What is the biggest difference between people who are successful on social media and those who are not? Simple: successful people have built an audience.
An audience does not necessarily mean having 10,000 followers here or 5,000 friends there. At its most basic level it could be that. But what’s a bunch of friends and followers if they’re not helping you grow your business?
Consider this: what if your “audience” is not someone who is interested in what you offer? What if they were people just looking to increase their numbers without any interest in engaging in any kind of dialogue with you? What if they were mainly focused on promoting their own stuff most of the time? These types of scenarios are clearly not ideal.
So what should you really be looking to achieve? Building the right kind of audience with social media means that your involvement will lead you to be seen as a credible and trusted source who can help others solve any problems they may have. It means that you are reaching a market of people who have deliberately searched through search strategies who might need what you have.
When you’ve captured the attention of your followers and friends and generated interest and credibility, you now have a way to get traffic to your website, capture more leads, and continue to build and strengthen the relationship.
It’s all in the three C’s:
1. Content: Content is the lifeblood of successful social media marketers. What reasons do you give people to listen to you? This works in two ways: sharing your own helpful posts, links, tips, and resources, and promoting and sharing the content of others. This does three main things: it establishes your experience, drives traffic to your site, and provides your audience with useful information. Remember, the content you share doesn’t always have to be yours.
2. Talk: Just by being seen as someone who provides great content in the social media space, you will naturally find yourself engaged in a conversation. Having these one-on-one conversations is what will make you stand out from the noise and deepen your relationship. Also, when you make it a habit to promote others, it brings more “social appreciation” your way. These interactions cause others to seek more information about you beyond where you made the initial connection.
3. Conversion: Once you’ve converted someone to a newsletter subscriber, blog subscriber, or paying customer, you’ll have taken the steps to acquire another raving fan. These loyal people will not only bring you more sales, but they’ll be much more likely to sing your praises to others in the social media universe. This is how his “tribe” grows.
See how simple and effective it is to build an audience of enthralled friends and followers? See the difference this could make to your bottom line?
I know that you. 🙂