3 TIPS ON HOW TO BUILD YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA PRESENCE

1. BUILD A COMMUNITY: FRIENDSHIPS, NOT FOLLOWERS

“Can you help me get more followers?” I feel like this is my most asked question...Yeah, it's great to have a lot of followers and network! BUT it's not essential to have a busy and successful business without a strong community presence. 

While you’re growing and starting small (remember we all start here) think about creating community and real connections with real people.

To grow a thriving community takes heart, hustle, and a #ShitTon of time. You need to make community members the heroes. It’s not about you – it’s about them.

Content is king but it’s the consistency that earns trust over time. If you focus on nurturing the followers you have and 1:1 connections you will create something bigger than you can imagine.

This done repeatedly and consistently is then how you will grow your followers too ??

Community builders need to show they care – and that starts by listening to those in your community.

What topics do they talk about? What are their pain points? What are their challenges? What are their needs? What type of content could be helpful to them? What content do they share? What organizations, journalists, or bloggers do they admire?

Building a community (friendship) instead of just an audience gives you a chance to build customer loyalty and brand recognition.

Building a community online stems from a genuine interest and caring about what people do and need at any given time. I believe that’s one of the reasons to just be yourself on any social media platform.

Like in real life, that’s how you will find and attract people who share common interests, core values, and a penchant for kindness and support.

Eventually, you’ll find yourself surrounded by a community of friends!

2. PROVIDE VALUABLE & SOLUTION FOCUSED CONTENT.

The harsh reality is most people aren’t interested in your content.

The problem is not a lack of content. The world does not need more content. People are overwhelmed with content. 

Bombarded every day by ads, news, social posts, feeds, emails, search results, endless information – most of which they don’t want or care about.

A good posting ratio for this is out of every 5 posts only one of them can be a direct PROMO. The rest need to be VALUE + SOLUTION FOCUSED.

Build friendships by giving your community quality content they will VALUE and care about.

You can’t grow your online family without serving them with media that will help them. They want help, insight, and applicable information, such as tips, tricks, educational, inspirational, how-to's FAQs, tutorials, etc.

Start by putting them (customers) at the beginning of any content conversation. i.e instead of “Marketing needs to do a webinar on x” or “the sales team wants to promote y” change the focus to the target audience. 

“Career-changer John needs help solving x problem.” Before any ideation about content creation, formats, and channels, start with understanding the Who, What, and When.

3. ENGAGE, ENGAGE, ENGAGE!

This is a big one.

I’m a firm believer that showing genuine interest in what people are doing, loving, and stand for is how to build a powerful online community. 

Remember that social media is meant to be social, so start responding in a genuine way.

These are the people you can imagine yourself sharing a coffee with in real life and trading stories about what you love. And if you’re lucky, you might get the chance to meet face to face, I’ve made real-life friends doing just that!

Show your community how much you appreciate them. They are giving you the most precious thing, their time. Follow that up by doing the same, answer your comments, give them a shout out in your stories, appreciate them, always.

I saw the most growth when I started engaging with random accounts, hopping to my inbox and trying to respond to each of them. That is the biggest secret to growing…engaging with other accounts and creating relationships with them.

Once people feel like they know you, they can’t wait for your next post and notice when you’re inactive!

I find new accounts to engage with every single day, but I never forget about my old friends. I always go to the previous day’s post and comment back on everyone that commented on my post. I also try to comment on friends' stories whenever possible!

I host weekly team call with my online communities and schedule a room on the Clubhouse app to help me engage with a lot of my online family at one time. In just one or two hours a week, I can interact with everyone who attends these live events. And through these events, I’m learning about new members and connecting with those who attend regularly. This also provides me with tons of insightful content that I can share after the event.