If you’re just starting out with marketing your business on social media or if you’ve had your accounts setup but haven’t been using them, you need to spend some time up front building your social media following.

Here are the steps you need to take to build your social media following:

1. Get to know your Target Market Niche(s): You must identify your target market personas first. This is a crucial step. For instance, you talk to someone under 40 differently than you would to someone over 40. (Related Content: How to Reach the Generations on Social Media)
2. Do some research on the social networks and your target: Find out:
   • Which networks do they frequent the most?
   • What are their buying habits?
   • What’s the best strategy to get their attention?
3. Develop a Strategic Plan where you indicate:
   • What are your goals, metrics and objectives?
   • What type of content are you going to create (blog, video, pictures, podcasts) and the type of content are you going to share from trusted industry sources? You can’t just share your stuff.
   • Create specific strategies for each of the social media networks:
     • If you’re B2B, your primary network will be LinkedIn.
     • If you’re B2C, your primary networks will be Facebook and Pinterest.
     • Secondary networks for both would be Google+ and Twitter (for exposure and SEO).
     • Don’t ignore Facebook and Pinterest if you’re B2B – it still helps with reaching people. And if you’re B2C, don’t ignore LinkedIn – it gives you credibility and LI users are consumers, too! These are tertiary networks.
4. Put together a tactical plan: You’re going to spend more time up front building a following in your PRIMARY NETWORKS.
   • B2B:
     • 15 minutes a day on LinkedIn
     • Blog 2 times a week on your website
     • Blog once a week on LinkedIn
   • B2C:
     • 15 minutes a day on Facebook
     • 15 minutes a day on Pinterest
     • Blog 2-3 times a week on your website
   • Both: Automate content posting using free tools like HootSuite, Buffer or Dlvr.it to Google+ and Twitter. This could be your re-shared blog posts as well as other related and relevant content of interest to your target market from trusted sources. Use Feedly.com to organize your blog subscriptions.
5. Search for your target market and follow them on Twitter, Google+ and Pinterest. When you follow someone, they’ll be notified and hopefully, if you’re sharing good content, they’ll want to follow you back. On Twitter, thank people for following you. (That’s the only network where that’s part of its culture.) This should take about 30 minutes a day between all the networks.
6. Search for and connect with your target market and referral sources on LinkedIn
7. Share good, relevant content on Facebook. Unfortunately, you can’t search and contact people on Facebook as your business. However, you can start with your own friends and invite them to like our page.
8. Have both share and follow buttons on your website. Make it easy for people to follow you on the networks and make it easy for them to share your content with their friends.

I didn’t mention Instagram, but you should consider it if you’re more B2C and you want to reach the under 40 crowd. Instagram just hit 700 Million monthly active users. Your strategy here will be branded pictures and short videos. SnapChat is for an even younger crowd, under 25. Similar to Instagram, use branded graphics and short videos.

Once you’ve built your social media following, then you are in management, monitoring and maintenance mode. If you’ve mastered the tools, organized your content and got a gist of how each network works, you can manage your social media in 30 minutes a day.

Here are some follower goals for each of the networks for your first month:

• Facebook: 30 likes so you can start seeing your insights then, 100 so you can start monitoring your competition in “Pages to Watch”
• LinkedIn: 50 personal connections; 10 followers on your business page
• Twitter: 100 followers – then you can start getting analytics
• Pinterest, Google+, Instagram and SnapChate: 10 followers each

At the end of each month, you must review your analytics and insights.

• On your website – make sure Google Analytics is setup:
  • Number of visitors and page views
  • Time spent on your site
  • Bounce rate
  • Referral sources: Besides the search engines, which social media networks brought in the most visitors to your site?
  • Conversion rates: How many visitors converted to leads because they clicked on your call-to-action?
• On each of the social media networks:
  • Number of followers: Have you reached your goal?
  • Most popular posts: Create more of those.
  • Best time to post: When are the majority of your fans and followers online to get the most reach?
  • Follower demographics: Does this match your target market personas?
  • Engagement rate: likes, shares, comments, clicks

Then adjust your strategic and tactical plans accordingly for the next month.

You are probably thinking, “How do I learn HOW to do all this?”

Never fear! Your Social Savvy Solution is HERE!

I’ve got all the classes online from the how-to basics in the Master Class (boot camp) to intermediate (tools & strategy) to advanced (analytics and insights – measuring what’s working and not working). It’s setup in a logical progression with easy-to-follow video classes and demonstration videos so you learn how to do everything the right way.

You learn best practices, the culture of the major networks (Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+ and YouTube), search engine optimization, blogging and content marketing. Each video is from 15 to 45 minutes long. They’re up 24/,7 so you can watch them at your own time and at your own speed.

All for only $20/m. Full-access to all the videos. Once you get through the basics, you can pick and choose which ones you want to focus on. I upload new, updated videos each month following all the changes and new features from the networks. Cancel at any time. Anywhere else you’ll pay from $25 – $80/m. Why am I less expensive?

My goal is to help the small business owner, like yourself, become social savvy enough to effectively market your business online.

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Spring Social Media JumpStart Package: $3500 for doing the “heavy lifting” up-front work. Includes:

1. Research and planning ($500, regular $675) (1-2 weeks)
2. Social Media Setups ($500, regular $675) (1-2 weeks)
3. JumpStart Follower Builder (1 month)
4. 1 month free online video classes (a $20 value)

Click here for details on the all the services.

Let me do the time-consuming up-front work while you learn how to do it yourself. At the end of the JumpStart, I hand over the reigns. You have 1 month of full-access to all the classes. After that, it’s $20/month for updated videos. (This stuff is constantly changing!)

Billed upfront via Square in 3 payments ($500, 500 and 2500). You can start the online classes with your first payment. Contact me for details. 

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