To put it simply, "social media" is all those application programs (apps) that are on your smart phone right now that allow us to communicate with each other. Arguably, the biggest apps are Google, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter. Each one of those individually is a “platform.” And you can set up an account on each platform for free and post content. Additionally, you can advertise your business on each platform.
If you have a business today and you think you can get away without learning social media, good luck. The deck is stacked against you because your prospective clients are all using social media. Your competitors are using social media. Now, they may not be using it in a marketing sense, but they’re all using it. If they’re not taking business from you on social media, they’re going to. I just want to impress upon you that this is something that you need to do. This is not like, “Well if I have time or it seems like a good idea,” no, this is necessary.
You need to be engaging with your customers and prospective customers, establishing your brand, and advertising your product or service. If you are like most, you may be doing one or two of these things, but few people are doing all three. Before you start feeling overwhelmed, here’s some good news. To have success in this arena, you simply need to focus on the “next” thing. Then when you understand that, move onto the next step. It’s like a video game where you are continuously trying to reach the next level. You don’t have to worry about how little you know about Level 7 right now. You just need to focus on the next step on the path.
Thanks to social media itself, it has never been easier to learn how to do something you know nothing about. There is an abundance of free information if you seek it out. It’s that old adage, when the student is ready the teacher appears. When you commit to education, information will start showing up, and it may have been there all along but now that you’re tuned in, you notice it.
One of the premiere platforms, YouTube, is awesome! if you go to www.YouTube.com and type a sentence into the search – well, let’s pick one. If you type in “How do I set up a business page for my Facebook profile?” and hit the return key, all these videos will be displayed down the page with people explaining to you just how to do it. It’s the most incredible thing ever and it’s free. Honestly, my first thought when I discovered this was, “These people have this much time on their hands that they can teach me this?”
But what they were revealing was how the whole social media marketing thing works. Namely, you give away knowledge. You position yourself as an expert in whatever the field is that you’re in. You build trust with strangers until they’re not strangers anymore. Then when they need your services, they will be more likely to purchase from you. That’s actually how it works. Now I didn’t know that at first, but that’s what these people who were giving away the free information were doing. They were establishing themselves as an expert and building trust. And it works.
When you’re giving away information, what you post on social media is commonly referred to as “content.” Different social media platforms focus on different kinds of content and have different “feels” or “vibes.” For instance, Instagram is very photo-centric. Initially, it was almost entirely focused around photographs (although they have recently moved into video as well). So your Instagram content would have to be sensitive to that. Facebook is a very casual environment where people talk to each other about everything under the sun. LinkedIn is more formal, let’s call it “business casual.” Sometimes content that is appropriate for LinkedIn seems a little too stuffy for Facebook. Sometimes stuff that’s totally appropriate for Facebook looks way too loosy-goosy for LinkedIn - people won’t take you seriously. You just have to get familiar with the platforms.
