Social media is a hot topic!

And most people are asking how to make social media marketing work for them. Because let’s face it, far too many people are spending far too many hours creating content for social media marketing and then getting nowhere. Even worse, people say “you have to use social media marketing for your business” but then forget to mention the challenges and drawbacks it presents.

I say enough is enough! It’s time to be done spending hours upon hours of time creating social media marketing without getting anything out of it.

With that in mind, I want to lay out my 4 favorite Social Media Marketing tips to ensure that your social media marketing is working for you and not the other way around.

Tip 1: A Bigger Plan

Most important is to ensure your social media marketing is a part of a bigger marketing plan.

No marketing, especially social media, stands on its own. It needs to be part of something bigger, and fixing one little aspect of your social media isn’t going to make it work for you.

It’s tempting to think you just need to get consistent with your posts to make it work. I get it. Business owners everywhere tell me that they just need to get consistent posts going to get sales driven to their website. And to an extent, it’s true… You want marketing to drive traffic to your site. But the truth is, that thought process misses a couple things about marketing in general.

First, marketing is not sales.

Although the goal is to drive traffic, you must keep in mind that marketing is not sales. Converting leads to sales is the job of your website and sales reps, but marketing’s purpose is just to generate those leads.

A Quick Note of Application: If you find that you’re getting a lot of traffic/leads but few sales, try focusing on improving your sales for a few months before you try to up your marketing game. Lots of leads means your marketing game is probably already on-point and that you just need to focus on sales.

Second, Social Media Marketing Misleads

Unfortunately, the term is a little misleading. The common misconception about social media marketing is that it’s all about marketing. But social media was never about marketing in the first place. It has always been about connection and engagement. Marketing is just something that happens to happen on Social Media, not the main reason people are there.

So keep those concepts in mind when you think Social Media...

Remember that it falls under the umbrella of marketing, and must be aligned with the rest of your marketing and branding.

Getting “one great idea” is not going to work, because marketing is not a “one off” thing. Great marketing comes from a great plan and brand, social media is no exception. In fact, when you have a better brand and more solid understanding of your marketing, social media will become easier! Because the fantastic ideas you’ll think up while working on the rest of your marketing can get applied across the board (including with your social media marketing). 

In other words, if you can get your social media marketing to align with a larger brand that people can pay attention to, you’ll find you can get much more traction. Social media is far too convoluted and complicated to work for you any other way. 

Tip 2: All Together

Your social media needs to work together with the rest of your marketing and branding.

This tip stems off the last one, but brings a slightly different approach. It’s the idea that marketing that works together is stronger. 

Think about it this way: three sticks are harder to break than one.

In other words, marketing is more effective (and less likely to lose leads) if it’s connected. If your website is sending them to your google page which connects them to your twitter and then facebook and then back to your website, you’ve created a huge strand of touchpoints for your brand. People grow more familiar with you and therefore more trusting. When you appear everywhere, it’s easier to access you and easier to see you for what you are.

They understand that you’re a cohesive whole, and not a disjointed networking card to a website that doesn’t work or even mention the facebook page.

Tip 3: A Megaphone? Nope!

Like I said earlier, social media was never about marketing.

Which also means it’s not a megaphone for your products and services. When you yell at people about your business, they tune out even outside of social media.

If you want successful social media marketing, you need to be creating solid content that is engaging and helps create quick connections for your viewers.

Quick Connections:

There’s a reason I used the word “quick.” It’s called “scrolling” for a reason: no one wants to spend time thinking. Psychologists have actually noticed that people don’t truly read, and it takes a different part of the brain to read a long paragraph than it does to scroll social media. You’re fighting psychology as well as the basis of social media when you make long megaphone posts about how great your business is.

Could you get people to read if you have a great hook and tap into the paleo mammalian brain to rev them up? Sure. Is it likely to work regularly? Not really.

Instead of fighting psychology AND social media, focus on creating quick content that connects immediately.

Tip 4: A Stand Out Brand

This cannot be overstated, and is often understated.

The world is sending a thousand messages to everyone every day, and our brain knows to tune out the standard things because they’re normal and safe. It’s only when something stands out that our psychology tells us to pay attention.

But this isn’t just psychology.

Insanely successful business owners like Mike Michalowicz and Jesse Cole have written full books about this concept because it is that powerful.

Jesse Cole is the Savannah Banana guy in the Yellow Tux that stands out like a sore thumb in a crowd.

I’m the Violinist who connects Music and Business.

These are things that stick out from our industries and make people do a double take. If you can get people to do a double take on your marketing, you’re far more likely to get them to buy in and get emotionally invested in your brand.

Before I stop, I want to tell you that it’s possible. Your social media marketing CAN work for you.

It’s work, and it isn’t isolated by any means. But if you apply these tips to your social media marketing you just might start to see the difference and watch it work for you instead of the other way around.

Want my help with your marketing? Check out my Marketing Engine Igniter, it's my favorite course for small business owners looking for marketing help because it gets you going with sustainable marketing that actually pours back into your company as an asset.