Using Social Media To Market Yourself?

One of the most common questions I get asked is how business owners can use social media to market themselves..

Related Article: YOUR Social Media Podcast Traffic?

There seems to be a lot of information out there, in terms of how to use social media to market yourself.

With new tools being made available all the time, and older tools acquiring new features (I’m looking at you Instagram!), it’s enough to make anyone’s head spin.

Related Article: Instagram For YOUR Small Business?

The good news is, you can use social media in small ways to market yourself. At the end of the day, it’s a whole lot of little actions that can add up over time in a big way. Keep that in mind, as you implement social media using these simple, small tactics:

1. Show Behind-the-Scenes

Do you want to know what audiences on social media love? Behind-the-scenes content! I’m serious—they eat it up!

I’m going to go out on a limb here, and assume that the reason why behind-the-scenes content is so popular is because we crave to see public figures and businesses that are willing to pull back the curtain and show us their real lives. In the intangible yet constantly connected digital world, we ironically crave to make real connections.

Related Article: Social Media Personal Brand Building?

One of the ways you can do this is by using the Stories feature on Instagram or Snapchat (if you’re still into it). For example, I make short videos, where I explain marketing concepts as I’m working on them. This gives a behind-the-scenes look into my business as well as provides value for social media followers. It doesn’t take a whole lot to do this either; the videos are literally 10 seconds long. It’s simply a matter of remembering to do it.

2. Live-stream While You're Working

A few days ago, I was interviewing the founder of a local meetup group for freelancers for my podcast. I posted about it on Instagram, and I instantly received requests to live-stream the interview. Since the people asked for it, we gave it to them.

It ended up being an excellent idea. Not only did I show viewers how I set up for a podcast interview (that’s the behind-the-scenes stuff I was talking about above), we also took live questions from the audience while I was recording. This was a hit—and all we had to do was fire-up Instagram and start recording a live video of something we were already doing anyway!

Related Article: YOUR Social Media Podcast Traffic?

So, rather than trying to invent new content all the time, you can use social media to show people what you’re already up to.

3. Share Wins

Another small way you can use social media is to share wins with your audience, as they happen in real-time. Did you get featured in the press? Snap a picture of the article and post it on social. Did you hit a new milestone? Post about it on Facebook. Did a client text you an amazing testimonial? Ask them for permission to use it, take a screenshot of it, and put it on Instagram.

Guest Authored By Amanda Abella. Amanda is a full-time writer who specializes in online business and finance. She's also an online business coach and the Amazon best-selling author of Make Money Your Honey. Follow Amanda on Twitter.

Related Article: Becoming A Social Media Rockstar?

The Bottom Line

It’s not difficult to use social media to market yourself, if you remember that it’s all about small actions adding up over time.

Using social media in some of the aforementioned ways can help you take things one step at a time and eliminate any potential for becoming overwhelmed..

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  Authored by:

  Fred Hansen Pied Piper of Social Media Marketing at GetMoreHere.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 ;)

Social Media Tools YOU Really Need?

There's no shortage of social media tools and apps designed to make your life as a social media manager easier..

Jayson DeMers recently wrote a list on some of his favorites, and personally, I know I'd be lost without some of them..

Related Article: Publishing Your Book On Social Media?

Almost every app promises to improve the ROI of your campaign -- or at least cut a few hours' worth of tasks off your plate -- but most apps offer overlapping functionality, and almost all of them cost a monthly fee to use.

If these tools were free and easy to navigate, you could maintain a long list of them for planning and executing your campaign, but at some point, you can have too many; and should that happen, not only will your monthly bills be outrageous, you'll also get a headache from trying to navigate all of those different interfaces.

So, how many social media tools do you really need to be successful? - Achieving the basics..

First, make sure your tools have the capacity to cover your basic social media needs. It's possible to run an entire campaign with no extra tools whatsoever, but I'd argue that those main areas are lifesavers, and are borderline necessary to make a campaign successful.

Related Article: YOUR Offline Business Social Media?

Plugins and Integrations

First, set up some automatic processes. Find a plugin like Social Warfare, which will let you publish all your new posts to your social media profiles automatically, and give your online readers the chance to share your material to their own personal profiles. These functions are important because, once installed, they won't cause you any worries -- and most of them are fairly inexpensive.

Analytics

Next, you'll need a strong, reliable way to measure your campaign's impact. Most social platforms like Facebook and Twitter already offer campaign insights, even if you don't pay for advertising, but most social marketers should strive for a little more depth and specificity.

Google Analytics is a good start here, but a dedicated social media analytics platform like Sprout Social will be able to provide you with more platform-specific insights.

Related Article: YOUR Social Media Success Metric?

You'll be doing a lot of posting on your social apps (at least, if you want your following to remain active and interested), and that’s a tall order for even the most dedicated social media manager. Using a publishing and scheduling app, though, will help you keep track of everything you post, and more importantly, help keep your publication consistent, even when you aren't actively on the site. Hootsuite and Buffer are two of the biggest names here, and they both offer a host of other features.

Related Article: Publishing Your Book On Social Media?

Specific Considerations

Depending on the size and nature of your business, and the goals of your campaign, you may have more niche-specific needs:

Collaboration and Management

If you have a large team, or you intend to post many times throughout the day, you'll need at least one tool that allows your team to coordinate. You should be able to delegate tasks, monitor progress and communicate with one other about the scheduling of posts, responses to customers' messages' and new developments.

Social Listening and Discovery

Part of building an active following is understanding what makes your followers tick. If you want to spend more time getting to know your customers, a social-listening and discovery app can help you do it. An app here will help you choose the right topics, jump on up-and-coming trends' and even identify influencers to leverage as part of your campaign. Social Mention and BuzzSumo are strong examples here.

Related Article: Shut Up And Listen Social Media?

Recommendations

If you're new to the social-media marketing world, or if you don't have the money to hire a professional, an app that gives you custom recommendations is essential. Such an app can help you catch typos, more easily identify trends in your analytics reports, and maybe even provide you with strategic direction. However, going with an agency or consultant will likely pay off better in the long run here.

These aren't the only niche applications you can consider, but they are some of the most common.

The Case For Minimalism

Most social media tools and apps offer multiple functions simultaneously, specializing in different areas. However, I personally advise you to enlist the help of as few tools as possible. There are several advantages to this minimalistic approach:

Cost

For starters, you'll pay far less money every month for a smaller circle of apps. With most tools charging anywhere from a few dollars to hundreds of dollars per user per month, you could save thousands of dollars a year by consolidating.

Practicality and Time

Training new people and managing your daily tasks are both much easier when you have only a few apps to worry about. Trying to keep track of dozens at once is exhausting.

Consistency

With less overlap in functionality, your employees will be able to perform their tasks more consistently, which is good if you want to learn and improve your campaign over time.

Related Article: Your Consistent Brand Presence?

Dependency

Finally, relying on lots of tools can make you lose focus of what really counts in social media -- interaction and audience-building. Keep your campaign personal, and avoid the temptation to automate everything.

So, how many social media tools do you really need? That depends on the size and nature of your campaign, but realistically, most businesses should be able to get by with one or two. As long as you have all the basics covered, you'll be in good shape; and remember: You can always add more or make a swap if you find yourself missing a key ingredient.

Focus on the fundamentals first, and build from there, as the voice and direction of your campaign matter far more to its eventual success than the tools you use to execute them.

Guest Authored By Jayson DeMers. Jayson is Founder and CEO of AudienceBloom. He "de-mystifys SEO and online marketing for business owners." Jayson graduated from the University of Washington in 2008 with a degree in Business Administration (Marketing), and immediately entered the professional online marketing world. He founded AudienceBloom in April 2010, and has since become a columnist for Forbes, Search Engine Journal, Search Engine Watch, and Huffington Post. Jayson guest lectures for marketing classes at the University of Washington, and currently resides in Seattle, WA. Follow Jayson on Twitter.

Related Article: Start-Up Stand Out Social Media?

How many social media tools do you really need?

That depends on the size and nature of your campaign, but realistically, most businesses should be able to get by with one or two.

As long as you have all the basics covered, you'll be in good shape; and remember:

You can always add more or make a swap if you find yourself missing a key ingredient.."

• 

  Post Crafted 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 ;)

YOUR Improved Social Media Presence?

6 Tips to improve your social media presence..

It's become nearly impossible to grow your customer base and sales without a social media presence.

Related Article: How YOU Blow Up On Social Media?

Here are six tips to improve your social media presence.

There are 335 million users on Twitter, 1 billion users on Instagram and a whopping 2.23 billion users on Facebook. A lot of people who could become your customers are hanging out on social media.

You may already have a social media account, but are you getting tons of new followers each month who are interacting on your platform? If not, you need to step up your social media game.

Whether it's on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or LinkedIn, growing your social media presence is important to get your business in front of more consumers and make more sales. With some simple tips, you can turn your lonely social media accounts into popular communities bustling with activity.

Get ready for your popularity to explode next year. Here are six tips for improving your social media presence in 2019.

Related Article: YOUR 2020 And Beyond Social Media Marketing?

1. Use The Right Tools

If you want to improve your social media presence, you need to post on social media often and at the optimal times. In fact, according to studies, businesses should be tweeting 15 times per day.

But as a business owner, you don't have enough time in your day to constantly be logging in to all your social media accounts. That's why you need to use the right tools.

Using tools to schedule posts will help you stay active on social media and save you time. With Buffer, you can manage all of your social media accounts in one place, schedule posts weeks in advance, post at preferred times when the most users will see them, and analyze how well your posts are doing. Using tools to help with your social media accounts will ensure you're posting often enough to improve your social media presence.

Related Article: YOUR New Social Media Platform Tools?

2. Focus On Customer Service

Social media is the new platform for customer service. Instead of giving a business a call or waiting hours (sometimes days) for a company to respond to an email, many customers who are having issues now turn to social media to get help from brands. In fact, 54 percent of customers prefer social messaging channels for customer care over phone and email.

So, instead of focusing so much on selling, you need to focus more on helping people. Using your social media platforms as a customer service platform will send more users to your social media and make it easier for them to solve their problems.

You can even create a Facebook chatbot that can answer questions when you're not around. Customers will also be more willing to buy from you when they trust that you'll help them with their issues quickly.  

Related Article: YOUR Social Media Era Customer Service?

3. Promote Your Social Media Accounts

Don't expect your customers to know about all your social media platforms and go searching for them themselves – you've got to tell them they exist. If you make it easy for customers to follow or like your social media profiles, they'll be more willing to take action.

Start promoting your social media accounts to your customers and ask them to interact with you on your profiles.

You can add social media icons to your site, add your social media feeds to your sidebar, tell people to follow you on social media at the end of your blog posts, and promote your social media accounts in your email marketing.

The more people are aware of your presence on social media, the bigger it will be.

Related Article: Social Media Marketing Trends YOU Should Use NOW?

4. Pay Attention To What's Trending

One of the best ways to create a bigger social media presence for your business is to piggyback on popular social media trends. This will get your profile in front of a ton of users who never knew about your business before and could even help your posts go viral.

You can stay on top of trends just by taking a look at what's going on. For instance, on Twitter you can see the top trending hashtags on the left side on the homepage in the Trends for You section. Look at what hashtags you can use to get more views.

While it helps to use hashtags that relate to your business, they don't have to be strictly relevant. If your accounting company can create a fun post for #NationalDonutDay, go for it.

Related Article: Social Media Marketing Trends YOU Should Use NOW?

5. Focus On Eye-Catching Visuals

It can be difficult to get noticed in crowded social media feeds, so you need to make your business stand out.

One of the best ways to stand out on social media and increase your presence is to focus on using eye-catching visuals.  

Try to avoid using too many boring stock photos. Instead, focus on sharing images that will connect with users. Share high-quality behind-the-scenes photos and people using your products.

You can even share your customers' photos of them interacting with your product with their permission, which also creates social proof.

Related Article: Visual Content In YOUR Social Media Marketing?

6. Actively Engage With Your Audience

Would you keep talking to someone who never returned your messages? Probably not. Users won't want to follow you on social media or interact with you if they get nothing in return. That's why it's so important to actively engage with your audience on social media.

If you want to create a social media presence, then your social media accounts need to become a community. That means when someone comments on your posts, you should reply to them or at least like their comment. You can also pose and answer questions in posts, and show appreciation to your followers and customers by thanking them and sharing user-generated content. Engaging with your followers will not only increase your social media presence, but help you develop real relationships with customers.

Guest Authored By Syed Balkhi. Syed is a 27 year old award-winning entrepreneur with a strong 8 figure online business. He was recognized as the top 100 entrepreneur under the age of 30 by the United Nations. He enjoys building products that level the playing field for small business owners to better compete with the big guys. Follow Syed on Twitter.

Related Article: Increase YOUR Social Media Engagement?

Get ready to have your best year on social media yet.

Following these tips, not only will you get more likes and follows than ever before, but you'll gain more loyal customers too..

• 

  Post Crafted By:

  Fred Hansen Pied Piper of Social Media Marketing at GetMoreHere.com & CEO of Millennium 7 Publishing Co. in Loveland, CO. where 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 ;)

YOUR New Social Media Platform Tools?

20 New tools from social media platforms..

By following the launches and updates of social media platforms, merchants can discover new ways to reach customers and prospects.

Related Article: The Future Of YOUR Social Media Platform?

Facebook

AI and merchant deals in Marketplace. Facebook has introduced new features that use artificial intelligence for price range suggestions and auto-categorization. Facebook is testing camera features for using AI to suggest items users could be interested in. Also, Facebook has added a variety of content from businesses, including cars, home rentals, and home services, as well as shopping and deals from ecommerce merchants.

Premieres for interactive video. Facebook has launched Premieres, a new interactive video format that lets publishers and creators release a pre-recorded video as a live moment so that fans can interact and experience new videos together. Users can schedule a Premiere a week in advance. This creates a post about an upcoming video and a place you can point fans to. Facebook has also launched video polls to all pages. Polls are now available on live videos and videos on demand through the Live API and publishing tools.

Related Article: The Best Social Platform For YOUR Business?

Facebook Groups and 250-person chat rooms.Facebook is rolling out the ability for Facebook Groups members to launch group chats that up to 250 members can join. Members can also start audio or video calls with up to 50 members.

Apps for Analytics. For iOS and Android, the Facebook Analytics app enables you and your team to stay on top of your growth, engagement, and monetization efforts on the go. This is a companion app to your Facebook Analytics web product.

New features for Facebook Workplace. At its Flow 2018 conference, Facebook announced several new features for its Workplace platform for businesses, including the ability for people who are in multi-company groups to work together using Workplace Chat. Also, Facebook Workplace has added algorithmic sorting and Safety Check to monitor the security of employees.

Related Article: Social Media Tips For EVERY Platform?

Instagram

Shopping in Instagram Stories and Explore. In early 2018, Instagram began to expand its shopping features. Now, all business approved for shopping on Instagram have access to shopping in Stories. Businesses can add product stickers in stories, so they can easily integrate products into their Stories' content. Instagram is also testing a topic channel for shopping in Explore. The shopping channel will be based on each user's shopping interests and will display shopping posts from a variety of businesses that users may like, giving them the opportunity to discover new businesses.

Related Article: Everything YOU Need To Know About IGTV?

Instagram's Shopping in Stories

Instagram Analytics. Facebook Analytics has now added Instagram account analytics, as well as advanced page analytics, to see how content and channel strategies are driving business results.

Discover whether people who comment on or like Instagram posts have higher retention rates. Compare the lifetime value of people who interact with your Instagram account to those who don't.

Nametag. To make connecting and sharing with friends even easier, Instagram has launched "nametag," an easy way to add friends in person. A nametag is a customizable identification card that allows people to find your Instagram profile when it’s scanned.

Related Article: How YOU Can Beat Instagram's Alghorithm?

Pinterest

New ways to shop. Pinterest has debuted several new commerce solutions, such as its Lens camera for product search. In October, Pinterest launched new shoppable product pins with up-to-date pricing and stock information, with links to the checkout page on the retailer’s site. Also, a new shopping recommendations section can now be found beneath style and home pins to browse similar items across multiple brands.

Promoted Carousel. With this new ad format, businesses and brands can use up to five images within one ad to tell stories on Pinterest. Present a product’s numerous features, drive additional purchases by showing multiple items in a pin, or increase awareness with a multi-image brand story.

Related Article: Brand Awareness With Unexpected Platforms?

New measurement solutions. Pinterest has announced new partnerships with Oracle Data Cloud’s Moat Measurement for viewability and NinthDecimal for foot traffic. Moat Measurement will help marketers see the impact of a visual-first platform, and Ninth Decimal analyzes ad impressions and corresponding foot traffic.

Google

New features in Google My Business app. Google has revamped its My Business app. It now features a new "customers" tab for businesses to see followers, reviews, and messages in one place. A new "for you" tab displays posts from businesses a user follows. Users can also use the message button on Google Maps and Google Search to reach out directly to businesses, which in turn can respond directly via the app.

Related Article: YOUR Crucial Social Media Video Advertising?

New follow features in Maps. Users can now follow places right from the app. Once you’ve followed a place, news from it — events, offers, other updates — will appear in the "for you" tab. If users prefer to find out about new businesses, they’ll start seeing profiles for places before they even open on Google Maps for Android and mobile search.

AMP Project opens model. Google is changing to an open governance model for the Accelerated Mobile Pages project. The open-source change will encourage a wider variety of voices at all levels of participation, including code contributions. It should also increase the pace of development and adoption of AMP for businesses.

Snap

Snap rolls out visual search. Snap has launched visual search, to search for products on Amazon right from the Snapchat camera. Point the camera at a physical product or barcode, and press and hold on the camera screen. When the item or barcode is recognized, an Amazon card will appear on-screen, surfacing a link for that product or similar ones available on Amazon.

Related Article: Why Advertisers Prefer Instagram Over Snapchat?

Snap Camera for Lenses. Snap has launched Snap Camera, a free desktop application that invites users to experience the fun of Lenses while using their computer. Choose from thousands of Lenses, including classics made by Snapchat as well as new designs created daily by the Lens Creator community through Lens Studio.

Related Article: Social Media Platform News And Updates?

Other

Periscope introduces chat moderators. Periscope, the live streaming app, now allows users to assign chat moderators to monitor comments and mute audience members. When one of your moderators mutes someone in your audience, they will not be able to chat for the remainder of your broadcast. At the end of the broadcast, see a list of the muted viewers, and choose to block them from joining future broadcasts.

Weebly updates ecommerce tools. Ecommerce and marketing website platform Weebly has released an updated suite of ecommerce tools with expanded social features. With Facebook Messenger now embedded into Weebly sites, you can rapidly reply from any device to inbound questions about products and approve customer reviews from mobile the moment they are submitted.

Skype adds call recording. Skype has introduced call recording to record meetings with your colleagues or capture special moments with friends and family. As soon as you start recording, everyone in the call is notified that the call is being recorded. If you are on a video call, Skype will record everyone’s video as well as any screens shared during the call. After the call, you can save and share the recorded call for the next 30 days.

Related Article: The Future Of YOUR Social Media Marketing?

Guest Authored By Sig Ueland. Sig is a contributing editor for Practical Ecommerce. He lives in Minneapolis. He has written for In These Times, Third Word Magazine, and Utne Reader. Sig holds an M.F.A. in Screenwriting from UCLA's School of Theater, Film and Television. Also he is an alumnus of The Second City Conservatory in Chicago. Follow Sig on Twitter.

Related Article: Social Media Marketing Trends YOU Should Use NOW?

"By following the launches and updates of social media platforms, merchants can discover new ways to reach customers and prospects.." -SigUeland

• 

  Post Crafted By:

  Fred Hansen Pied Piper of Social Media Marketing at GetMoreHere.com & CEO of Millennium 7 Publishing Co. in Loveland, CO. where 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 ;)