How Do You Use Social Media to Market Your Small Business?
So many people overcomplicate using social media marketing for their small business. They don’t have any idea how to do it or where to start. Short answer: GIVE PEOPLE SOMETHING. Give them a reason to follow you, engage with you, click your links, trust you, buy from you. You have an obligation to give people something in exchange for them giving you attention, and ultimately money.
“I hate social media”
I love when people say that to me, when they’re talking to me about their business idea. Okay, girl no you don’t. Because you found me on social media. What you hate is the idea of having to promote yourself. For reasons. And I don’t care about your reasons. I want that to be clear: I don’t care.
You have a website, or a blog, or a YouTube channel but you’re not getting any likes or shares or interactions? You’re not growing traffic, or sign ups. You’re not getting orders and you’re not making money. Why? Because you’re not promoting. So you do the math.
Maybe you didn’t even start yet because you got in your own head.
You want to start a business, maybe write a book, but you’re worried about not making sales because you don’t know how you’re going to promote your products when people barely share your posts on social media anyway.
And who is gonna wanna read your stuff? Who wants to see your art work? Or hear your opinions?
First of all, check your low self esteem somewhere. Actually, throw it in the garbage, set the bin on fire, and roll it down a hill or chuck it off a cliff. We’re not unpacking your self doubt here because I don’t want to hurt your bruised banana feelings.
Also, I want to be super clear:
I don’t care about your low self-esteem. I have enough of my own.
Yours isn’t on my to-do list and you can’t afford to pay me for counseling. Also, I’m not licensed for it and I’ll give you real painful advice so let’s just skip that whole part.
Just know EVERYONE has moments of doubt. And you have as much free will and conscious decision making ability as anybody else.
CHOOSE to do things even if you’re less than confident of an outcome. CHOOSE to take the actions most directly related to what you want to achieve. Even if, and especially when you’re scared. GET REAL with yourself, and climb tf out of your comfort zone.
So anyway…
You want your business or artwork to make sales: Promote yourself on Social Media
There are no two ways about it: Everyone’s online. Your future readers, and buyers are online. The people who will tell their offline friends about your work are online. You are online, but you don’t want to embarrass yourself or annoy strangers on the internet? You’re wary to suffer the personal humiliation of nobody interacting with your content.
Okay, fair. But nothing will happen if you don’t do anything.
You have to put yourself out there to reach your goal.
How about we take a logical approach to the problem? One that subtracts your fragile ego, codependent emotions, and need for external validation.
You want likes, you want shares.
You want people to click your links and you want buyers.
Right?
Ask yourself, what makes you want to have something? What makes you decide to click buy? And what ultimately makes you take out your credit card to complete the purchase?
Usually before we buy something we have to be interested in it. Something about it has to speak to some part of us that wants to feel differently. Either we want to feel smarter, more beautiful, more secure, more comfortable, more capable, confident, powerful.
You might not love capitalism but if you want to work for yourself, or take more control of your financial independence, you need to grasp the basic psychology of selling. You have to clock that effective marketing through social media is not about asking people to click, but about giving people a reason to.
Social Media Business Marketing is about 3 things:
Visuals. Clarity. Links. When you’re promoting your business or artwork online, the point is to get attention and hold it. Your messaging and tone is entirely up to you. You can be Tigger, Pooh, Piglet, or Eeyore. I don’t care what persona your posts take on.
But when you promote your artwork, book, blog, or business you BETTER put a picture up with every link. And if you expect anyone to click that link then you better tell them the fuck why they should.
What is inside that link that’s going to improve their day/life? Is it funny, is it informative?? Is it important, is it an exclusive, is it the perfect gift for someone special in their life? Do you post niche content for enthusiasts?
Use up all 140 – 250 characters and tell us WHY your link matters to us. Tell us right now.
What are you willing to give in exchange for what you want?
Listen, your bills and debts are your personal private business. Everyone has those. And everyone has to figure out a way to pay and settle them. I got fires to put out and problems to solve FOR DAYS. I don’t post about them because I’m an adult and my messes are mine to clean, and yours are yours to clean.
You ever see the people who post nearly every single day – FOR YEARS on end – that they “really hate to do this but” babes, if you hated to do something you wouldn’t do it 52 weeks in a row.
If you really hated it, you’d find a way out. And that’s just basic life philosophy. We revert to comfortable patterns, and we more often than not seek and sink into the easy way. We don’t hate it at all. We love the easy road.
Business owners are a little different. Real, serious, passionate creative business owners LOVE challenges. We’d like some of those challenges to be a little easier sometimes. Sheesh! But we didn’t strike out to start a business because we LOVE EASY.
Marketing
Posting to social media about your personal financial situation IS NOT a marketing strategy for your business. Asking people to share your links or telling them you need “help” isn’t a business model.
Do you want people to give you money or do you want people to LOVE your work, buy your work, and tell their friends about your work?
If you have a website, or a business, if you perform a service or create art your promotional strategy has to focus not on the work itself, but on the value the work brings to people’s lives. What does your website, business, or art GIVE people that they need and want?
Aside from food and shelter, the main things that people spend their money on are information and pleasure.
Use Social Media Marketing To Help People Have a Better Day (and grow your business)
It’s hell out there! Online, in the real world, Globally, locally. It’s a fuckin mess! And yet, we still have to eat. We still have to pay our rent. We still have families to provide for and we each have duties to others to make their lives easier. So why not focus on the ways YOU can do that for others?
When you’re using social media marketing for your small business you have to keep in mind that everyone is posting, and selling, asking, and telling. You’re job is to do that too – but better. Show that you’ve taken the time to shine your work til it glistens.
Start right there: What does your artwork, or small business give that isn’t immediately obvious? What is the underlying theme of the story? Who are the main characters and who do they match up with in real life? What’s a lesson your character learns that’s relatable? What’s a personality trait your character has that readers might share?
That’s a basis for a solid social media marketing campaign: Focus on the character, and draw out a summary/outline of them like you were talking to a close friend about someone cool you met that you really like. Share that character with your followers online.
And if you have a small business, say you sell jewelry or crocheted items – find ways to put those items into people’s everyday lives. Talk about brightening up an outfit. Talk about your items as presents, talk about what inspired you to make the piece. Share more stories about the things you create, and connect those stories back to the very real human being people who you want to buy from you.
Stop Begging on Social Media For Buyers.
But for real. Let’s wrap this up babes. Unless you’re hardcore committed to social activism and mutual aid as collective social path forward – in which case your social media wouldn’t be about pleading for purchases(?) – then you can cut the crap with the begging.
You’re one of two people – a business owner, or a beggar. You don’t get to be both and if that leaves an icky taste in your mouth I don’t write for you. Remember that. I said what I said, and I’ve built what I’ve built and none of it came from begging. It came from brainstorming, putting the time in, crafting and re-working copy, creating graphics and learning new skills year after year.
If you want to work for yourself, and make a living doing something you love, then act like you fucking love it and give it the time and attention it requires to grow.
If you want people to buy from you for the right reasons then figure out why anyone should be interested in your work AND GIVE THEM THOSE REASONS EVERYDAY. Log on, and show and prove, and use pictures, and videos, and humor, and sass, and always link to your work, and TELL PEOPLE WHY.
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