What should you post on Social Media in 2021?

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Can you afford to ignore social media?

Admit it - with all of the things on your plate as a busy business owner, it is easy for content marketing and social media to slip to the bottom of your priority list. This is especially true when your business is busy and in “put out the fires and post later” mode. 

What if your prospects are checking you out there? (they are)

Can you really neglect this?

Now look I get it we’ve all got competing priorities and to get what we need done - there are tradeoffs.  But I’d make the case this is one that is a must these days:

• 70% of B2B purchase decision makers use social media to help them decide
• 90% of the traffic to business to business websites comes from Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.
• LinkedIn is the source of half of the business to business traffic.

Facebook has over 2 billion active users. The average user spends 43 minutes a day on the platform. Facebook may not be a “professional network”, but your prospects are using it.

LinkedIn has over 630 million users and has the most affluent user base of all the major social media platforms. 80% of B2B leads come from LinkedIn. 70% of the executives on LinkedIn log in daily.

Twitter has 321 million monthly active users and it is the 7th most visited website in the world.  

In addition to brand awareness, a strong social media presence will help you reach the people who can decide to buy from you.  According to one study, 90% of decision-makers never answer a cold call, but 75% of B2B buyers use social media to make purchasing decisions. 

Want to know more about how the top performing small businesses are planning to generate leads in 2021? Sign up for my upcoming LEAD Blueprint workshop to find out.

What should I post on social media?

If you agree with me that social media is going to be ever more important in 2021, you need to avoid the biggest mistake most businesses make.

It is really tempting to use your social media platform to broadcast your sales messages. The problem with that is that until they get to know you and your business better, your prospects don’t really care about your business. 

In fact, according to Buzzstream, 45% of customers will unfollow your brand if their activity is dominated by self-promotion. Your prospects want to read information that is interesting and relevant to them. If you do this right, your prospects will engage, and due to the algorithms of these platforms, see more of your posts. Sixty-two percent of LinkedIn members engage with content on the platform because they thought it was educational and informative. 

By posting a mixture of videos, articles, images, and infographics on a wide range of topics, you can show your prospects that you are an expert on their interests as well as yours.  

The three keys to a successful social media strategy are relevancy, consistency and, authority.  

Here’s an example of how a post that isn’t directly related to a company’s mission but is still relevant to their prospects.

Bash Foo is an online reputation management company that works with a lot of businesses that make the majority of their profit over the Christmas holidays. This post is not about SEO or reputation management. Yet, it is extremely relevant to Bash Foo’s audience.

As a rule of thumb, I recommend that 80% of your posts be useful information and 20% be more promotional. This balance will help you keep the interest of your audience over time. 

Take some time to see where your audience is spending their time online and what else they are reading. This will give you some ideas or creating content that is relevant for your audience.

How often should I post on social media?

A key part of your success with social media is going to be how consistently you post. Consistency keeps you top of mind with prospects.  This is important because if you are only reaching out to people who have expressed an interest - then you are likely missing 97% of your potential audience.

Getting through to your prospects is harder than ever. It takes 6-8 brand touchpoints just to gain awareness. If you want them to remember your brand, they need to see you over 10 times. To get an idea of what it will take to rise up through the noise, take a look at the top influencers in your niche. How often are they posting?   

In general, we recommend 5 to 7 posts a week to establish your authority.  If you break down the numbers it is easy to see how consistent posting of relevant information can make a huge difference for your business. You can reach 70% of your audience by posting daily. Pretty powerful stuff. 

As the number of connections increases - so does your potential impact. And, that number increases with the number of platforms you are using to engage. 

How to Be the “Go-To” Option in Your Market

In addition to posting on content that is relevant to your audience, you want to post content that shows your expertise. Your posts should not only be interesting to prospects but also show your expertise. The above post gives some useful tips for families addressing addiction. 

It takes time to get the perfect balance of consistency, authority, and relevance.  But, the  result will be worth it for your business.  Here’s what happened for one of our clients when he started working with us to improve his LinkedIn outreach.

Social Media’s Impact On Lead Generation

We all know that simply posting to your social media accounts isn’t going to make you a millionaire but that doesn’t mean it’s not worth the time and effort. 

Aside from direct lead generation, there are TWO main functions that your social media presence performs:

1. Thought Leadership: It’s a fact that prospects look up potential vendors, businesses, etc. online before making purchase decisions. The more high-quality content that you post regularly the higher opinion of you that they’ll have. It stacks the deck in your favor as they start to see you as a thought leader and true expert in the industry instead of a solicitor. For someone to make a purchase decision they must know that you can actually solve their problems.
2. Top-Of-Mind Status: The more your name shows up in your prospect’s feeds, the more likely they are to respond to your other marketing efforts. This is because people like to do business with familiar faces. And, as I mentioned earlier, only a small percentage of your prospects will be ready to buy from you right away. But the more you stay in front of them the better chance you have to be the one they choose when that need DOES arrive. 

In short, your social media content should complement your other lead generation efforts. Whether you’re running ads, doing email outreach, or reaching our to people directly here on LinkedIn, it’s important to show off your expertise and to consistently stay in front of your prospects. 

Otherwise, you are leaving a lot of business on the table.

Your Turn

Sign up for my upcoming L.E.A.D Blueprint Workshop

Want a better way to get leads and clients? Sign up for my upcoming workshop that goes step by step through our lead generation process that has been so successful in our clients’ businesses -- the L.E.A.D. Blueprint. 

In the workshop, I’ll be teaching:

• Exactly what an Authority Leadership Platform is and how you can leverage our Authority Amplifier process to position yourself above the competition, putting your business on an entirely different playing field.
• How to target high-end prospects using online platforms (social media + email) in a unique way that builds instant trust by doing the polar opposite of what most ‘salespeople’ try
• How to develop real relationships online using a highly-personal Multi-Touchpoint Messaging Campaign to naturally guide the conversation towards an appointment
• The right way to automate processes that build trust, improve credibility, and increase responsiveness in your campaigns.

Join an upcoming workshop session by signing up here!

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