Your first steps in social media marketing

Read time: 5 minutes

Hey there 👋 - it's Brian.

Let's address the elephant in the room...

After last week's issue, I received a lot of Twitter messages. Readers wanted to know more about positioning and tried to email me questions, but my email crashed!

It's working now, so feel free to email me again.

Now on to this week's topic: 👇

A business owner called me in panic.

He grew his business to $1M a year by direct sales, but hit a ceiling. Customers weren't buying as quickly, cash was draining. He wanted to get more customers using social media marketing, but he felt overwhelmed.

He didn't know where to start.

So today, I'll help you take your first steps to get customers with social media marketing (using the methods I used to build an audience of 64,000 people).

If you find this helpful, please forward to your friends to help grow the community.

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Preparing your first steps in social media marketing

Imagine you run a storage business. You've been getting customers, slowly. You see your bank account draining and know it's time to get customers, fast. You've heard about how social media marketing can quickly get you customers...

...but the thought overwhelms you:• Which platforms?• What content do you create?• How do you turn your attention into customers?

You have no desire to be an influencer. You want to run your business. But you also need more customers.

So how do you get started (without spending all your time on social media)?

Today, we'll go through a new way to view content you post online:

You're building a customer-base, not a follower-base. You'll share your ideas in a way that reaches many potential customers.

So here's how you take your first steps and turn your ideas into a flood of paying customers:

Social media is just an engine to share your ideas

When your ideas are solutions to painful problems, people share your ideas, and you reach millions who love your solution. The ideas build a raving customer base for your business.

Social media amplifies your solution to hundreds of thousands of people.

But most people think of social media as sharing photos of their beach vacation.

So here's how to rethink social media and use it to get customers for your business:• Success is optimizing for ROI on your time• You're a founder/business-owner, not an influencer• You're building a customer-base, not a follower-base• "Likes" are just customer inputs on which of your ideas resonate• Posting content is just sharing your business' unique perspectives• You want to share unique solutions to get customers to perceive you as more valuable

Most people don't have a marketing strategy and are trying to win a popularity contest. You know better.

The first step everyone overlooks: Positioning

Before we get started, you need a message that makes customers clear you have the best solution for their problem.

Why? If customers are confused, they won't buy.

Social media is just a tool to amplify your messaging. Amplify a confusing message and you're wasting of your time.

It's worth repeating: Without proper positioning, marketing is useless.

Here are a few signs you have a positioning problem:

Last week - we covered how to build your positioning, so catch up there before moving on. (Here's the link to how to build your positioning)

Caught up? Let's take your next steps.

Choose which platform to share your ideas

Different customers are on different platforms. Choose the platform where your customer hangs out.

You can find every type of person on each platform, but rough generalization:• LinkedIn (best for targeting employees at larger companies)• Twitter (best for targeting startups and tech companies)• Instagram/TikTok (best for targeting consumer products)• YouTube/Facebook (broader audiences)

Focus on one at the start. Expand later.

Should you share from a personal or business account?

Both work well if done correctly.

Personal account: Share your own ideas and drive traffic to your business.

Example:Andrew Gazdecki, CEO of Acquire (formerly, MicroAcquire) shares his ideas on building his business and the problems small businesses face when they're looking to sell.

His ideas drives customers to his business.

Business account: Post as your business and build a customer base

Example: The course platform, Maven, shares insights on course learnings.

The main difference: Who do you want to own the traffic - you or your business?

Owning the traffic yourself is a better option if you have multiple businesses and you want your marketing efforts spread to the different businesses.

The downside is it makes it harder to sell/exit your business because your face is the marketing engine.

What topics will you share insights on?

Here's where you list out the pains your customers have. Then, you'll share insights on the solutions.

Here's an example:

Topic: Businesses have difficulty using content marketing to get customers.Sub-topics:• Positioning• Choosing a platform• Converting content to paying customers

Then, pick a sub-topic and a method to expand your idea (i.e., different lenses to view the sub-topic through).

Here's a deep dive from Dickie Bush on 13 different lenses you can use to share your topic ideas:

Find your peer network

If you post ideas and no one engages with them, your idea doesn't spread. Customers can't find them.

So you NEED a peer network to grow. "Peers" are other people who also share solutions on similar customer problems.

When your peers engage with your ideas, it shares your ideas with their network.

So it's important that you have peers with two traits:

• A decent sized audience• An audience full of your potential customers

The best way to create peer groups:

Search for content in your topic, and write down the businesses you resonate with.

Leave valuable comments on their posts at least 3 times, then message them with a valuable comment the next time. Have a private conversation and offer to get to know them on a video call.

3) Share your ideas

You're ready! Just post.

Don't wait for everything to be perfect. The beauty of social media is that if your posts are bad, no one shares it (so no one sees it).

If posts are good, everyone shares it!

Set a timer and figure out what you need to do to post in that 1 - 3 hour window. It's much better to share 3 "bad" ideas than wait forever to post one "good" one.

You'll learn so much with each post and your ideas will only get better.

Your goal is:

1) Be consistent2) Learn fast

That's a wrap!

Choose your platform, topics, and the lens to view the topics through. Then share your ideas!

If you have a business and you're trying to take your first steps in online marketing, let me know what your questions are! Reply to this email and I'm happy to guide you through how you get more customers.

I read every email.

If you found this helpful, please forward this email to 1 friend or colleague. They'll appreciate you and you'll help grow the community.

See you next Thursday 👋

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