I’ve specifically created this article for all those that are just starting out in their business journey and are looking for ways to get exposure using social media. I get a lot of questions emailed to me from businesses that want to build out their Facebook or Instagram pages with the end goal of getting leads. So I wanted to reply to those same questions by publishing this article.
Building your social media presence without upfront costs is certainly possible, however you should always be thinking of investing money into the promotion and advertising of your business. As quoted from Thomas Jefferson himself…
“The man who stops advertising to save money, is like the man who stops the clock to save time”
You should ALWAYS have a budget set aside each year for marketing your business online. You need a system that can produce fresh leads each month as well as a follow up system for prospects and customers. (More on that in another article)
Social media is an ever changing landscape. Platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc are constantly updating to improve the users experience. Their job is to keep users as engaged as possible on their platform. You can work this to your advantage. The more engaged your followers are on your profile, the better chance your followers continue to see your content and offers in their news feed.
The strategies I want to talk about below are easy to implement, easy to follow and they will save you money.
Let’s dive right in…
Create Content For Your Social Media Profile
The first thing you want to do is begin the process of adding relevant content to your profile. This is in the form of post creation and adding images, videos, polls & Live Facebook streams.
What I recommend first when starting out is to begin posting images of before and after shots of work you have done in the past. For example, lets say your business is a cleaning service. You arrive at a job where you’ve got to clean windows for a residential or commercial building. Take a photo with your smartphone of the windows that are in the before state. Be sure you capture the dirty state the windows are in.
When you’ve scrubbed those windows squeaky clean and your client is happy with the end result, take another couple of photos to show the end result you have produced.
This type of content is gold!
Because what you are doing is conveying the results you are offering to your market. Showing evidence like this really helps to engage your fans. The more content you produce like this, the more likely it is for people following your page, to go ahead and hire you now… or in the future.
You can also do the same thing with video. Video does a great job of engaging users. So if you can do a mixture of both video & images that demonstrate your before and after results, you’ll be off to a great start in providing content for your page.
Sticking with the cleaning business example. You can also post cleaning quotes in the form of images. These can be fun, humorous quotes or images that bring a little light entertainment to your page. You can do polls to get your followers to vote on their opinions. This is also a great way to learn more about your fans and figure out more of their wants and needs.
Posting reviews on your page in the form of an image or video testimonial is a fantastic way to show your fans how satisfied your existing clients are with your service. Acquiring a video testimonial is the creme dela creme of testimonials.
Why?
The fact that your audience can actually see a real person talk positively about your business really instills a lot of positive associations for your business.
If you want more content ideas, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me and we can go over this in more depth for your business.
Get Followers to Your Social Media Page
Now that you have created some engaging content, it’s time to start getting some targeted fans and followers to your page. The keyword here is “targeted fans” and the reason for that is you want to encourage the right type of people to follow your profile. There is no point in attracting everyone to your page, if many of those people become fans, but are not truly interested in the content of your page. That’s not going to really help you in the long run.
What you want to do is invite the right type of people to the page, so that they’ll engage with your page and be a lot more willing to hire you out for your service now or in the future.
First thing I would do is tap into the friends you’ve got on your personal social media profile. Who would be most likely interested in your product or services within your network? Pick out as many as you can and invite them to the page. Private message them with a link to your new business page. After a short period of time, you should start to see your fan base grow. Awesome! You are on your way to creating some genuine fans on your profile.
Your job doesn’t stop there though…
You need to continue building out the fan base because sooner or later, you are going to exhaust your personal network of friends and associates. So what’s next?
Facebook Groups in your local area. That’s right! These groups are a fantastic way of engaging with the locality you intend on serving. There are literally tons of groups you can join. You want to join the groups where you can engage with that audience and offer value and build trust.
Using our cleaning business example, if you are targeting the residential market to clean houses, apartments etc. A good group to join would be groups where parents hangout. Parents are a target market where you can offer your services. Working parents don’t always have the time to clean their homes due to being very busy working at their jobs or taking care of kids.
If you join these groups and provide a ton of value in the form of tips, educational content etc without pitching anything in return, you’ll peak people’s interest and build your authority and ignite trust amongst that community. Sooner or later, you are going to have people interested in your cleaning services and you’ll start landing leads this way.
The same thing can be done for commercial clients you want to target for your business. There are usually local business groups you can find and join. Just apply the same principles of adding value in the form of tips, education and even chiming in on conversations to help other business people out. Adding your knowledge to a conversation will help build trust and nurture a relationship.
Just be of the mindset – “giving first before getting”. The more you give first… the more benefit you’ll receive in the long run. Think of others first before you think of yourself. You’ll begin to form new relationships with businesses & residence in the area. Be sure to mention other local businesses in your recommendations as a post on your page. Tag these local businesses, whether its the local electrician, plumber or local grocery store. Help them out with a positive word. The reciprocity law will kick in and and you’ll be recommended too, which in turn helps you to generate more business.
What else can you do to promote your page?
Try a giveaway promotion
Another good way to attract more fans to your social media page is to offer up a giveaway. Giveaways can be a great way to generate buzz, brand awareness and excitement for your business. Done correctly… giveaways can also generate new business!
A word of warning though…
The only time you should start doing a giveaway is when you have a solid fan base in place on your social media profile. You want to make sure that you have a fan base that is already engaging with your posts and that those fans genuinely liked your page because they want to hear more about your content and business solutions.
Giveaways done correctly, can be a great way to acquire new fans and future business. But if you are promoting to fans that don’t have a real interest in your services, you are going to end up with a lot of freebie seekers. That’s the last thing you want.. Trust me!
This is why I stressed the importance of inviting people to your page that have an interest in cleaning services. If you feel you are happy with your current fan base and want to run a giveaway to grow your fan base quickly, then try running this type of promotion.
If we use our local cleaning service example. You could offer a free cleaning service for a house/apartment with up to three bedrooms and three bathrooms to a lucky winner. All they gotta do is like the post and comment why they want to win. After the contest ends, you can offer runner up prizes to those that didn’t win. Perhaps offer a 10–15% discount to new clients. This is a great way to acquire new customers as they have already engaged with your brand, got excited about winning your prize and now they don’t feel so disappointed as they won a runner up prize.
So there you have it!
Following the steps above can help you build your social media presence for your business without the need for spending money. The methods above can be time consuming, but if you are just starting out or you don’t have a marketing budget to really excel your lead generation and sales, then this is a good way to get the ball rolling.
My final word of advice to you is that social media is a fantastic way to promote your business and build buzz. However, many years ago it was even better because the likes of Facebook would show your posts to ALL your fans in their news feed. It was very easy to build out a fan base, promote your content, offers and generate leads and sales on social media because your fans saw each post you did and it was easy to get a ton of traffic to your page.
Those days have long gone. Facebook is very much a pay to play system now. Only about 2–6% of your fans are going to see your posts on a regular bases which makes things a little discouraging. To fix this, you can pay to have your posts show up more in front of your audience. Although you initially have to invest money, if you are smart enough you can make a great return.
Take those tips above to grow your presence online. When you want your social media presence to become even more effective for your business, generating you a steady stream of new qualified leads each month… be sure to connect with us so we can help you out 😉
