Using Social Media to Create Clients

I can promise you faithfully that I would have been the very last person on this planet to write an article on this even 6 months ago. I knew nothing about social media or how it worked. Nor did I care. To me, Facebook was simply a place to find funny photos and sayings from my family and friends and play a few games. LinkedIn was a necessary evil if you are in business. You just had to have a profile. And Twitter seemed to me to be an annoying way for everyone to announce stupidity to the world. I understood nothing at all of how to use it as a tool for business.

Then an oddly bad, but wonderful, thing happened. COVID. I started going to networking events online as a result and met some really great people. One of them was a man named Domenic Battistella. 

Domenic is an agent with New York Life and a fantastic human being. He knew that being in the same field, I needed to begin using social media as a tool, so he took my little virtual hand and started walking me through the process.  He went slowly and explained things to me and will always be one of my heroes and someone I consider a great friend and mentor. He opened up a whole new universe to me.

All that being said, I have hired multiple coaches since then to teach me the finer points. I don't pretend to know it all, but I did want to share some really good tips that I have learned along the way that were super helpful to me. 

I will highlight a few of those here. While there are many, many forms of social media, I will refer to Facebook and LinkedIn here as the largest and most popular of the two main audiences of social media: personal and business.

Using the Right Platform

Each social media platform has its own audience and use. As such, it really does matter which you use. If you are a person whose audience is mainly consumers, Facebook is going to be the forum for you. If, however, you are a more B2B person who wants to target business people, LinkedIn is the best place to invest your time. 

That doesn't mean you don't want to put things out on both platforms. You never know what you will get on either website. What I would suggest is that the bulk of your time, effort, and energy be spent on the platform that attracts your primary audience.

Time of Day Matters

Obviously, you are posting on social media in order to get people to view what you are saying. Different platforms have different times of day where people are more involved and plugged in. Facebook is a more personal form of social media so evening times tend to get a little more traffic than daytimes and certain times during the day seem to be more popular than others. For some odd reason, 9:10 on Wednesday mornings tends to be the busiest time of day.

LinkedIn is a professional platform. As a result, evenings and weekends are very slow in terms of the number of people online and consuming content. The busiest times there tend to be around 7:45, 10:45, 12:45, and 5:45. In other words, the times right before beginning or ending a work block.

A Net, Not A Knife

Too many people get on Facebook, LinkedIn, or any of the various platforms and do nothing but post ads for their product or service. Some of them will post an article of interest about a business topic, but very few talk about anything other than business. Huge mistake.

There are a few people out there who will respond to an ad because at that particular second they have a specific need and you happen to meet it. However, to try to do business that way, you have to CONSTANTLY be posting new information to catch them at the exact second. It's like fishing with a knife. The timing must be perfect. You get a bite from time to time but it takes a tremendous amount of time and effort.

On the other hand, there are those who fish with a net. They share personal stories, they share information that has nothing to do with their business, they reach out to help promote others or assist them in some way. Those are the people online that you may have never spoken to, but you feel you know them. And guess what? When you need what they have to offer, you are highly likely to think of them and do business with them. 

Be Consistent

We are all much more confident when we know we can depend on someone. We trust them. Going back to what was in the last topic, it is important to post on a regular basis. Your audience needs to gain confidence that they can count on you week after week. They need to know that you aren't going to be someone who doesn't always show up. They may know you and like you, but they do not trust you if you are hit and miss. And let's face it, we have all done business with people we didn't know. We've even done business with someone we didn't like. But I have never in my life done business with someone I did not trust. Make sure you show up consistently so the audience knows you can be trusted.

Don't Expect Immediate Success

The theme you will pick up in the last two sections is that social media is a marathon, not a sprint. Don't expect immediate results. It takes time, effort, and energy but it does pay off in the long run. Just don't give up.

There are tons of other things to learn about social media. I just wanted to highlight a few things. Find a good coach and get them to teach you how to interact on social media and soon you too can fish with a net, not a knife.

The Proof Is In The Pudding

I just wanted to share a link with you to an article that someone posted on LinkedIn about why they chose to do business with me. It ironically mentions several of the points I have made her, so I thought it would be good to share so you can see how what you do impacts potential clients. Enjoy!

https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/someone-got-me-buy-something-off-linkedin-michael-kanaby/?trackingId=Fx52YpuNSD%2B1EylwGJ9TBQ%3D%3D