Hey there, welcome to this episode of The it's ALL Marketing podcast.

I'm your host, Jan Southern, I am the CEO and owner of J. delSUR Marketing Group, and the publisher of Pooler Magazine and Effingham Magazine in South Georgia. 

So today, I want to talk to you about social media and how to get social media working for you again, or working better for your business. So we know that social media is such a critical part of our marketing strategies. It's essential if you want to reach your target audience. However, it is not the only way that you want to be reaching your audience. So I know a lot of businesses, especially small businesses, and startups, they really rely on social media to be the main effort, the main tactic that they use to promote their businesses. And while it is very effective, I always caution that this should not be the only way that you promote your business. Not everyone is on social media. And social media is very crowded and noisy. And a lot of times people are when they're on social media, they're not looking to buy, they're not they're looking for entertainment, they're not really there to pay attention to your business. 

So you have to be very, very clever to catch their attention, you may get some short term gains, you may see some, you know, quick response, quick sales, from social media. And that's awesome. But it isn't like a long term good strategy to just rely on one tactic. 

There's a lot of data out there to tell you that you should be omni channel these days, meaning you should be in multiple places, all the time, I've done a previous talk and previous article on you know, it takes like seven to 11 touches with an interactions with a potential customer before they're going to buy from you. They need to know you like you and trust you and that takes time. So just understand that that social media is not the only thing you should be doing. But we do have some strategies here to make it more effective for you. The platform's have gotten much more competitive, like I said, and also just posting organically meaning posting content to your accounts, whether it's Facebook, Instagram, Tik Tok, whatever it is LinkedIn, YouTube, posting to your accounts, doesn't get you the kind of results it did, you know, maybe even a year or two ago, the platforms are wanting you to buy advertising. So they don't really reward organic posting. So posting something to your account, I think it's like one to 2% of your followers even will see what you post because it's just not the way that the platforms are going. They want you to buy advertising. Now, when they come out with new features like shorts, video shorts, or when a new platform comes out, like when tic toc first came out, you know, they're rewarding a lot of organic content. So you could post a video and you get a lot of engagement right away. And it's still true, but it's gonna get less and less, because they're going to want businesses to pay for, you know, sponsored posts and ads and things like that. So it's just more and more competitive, and you have to be more strategic and how you use social media. So here are some of my top suggestions and the things that we do with our customers with our clients that get the best results. So number one is to really stick to your brand, every business post Real Story video, it should be speaking about your brand. So what are those core pillars of your brand? And how are you communicating those to your customers? This requires you to know who your customer is. So who is your current customer? What are they like, you know, what is their? What is the Avatar, the personal buyer persona of that person? And then also, who is your potential customer? Do you really understand who they are, what they like what their interests are, and what's going to compel them to buy from you. And so once you understand that creating messages, messaging types, the style, the tone, the voice of those messages, that it's going to resonate with those audiences is really important. And then everything you post on social media should tie back to one of those pillars, so that everything you put out is going to be as effective as possible. I can't stress this enough that this is the number one thing that's going to get you the competitive advantage over other businesses. There's a lot of businesses that do understand this and are super effective, but there are a lot of businesses that don't understand this. They come to us for instance, and they want to advertise in the magazines and but they don't know what they want to say about their business. They just think oh, I need to do marketing. Oh, I really need to increase sale. So let me you know, let me do a radio ad or, or let me do a Facebook ad, you know, or let me run some ads on social media, but they've haven't really thought about what they want to say, or why it matters to the customer, why does it matter to the potential customer that you have a sale, I mean, you've got to have a good understanding of your customer and what matters to them, and then create messaging around that, that's number one, just have to do that first. And you will have, you will be so surprised at how efficient and more effective your any of your marketing is, but especially on social media. So that's number one, stick to the pillars of your brand, you can put out occasional posts about you know, something personal, because that is good for people to see you the personal side of you. But make sure that it ties back to your business. And most of the posts that you put out tie back to your business because you don't want to waste those that time and energy by putting out content that doesn't resonate. Number two, schedule your posts. So many of you do this, you know, go ahead and plan out a week of your content on social media and then schedule it in the platforms. There's lots of ways to do that. Now inside the social media platforms, there's also external tools that you can use that really help with that. And so but it's very important to go ahead and schedule in advance. I'm not talking about scheduling one week in advance, I'm talking about scheduling at least 30 days in advance. What we do, we prefer when we work with clients on their marketing strategies and their marketing plans as we plan out at least three months of content. Now, it doesn't mean that you can't pop into a week and post something about a special sale or something like that. But if you plan your content out at least 30 days in advance, you can look at the month and know what you want to promote, when you may be able to say tie it back to a holiday or a current event or something within your community and really get more impact from what you post by just scheduling and and be more strategic. The other thing that this does, and I have seen this with many clients is it frees up your brain, you know, like you don't have to stress about oh my gosh, what am I going to post this week, or today, oh, we haven't posted in two days, what should we put out and then that's disruptive to your business. And it's stressful, and you don't need that stress. So go ahead and try to plan out at least 30 days in advance. And again, you can always pop in and create something for, you know, a spur of the moment post. But if you have the majority of your content scheduled out in advance, I can't tell you how much this is going to be helpful for your business. So do that. The next thing is consistency. So once you do commit to posting to social media, be consistent decide on how frequently you're going to post what platforms you're going to post too. And don't think you have to post to every platform, you don't find out where your customers are, again goes back to understanding your customer, and post there and decide on how frequently you're going to post and then just stick with it. If you can only do it three times a week, then stick with three times a week, it doesn't have to be the same days. But do if you're going to post three times a week post three times a week, it does sort of need to be on the same days. And I would strongly recommend that you look at your industry and go back and look at your analytics to see what it when your customers are most likely online. It was interesting, I had a client who we thought that their time, the best time to post for them was you know, five o'clock in the evening. And so we started posting consistently at different times of the day. But we posted we had an emphasis on five o'clock in the evening. Well, after a month of doing this, we looked at the analytics. And we saw that people were engaging with their content at nine o'clock at night. It's not a business that is open at nine o'clock at night, it was kind of surprising. So we started shifting the posting to not you know, around 9pm Most days, and we saw a big bump in interaction. So we just, you know, you find out what works and you you do more of that. That's what I always say, find out what works and do more of that don't you know, you don't have to reinvent the wheel every time. So looking at your analytics and really understanding more about that can be very helpful. So that's another that's why consistency is so important. You know, you don't want to be sporadic because you're not going to learn anything from your analytics. The next important recommendation that I have for social media is don't always be selling. So we often think that we should just put out content, that about how great our products are or how great our services are, and all the offers that we have because we love our businesses right we know that what we provide is a value to our potential customers. But people don't want to be sold to all the time. So they don't want to see messages that they can tell you're just trying to sell me something. There's a great book by Gary Vee Gary Vaynerchuk. It's called Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook, and I highly recommend this book. But here he explains that how important it is to give and provide value before you sell on social media. Now, this can be scary for businesses, because a lot of people are stressed and they they want the sale, you know, they're hurting, they're worried about the economy, whatever it is, they want to be, you know, constantly selling. But in the long run, it's much better to focus on giving and providing value to people and showing you as the thought leader in your industry, before you put out a post to sell. So my recommendation is, one provide value your you know, if you're thinking about posting four times a week, or four times a day, whatever it is, provide value, share something useful, give something away, and then talk about your business, share a sale product, or even a call to action, but giving, giving, giving and then sell to them, that's going to be most important. Because if your posts say someone is scrolling through Instagram, and every post from you is by 20% off, look at this great product we have, they're gonna get bored. You know, what is it? I go back to my previous article about? Why do they care? Everything you put out needs to be about the customer, why do they care? Why should they stop scrolling to look at what you're posting, it shouldn't be a value to them, and only then are they going to come back and actually buy from you. And honestly, if you're putting out good content over and over, especially if you're a service business, eventually these people are going to trust you and they're going to start relying on you for good content. And then they're going to either they're going to realize how great your business is. And they're going to want to do business with you. Or they're going to feel a little bit like well, this person has given me so much, I'm going to try their service, I'm going to try their products because they've given so much back to me. So give, give, give and then sell or as Gary Vee says Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook. So that's my that would be a very important suggestion. The other thing about that is have a call to action. So when you are posting something about selling your product or service, make sure there's a call to action, there's got to be a clear way for people to get to the offer a discount or something about your product or service. And we want it to be there'll be a clear, least path of least resistance to buying from you. And one of the important things that I really want to emphasize and it might be kind of complicated, but having a landing page or a sales page for each of the things that you're selling. Because if you do have a call to action that says you know, 20% off, enter this code, and you link them to your main webpage, and you were promoting a specific product. So let me go back, if you're promoting a specific product on your social media post, and you offer them something, and they click, and if you land them directly on your website, then they have to go find that product, or you have to put the offer right on your homepage. So it's a lot of extra work. If you have a landing page for the product that you're offering, it's going to streamline the sales process. So person is going to look at your post, they're going to be interested in what you're offering, they're going to click on your link, they're gonna go to a landing page that specific about that offering, if the statistics on how much more effective that is, then putting them on your website is just astronomical. I don't have a direct stat. But I know that it's like 60 80% more effective than just landing someone on a general page. So if that's something you're interested in learning more about, I can talk more about that on a later podcast. But that is really important. So having a call to action with your post, what do you want the person to do. And then if you are linking them to a product or service, make sure you have a separate landing page or sales page for that particular offer. That's the very important. Another suggestion for getting your social media back on track is to don't get caught up in vanity metrics, right? So vanity metrics are things like the number of likes or comments on a post or the number of views of your reel or video. These are important in knowing but it is important to know what's resonating with your customer, but it doesn't always lead to revenue. And you probably have experienced this where you get a lot of likes on a particular post, but it's not really translating into sales. And so the most important thing is my social media activity, translating into revenue. That's all that matters. isn't the end. So, you know, some people post to social media a lot, because they really do want to get attention and they want, they feel good about themselves, or they feel good about their business when they get a lot of engagement. But ultimately, the real measure of success is whether it lead to sales and increased revenue. So just just a word of caution is don't get caught up in those vanity metrics. Another important aspect is to stay current. So social media changes faster than any other medium. I mean, what might have worked two months ago, is not working today. And it's important to stay current on those things. It's good to stay current on the latest trends, the technology and the algorithms, and on social media. So I highly caution not to rely on an intern or somebody in your company just because they're young, and they're comfortable on social media, being comfortable in social media, and knowing what's hot right now doesn't always translate to sales. And if you are in business, sales is your number one goal. So don't rely on someone who's not doing social media as their priority, you know it, and from a business perspective. So you know, hire a professional, go with a company or a person who understands social media and is really invested in your success, our company we are, we get super excited when our clients succeed and get increased revenue, you know, when they're growing, I can't tell you how excited I get when I see a business that's growing and hiring new people or expanding their product line or even opening a new location. I mean, that is very exciting for me, and we're invested in our clients success. And so find somebody who can focus on your social media and really make it successful for your business. You always have input, you're not losing control of your business, or of your social media. But you know, these people, you know, it's their job to make sure they're current on the latest trends and things. And so, you know, let someone else manage that for you. And I'll tell you, you will find it to be, you'll be so much more effective, your marketing will be so much more effective if you hire someone to do that for you. So those are my suggestions for getting your scope, getting social media working for you again.

So stick to the pillars of your brand, understand your customer and what messages resonate with them. Schedule your posting, you know, decide when you're going to post where you're going to post and then stick to a schedule, schedule those things out in advance, so you're not scrambling every week to come up with content. Don't always be selling, every post you put out should not be a selling focused thing about look how great I am. Look how great my products are, should not be that provide value to your cluster to your clients and to your visitors. Provide value, give them something useful, give them something entertaining, and then sell to them. So Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook, as Gary Vee would say, have a clear call to action. So what do you want them to do about the post? Do you just want them to comment on it? Or do you want them to take action and visit a page, hopefully visit a landing page on your website that's specific to that product or service. So give them a clear path to interact with you don't get caught up in at vanity metrics. So it isn't all about a popularity contest of how many likes you get or how many comments you get. It really is at the end of the day about did does my social media lead to more sales, which leads to growth in my business, that is the only thing that matters at the end of the day. And then staying current. Using social media as a tactic within your business is very important. But understand that it is changing every day. Marketing is evolving faster and faster and faster. And social media is really at the forefront of that. And it is not something that you can take lightly. And it really has to be something that you understand in depth, and you use it in your business in a strategic way. So just relying on somebody just because they are comfortable on social media, but not business focused is probably a mistake. So really hire a professional. Have somebody who's dedicated to working on your marketing or working on your social media and your your business will grow you will be so much more effective and efficient and spending less money in the long run and you just will not be stressed because things will be running and you'll be able to focus on the parts of your business that got you to open your business in the first place and what you're good at and let let other people do the other work. That would be my biggest driver. commendations. So I hope this was helpful. If you want to reach out to me directly, you can email me at Jan at Jay del sur marketing.com. If you'd like to see the written article on this topic, you can go to Jay del Sur marketing.com/social working and read the full article and also reach out to us there with questions or comments. So thank you for listening. I really appreciate it. I hope you're enjoying the it's all marketing podcast, I really love bringing together people who have been successful using good solid marketing strategies. And it's just a pleasure to bring these stories to you and to share information with you as you grow your business. And if you're tired and frustrated with trying to choose what marketing strategies to use, or what social media tactics to use to grow your business, I have watched hundreds of business owners throw money at different tactics, only to be overwhelmed and kind of gun shy of spending any more money on marketing and advertising. So I have a 11 session one to one program that I'd like to offer to you. It will help you attract the right customer, build a successful marketing strategy that's going to bring you incredible results and grow your business. You can find more detail at Jan southern.com/consult. That's Jan southern.com/co, n s u l t and also if you have any questions or you just want to reach out to me, you can reach me at Jan at J del Sur marketing.com Thank you so much. b.com

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