5 social media tips for entrepreneurs

Entrepreneurs can become transfixed by the sometimes misleading promises of social media. It works for some, while for others it is just a drain on resources. If you want to turn social media into the powerhouse that it deserves to be, follow these 5 tips to work smarter, not harder.

1. Be strategic by making your blog your home base

As an entrepreneur your time is limited, and it is essential that you leverage the powerful relationships between search engine optimization and social media. When you focus on creating an outstanding blog and use that as the foundation of your content sharing strategy, your marketing will become easier.

Keep to a consistent blog writing schedule, such as at least once a week, then share the posts and included images/embedded YouTube videos with influencers in your community. Using quotes from the influencers that you will be sharing with is a great way to get their attention.

Blogging regularly will also lift your organic search results significantly, and make you more of an influencer yourself. A recent study by web marketing software giant Conductor says “Organic search is actually responsible for 64% of your web traffic.” If that is anywhere close to being true, then not understanding the very tangible relationship between SEO and social media is a mistake that you can’t afford to make.

2. Podcast with influencers

Just sharing your own content or curating content is not enough. You have to connect with influencers to make social media truly effective. One of the fastest ways to generate buzz is to get in front of other people’s audiences. By doing 20 to 40 minute podcast interviews with influential people in your niche, you are opening a floodgate of sharing possibilities.

Blog Talk Radio has a free option that lets you record interviews in a radio show format by simply calling into a phone number. Use this ridiculously simple option for your podcasting if you want to get started quickly.

The people that you interview will likely have large audiences on their blog and via their email marketing list. If they like the interview, they will share it and your reach will immediately be extended. Also, this often generates incredibly important back links that will give greater power to your SEO.

3. Don’t be afraid to pay for Facebook ads

The amount of organic reach that you get from social media has been greatly diminished over the last few years. Facebook ads can help increase your reach and drive people to an offer such as an e-book or free 7-day video training series.

While fans equal community and social proof, the ultimate goal is to turn fans into leads, and prospects into customers. Interestingly enough, paid clicks also help your regular organic posts! Your score actually increases via paid.

Steps to creating a Facebook ad and increasing your email list

1. Create an irresistible offer such as an e-book.
2. Create an opt-in landing page using a tool like leadpages.net or unbounce.com.
3. Create an unpublished page post ad instead of the typical sidebar ad.
4. Budget $10 a day as a test.
5. Track the results using Facebook Ads Manager. Also make sure to use Google Analytics goal conversion tracking on your “thank you for signing up” page.
6. Email your new subscribers helpful content and offers. This is a better place to sell frequently, rather than selling too much on social media.

4. Create highly sharable content using BuzzSumo for ideas

Coming up with ideas for content is a lot easier when you know what content has been shared the most. Go to BuzzSumo.com and pop in a keyword that relates to a topic you might like to write about. The results given show the amount of social shares to the most popular content on that topic.

Your job is simple. Pick one of the most popular pieces of content and write something similar. Reference the original piece of content by using quotes from its authors, and share it with them, as well as the people who shared the original post. This can result in an incredible amount of social sharing and back links.

Technically, you will be writing what is known as “link bait” in the SEO community. Killing two birds with one stone by creating highly shareable content, that also gets back links, will help you make the most of your limited time and resources.

5. Use feedbackarmy.com to get opinions on how well you are doing

Feedback Army is a tool that allows you to ask a half a dozen questions to 10 different people for $40. Curious if the design of your social media profiles looks good? Why ask just one or two people, when you can ask 10 or more at the same time?

Here are some questions to consider asking:

1. Do my social profiles visually look as good as competitors X, Y and Z?
2. When you go to my website, am I leveraging social media icons and share buttons effectively?
3. Do people appear as engaged with my content as compared to my competitors X, Y and Z.?
4. Do I appear to be helpful in social media or am I selling too much?

You can’t only rely on your own opinions, or even those of your marketing consultants, therefore tools like feedbackarmy.com and grader.hootsuite.com are important in order to get a reality check.

Positioning yourself as an influencer

Make sure that your social media isn’t just about curating or sharing original content. It is also about engaging influencers. Positioning yourself as a fellow influencer in a specific niche, via your content, can help you take your social media from good to great.