You opened a pizzeria because you love to make pizza and wanted to run your own business.
You rented the store front, bought the equipment, stocked the shelves, printed your menus and opened your doors.
Now, the customers should just flood in, right??? WRONG!!!!!!!
Social media happened and even though we are a good 10+ years into the social network revolution, PLENTY of brands and businesses still haven't realized the power they posses with social media.
This is the deal, social media gives every brand and business in America the ability to be there own media company.
Yes, that means what you think it means. Your local store or your international brand can produce content and broadcast it to your audience, just like any other media company in the world does; Viacom, Universal, Sony, Turner Broadcasting, FOX and so on and so and so on.
You do not have to rely on any of these media outlets for exposure anymore. You can build your own targeted audience and broadcast all forms of media: video, audio, etc.
Let that sink in for a second...
God Bless Betty....Isn't she great?? ❤️ ❤️ ❤️
Ok, back to this "my business is a media company now" thing....It is...
The next thing we need to discuss is how to harness this power.
Before I get into this whole harnessing thing, if you are not willing to put in the time or pay someone to put in the time (HINT: Call Social Babies) to produce and manage your social media, everything else I write here is USELESS.
For those that are honest with themselves and aren't going to do squat after reading this, you can stop reading now and have a nice day 😀 .
Now, for the rest of you hustlers, grinders and crazy bastards who never take no for an answer, let's do this!
How Do You Harness Power of Social Media for Business?
1. Decide which social platforms you want to rock on. Depending on your time and resources, you can turn up on all social platforms but for the purposes of this blog I will discuss rocking one platform for your brand or business.
2. Build up targeted audience. Using your chosen social platform's advertising platform, set up fan/follower building ad campaigns targeting the exact people you want your brand attracting. You can choose by sex, age, geographic area and their interests on all social ad platforms. You can build a pretty solid audience consisting of the people you want.
Let me stop here for a second. These first two points should not be taken lightly. Why?
Because it's fucking vitally important that you choose a social platform that your customers are active on. Think of it like this, you wouldn't put America's Next Top Model on ESPN. You feel me?
Just make sure you do some research and make sure you choose a social platform that has the people "customers" you want on it.
Get it? Got it? GOOD!!!
3. Produce videos that interest your audience. This is where your stomach goes into knots. I know. You are all like, "what the F do I shoot?". You want it to be great and perfect and represent your brand/business is a positive way. It's perfectly natural to feel that way. The thing is, if you are just getting started with this and you don't have experience, you will overwhelm your brain and never do it. Here's my advice and it's fucking good, so listen up: Shoot and record everything!!!!!
That's right, record yourself opening the store, closing the store, talking with customers, events you host or go to, the employees who make you laugh, the employees that make you want to cry, customer testimonials, etc. EVERYTHING!!!!
By shooting everything you will first, get comfortable and used to recording video but more importantly, you will learn what type of content your audience likes more and that will help you produce more targeted content as time goes on.
4. Produce podcasts that interest your audience. If you are one of these " I will NEVER be comfortable in front of camera people", that's OK. Audio podcasts were created for people just like you. You own or run a business or brand so obviously you have something to say so, start a Podcast. You need a computer, to sign up to one of the many free online podcast services, headphones and a mic. That's it.
You can get on the mic and discuss whatever the hell you want and then post it to your social channels and let your audience learn and enjoy. Like with the videos, if you don't know how to produce a podcast in the beginning, just get on mic, hit record and keep talking until you run out of things to discuss and do it for each and every podcast. You will post to social, get feedback from audience, learn what they like and like with the videos, you will start to create more targeted content moving forward.
5. Broadcast Live for your audience: Facebook, Twitter and Instagram all have live streaming capability now. Unlike recorded video, live streaming gives your audience a peek into the unedited world of your brand or business. Similar to recorded video, if you are new to this, go live A LOT, see what the feedback is during each broadcast and learn what live stuff your audience loves and what they hate. Again, after awhile you will learn what your audience wants and you can produce more targeted content.
All this info probably got you feeling like this:
I've witnessed this look hundreds of times.
Having so much power is overwhelming and the first thing you have to do is admit that.
Once you admit it to yourself, it will help shed some of the fear you have and by the time you have recorded your 10th video, podcast and/or live stream, you will realize it's not that hard to do. For real tho, this isn't brain surgery or 17th century English literature.
It just takes some time and effort, like anything else in life you want to succeed at and you want to be a success, right? Otherwise, what the fuck are we doing here?
So, high five yourself and get to work....
Catch ya'll on the flip...
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