I’ve never had a client tell me that my social media presence influenced them to work with me.
In fact, there are really 3 ways clients find out about me (based on what they shared when filling out my prospective client questionnaire:
- Word of mouth: They asked their networks for someone who has my skill sets and expertise
- Internet search: The keywords they entered landed them on a page or blog post on my website
- I was off somewhere being useful: From email listservs, in-person meetings and events, or online forums, they noticed me sharing resources and information or offering advice
But like most people, I use social media. I started off using it as a way to connect with the people I know in real life and to make connections with new folks.
Once I started growing my blog, I needed someplace to promote outside of friends and family.
It’s interesting to see the impact that social media has played in our professional and personal lives. However, like most of us, I got caught up in the vanity of it.
Likes, comments, retweets, shares, clicks, and comments. They all play a role in how people view you. But as we see with social media as a whole, they don’t tell the full story.
I call these “vanity metrics“. While they are important to see how your content resonates with your audience, you don’t really know why they’re engaging with you.
When we get caught up in these vanity metrics, we develop this inflated sense of importance. Outside of comments, vanity metrics don’t really tell you why someone engages with you. Nor do follower counts tell you if the person following you actually supports you, likes your work, or agrees with your viewpoint. It’s weird to think that people will follow someone or comment on something they don’t like, but it happens.
With all this talk of shadow bans, algorithms, paying to have your content seen by the people who chose to follow you, and removing likes, we need to ask ourselves some tough questions about what we’re really doing on social media and why. And if you use it to promote yourself or your organization, we need to ask ourselves is social media the best way to marketing ourselves.
My answer is no. Especially since social media platforms can disappear at any time.
While I do believe that social media is a great way to connect with and network with others, my #1 rule for marketing yourself on social media is to not have social media be the #1 way to market yourself.
Instead of having social media drive your marketing, consider the following ways to market yourself while using social media as a supplemental avenue:
Build your home base and use social media to drive your audience there
In Michael Hyatt’s blog post “Do You Have a Personal Platform Plan for 2013?” Michael breaks down his recommended way to market yourself:
- Home base: This is the primary way your audience learns about you. This can be a website or blog, email newsletter, if you own a conference space, podcast or video show you operate, or a physical location.
- Embassies: You have a consistent presence, but like real international embassies, you’re on someone else’s turf. Social media falls in this category
- Outposts: You don’t have a consistent presence, but it’s always a nice place to connect with people. Guest blog posts, podcast episodes in which you’re being interviewed, and speaking as a panelist are examples of outposts
My website/blog and my email newsletter are my primary home bases. I own the content and if I want to move to a different hosting space, I can grab my content and go. For example, I’ve moved from Tumblr to WordPress. I also moved my email newsletter from Constant Contact to Mailchimp by simply downloading the opt-in emails I’ve received into a spreadsheet.
The goal of embassies and outposts is to drive your audience back to your home base. Social media platforms come and go, and it’s better for your audience and potential clients to have a primary way to connect with you and stay connected.
…I repeat: Build your home base or else you’ll fall victim to platform changes and downtime
Don’t you hate it when you want to share something on Facebook or Instagram, and both platforms are down with no explanation?
Sometimes I’ll go on Twitter just to see people complaining that Facebook and Instagram are down.
(And why, out of all social media platforms, are these two the main ones going down?)
Social media and digital marketing expert Natalie Gouché shared in front of an audience of women business owners in 2018 that, not only do you not want everyone following you as you should know who your ideal client or customer is, social media shouldn’t be the primary way you engage them. When platforms go down, as they often do, you don’t want to panic.
And you don’t want to be at the mercy on people not seeing what you post because your preferred platform wants you to pay to have more of your audience see you. There’s nothing wrong with paying to get in front of your audience, but it’s even better when you can send an email to every single person that’s opted-in to your email list.
BUT! When using social media, be strategic
One way to determine how to make social media work for you is:
- How do I solve someone’s pain point? (What services and products do you have that can help solve an issue?)
- Who is the ideal person/group for my services and product? (Get clear on who you want to work with, and tailor what you offer to this person/group)
- Out of all of the social media platforms, which platform will my ideal person/group most likely go to find someone like me? (Where someone goes for their downtime may not be where they’d actually go to look for someone who offers the services you do? For example, I may like Instagram, but the people most likely to hire me would go to LinkedIn, Twitter, or maybe Facebook).
Also, not all followers (and platforms) are created equal
There’s someone I follow on Instagram. Several months back, she tried to sell a product to her audience of 100,000 followers. Ultimately, she ranted via Instagram Live about her followers not supporting her. As I’m watching this happen, I wondered:
- How many of her followers actually support what she does enough to buy from her?
- She’s based on the west coast, and the product she was selling was connected to her being in Los Angeles. How many of her followers live in the Los Angeles area even use the product?
- Her product was geared towards women, but most of the comments she receives on her posts are from men. Would her male followers share her product with her intended audience?
- She’s had to create several backup Instagram accounts because people routinely report her page, and she thinks most of the reporting is being done by followers and non-followers. How can she continue to market herself when her platform can disappear at a moment’s notice?
My biggest takeaway from this is knowing who your ideal audience is, along with knowing the best way to connect with and promote to them. When I first started marketing my business, I started with friends and family. Eventually, I realized my ideal client wasn’t friends or family (unless they run organizations and/or are in positions to bring me to their organization). I also keep track of how many people follow me on social media, but these days I don’t focus on just getting anyone to follow me. When I keep my ideal audience in mind, I’m able to fine-tune my content and services and connect with the right people on social media on the appropriate platform.
Key takeaway
As long as social media is around, we’ll always have a complicated relationship. But once I shifted my focus to what I could control (like my home bases), stopped stressing over what I couldn’t control (like platform downtime), changed how I engage on social media (like leaving more thoughtful comments instead of mindlessly scrolling, retweeting and liking), and shifted my perspective on vanity metrics, using social media became a more stress-less place to me. For me and my business.
Raise Your Voice: What’s your #1 rule for marketing yourself and/or your organization on social media? Share below in the comments section.
