– Do you ever feel like there's so much information out there in the digital world that it feels like the walls are kind of slowly closing in on you as people are telling you about new platforms that are out there and what kind of contents to post and what people to follow? And all of this advise is just really overwhelming and you get into this state of where you're almost like social media paralysis. I'm here to tell you that you're certainly not alone. The social media world can be so overwhelming, especially when you're first starting out. So if you're someone who is really wanting to break into the social media game and has just been stuck on what to do and what advice to follow, then this video is just for you.
I put together my five top tips for beginners' success on social media. So by the end of the video, you are going to know exactly what kind of content you need to be posting in order to really speak to you audience, what platforms you should be choosing for your business model and when to actually automate something so you can save some time and when to do the manual labor in order to get the most value out of your time on social network. And at the end I have also included a bonus lesson for you which is all about how to actually cater to the customer's journey. What I mean by that is knowing when to sell and when to wait. So that's gonna be really valuable for you if you stick around til the end.
And if you're a rockstar business owner or a passionate freelancer or aspiring to be either one, and you're interested in learning more tips and tricks on how to use modern marketing techniques to grow your business online, then make sure to subscribe to the channel and hit that bell so you get notified every time a new video goes live. When I come to starting with your social media journey, I definitely want you to think that less is more when it comes to focusing on platforms. You have the same amount of time in a day as everybody else but if you don't have a dedicated team member or multiple team members who are able to help you out, the chance of you producing high quality, amazing engaging content for seven different platforms by yourself, is so, so slammed because it's nearly impossible to do and again, it can be so overwhelming.
So my advice would be to pick two platforms and give them the love and attention that they deserve before moving on to adding other platforms that your business can be present on as well. When you're thinking about how to pick your two platforms the two questions I want you to ask yourself is one, which platforms are you already familiar with for your own personal use? And two, which platforms is your audience actually hanging out on? Now the second one is of course more important than the first. The reason I wanted to include the first is because of the social media paralysis that people get in when they get overwhelmed, especially for older generations who are not quite use to having 17 different apps open and going on all at the same time.
So it can be really overwhelming to have to learn the complex algorithms behind YouTube or Pinterest for example, if you're not use to it, whereas it's a lot easier to kind of get into the swing of things if you're focusing your efforts on a platform like Facebook or Instagram that you might already be using for your personal use or you definitely know someone who is who can help you out. Then you're also thinking about where you're audience is actually hanging out. And the first thing I want you to consider there is what is your industry model? So are in a B2B space, in which case you'd be looking at LinkedIn, YouTube, or Twitter, for example, or are you in a B2C space where you might focus your efforts more on Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest for example.
And then you also want to think about why your audience would actually be following you on these platforms. What are they there for? Are they there to be entertained through hilarious TikTok videos or are they actually looking for real in depth solutions to their problem and actively searching for these on a platform like YouTube to find your content. I also want you to really think about having a beautiful, engaging and complete social media profile on all of your networks. Within the first couple of seconds of somebody coming across your social profile, they should know why you do what you do, how you can help them, and who you are, in that particular order. Because people are always thinking W-I-I-F-M, what's in it for me? And in what do I have to gain by following you and engaging with your content on this particular social network? Here's an example of an Instagram bio from Jenna Kuthcher. You'll see she starts off with her mission, her why, which is imperfectly empowering women. Then how does she do it? By being a virtual biz coach and podcaster.
And finally who she is, a small town Minnesota mama and wife who's obsessed with marketing. Then if you scroll down, you'll see that she has her brand in colors, fonts and vibes, very clear throughout this whole feed and it's incredibly clear how she serves her community from just the first couple of seconds of being on this profile. Step three is to check out your competition. I see a lot of business owners out there following brands that they find informational or beautiful or motivational and that is definitely great and I recommend that you do that but then they miss one really crucial step which is to actually study their competitors as well. Competition is kind of how brands grow and evolve. Without competition, we would have no motivation to actually strive to do something better than somebody else. So even the biggest brands in the world like Facebook will have dedicated teams of people whose entire job it is to study competitors who are both big and small and then also take the good bits of what they're competitors are doing and use it strategically to improve their own product or service.
I want you to make a list of your competitors and go and kind of stalk them online, sign up to their newsletter, follow them on social media, and dedicate a little bit of time each week to write down what they're doing, how they're doing it, is their audience responding to it? Is it working for them or is it not? And then take the best bits and incorporate it into your own strategies to go above and beyond the competition. Do you have questions about your particular business and how to best grow it on social media? Let me know in the comments below, pop a link to your social profile and I'd be happy to check it out and give you some tips and tricks of things that you can improve to make sure you're getting the most out of your time spent on social media. Tip number four is to use scheduling tools to automate some of your processes.
So yes, absolutely in the social media world some things are gonna have to a little bit of manual labor and we're gonna talk about that in the next tip but you can certainly save yourself a little bit of time and energy and a little bit of sanity as well by using free tools that are really easy to use like Buffer and Later to automatically schedule and publish your posts. This is gonna take a lot of time off your hands by allowing you to not have to focus on posting every single day or every couple of days on social media and having to always think about what to write, what to create, what hashtags to use, when to actually post it, did it go live? There's just way too much to think about and using scheduling tools takes all of this pain away and makes it really, really easy.
It allows you to batch your content so you can sit down once a week or once a month and schedule out all of your content for the upcoming week or month. And tools like this will help you create the kind of consistency that the algorithms on social network really love and will reward you for it as well by pushing out your content to more of your followers. Tip number five is that genuine engagement on social media is the one thing you should never, ever, ever automate. Because the word social is literally in social media so you will have to get a little bit social in order to grow authentically on social media accounts. Actually kind of scary how easy and cheap it is to buy fake followers. You will often see Instagram accounts with 200,000 plus followers that have two or three comments on each post so you know that those followers are not real.
They're either fake accounts or they're ones that the person has bought and Instagram and other platforms are really clever. That is not a sustainable way to grow your business through social media accounts because they will pick up on it. It actually breaches their rules and guidelines and they will punish you by making sure that your posts are not being seen by your real followers.
So never, ever, ever buy engagement, whether it's followers or those fake comments that you see that says like, "Nice post, "good one, I like this." Those are all bought and fake comments that would never lead to anything good and they're definitely not gonna lead to a sustainable level of growth on social media. So make sure that you are leveraging your audience by asking them questions, being responsive to their answers and get them to demonstrate how they're engaging with your product or service by posting photos and tagging you in them. Because that is the power or user generated content. It will almost always out perform brand generated content because people absolutely love other people seeing and loving a product or service.
That is why influencers are so big now so get people to tag you and then you can repost that amazing content on your own social media and give them a little bit of exposure as well. So people love doing it. Make sure to leverage it and make sure to be human and authentic on your social media accounts. So my bonus tip for you today is a little bit more advanced but something I wanted to cover anyway just because I do think it's really important which is all about catering to the buyer's journey.
What I mean by this is that somebody doesn't really want to hear about your $500 or $1,000 product or service when they don't really know why you do what you do and how you can actually serve them. So you want to make sure that you're developing that know, like and trust factor with your audience before asking them to buy anything from you. And this does depend on the price tag that is at the end of that journey. So if I was going to get somebody to buy one of my $15 courses for example, it might be enough for me to just send them a free checklist or a free guide or a free training and then presenting them with my offer.
If however, I had a $2,000, $4,000 coaching program, then I would need to give them a lot of value to develop a very strong bond, very strong know, like and trust factor before asking them to purchase that higher priced item. And now if you'd like some more tips on how to grow a loyal following and grow your social media account, make sure to check out the link in the description for your freebee or head straight through to livingtoroam.com/social-media-freebie to get your super simple social checklist.
This is my six page guide that has allowed me to grow my own and my client's social media account on autopilot and build real, genuine connections with audiences around the world and I know it can help you too. Thanks so much for watching guys. If you like the video and you wanna see more tips and tricks on how to grow your business online through modern marketing techniques, then make sure to subscribe to the channel and hit that bell so you get notified every single time a new video goes live. Thanks again so much for being here and as always, keep creating the life you love.