed content.

Related Article: YOUR Social Media Content Creation Career?

And it's successful. One comment reads "I didn't know I needed this in my life - but now I do." You can assume this led to a lot more viewers trying out the show.

The YouTube channel Bad Lip Reading is also a good example of the engagement that can strike when licensed content is repurposed.

The folks behind Bad Lip Reading are content creators, and franchises like Star Wars and the NFL have both earned shares, likes and comments from old and new fans alike on a remix of the licensed content -- and earned coverage on other sites like SB Nation. That's how you keep relevancy.

Publishers are embracing influencer marketing and influencers into their advertising and editorial operations in a big way, and you shouldn’t expect the magnetism to stop anytime soon.

Guest Authored By Pete Borum. Pete is the Co-Founder, CEO of Reelio, a data driven influencer marketing platform that connects brands to the right influencers. Follow Pete on Twitter.

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“If you're a media company, a diverse content creator pool can lead to more content that's more relevant to your audience, more distribution and ultimately more engagement.

And that's a recipe that will make any advertiser happy.." -Pete Borum

• 

  Authored by:

  Fred Hansen Pied Piper of Social Media Marketing at YourWorldBrand.com & CEO of Millennium 7 Publishing Co. in Loveland, Colorado. I work deep in the trenches of social media strategy, community management and trends.  My interests include; online business educator, social media marketing, new marketing technology, skiing, hunting, fishing and The Rolling Stones..-Not necessarily in that order ;)

The Economy Influenced By Social Media?

How does social media influence the economy?

Challenging question to answer, because I think it’s a very complex relationship in a lot of ways..

Here’s a few nuggets that I think help put it in perspective:

1. Democratization of information

Before social media, you had to pay to get out information about your business. Now, every person and company is its own media brand - and there are significantly less barriers to reaching people.

This has allowed smaller brands to gain a foothold in the market much easier. When we see trends like craft beer, food trucks, and local fashion, that is often the result of harnessing social media platforms to build a following in a cost effective way.

Prior to smartphone and social adoption, it was much more difficult (and expensive) to reach people, especially if your location wasn’t on a main street. One or two small businesses isn’t enough to worry a big brand, but millions of them around the country can make a serious dent in their market share.

Related Article: The Exponential Growth Of Social Media?

Beer is the perfect example:

2. Platform Economy

Social media is deeply linked to a series of platforms (Facebook, LinkedIn, Youtube, etc.) that control distribution. They are the plumbing that allows (or doesn’t allow) content to spread.

This has disrupted the traditional advertising model, and these platforms have become some of the world’s biggest companies by market capitalization as a result.

Facebook and Google, for example, control almost 60% of all online media spend now:

Related Article: YOUR Social Media 2.5 Billion User Reach?

And as a result, they have passed traditional leaders in market valuation.

Related Article: Social Media Defied By Facebook?

3. New Ecosystems

Even though the platforms are dominating, they also provide a whole new ecosystem for entrepreneurs to build off of.

Here’s a chart of the social media universe. It’s quite big so go here to see a larger version.

Related Article: YOUR Social Media China Marketing?

Guest Authored By Jeff Desjardins. Jeff is Founder and Editor-in-Chief at Visual Capitalist. Visual Capitalist creates powerful visuals to explain the world of business. One of the fastest growing media companies in the world, quoted on Business Insider, Forbes, Marketwatch, The Huffington Post, The World Economic Forum, and Fast Company. Follow Jeff on Twitter.

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"Social media is deeply linked to a series of platforms (Facebook, LinkedIn, Youtube, etc.) that control distribution. They are the plumbing that allows (or doesn’t allow) content to spread.

This has disrupted the traditional advertising model, and these platforms have become some of the world’s biggest companies by market capitalization as a result.

Facebook and Google, for example, control almost 60% of all online media spend now.."

• 

  Authored by:

  Fred Hansen Pied Piper of Social Media Marketing at YourWorldBrand.com & CEO of Millennium 7 Publishing Co. in Loveland, Colorado. I work deep in the trenches of social media strategy, community management and trends.  My interests include; online business educator, social media marketing, new marketing technology, skiing, hunting, fishing and The Rolling Stones..-Not necessarily in that order ;)