Who’s holding you accountable?
Having only started in business in September, I feel I’m still evolving what I offer but really had in mind that I wanted to offer a training program of some kind. I had been dabbling with it but not focusing on it in the way that I should to make it successful. Then one day I attended a networking event and we were asked a question to answer in the chatbox surrounding significant goals that we wanted to achieve. I had typed in filming a digital course and someone else on the call spotted it, contacted me afterwards and from that day forward we became accountability partners. She is an accountant and has several courses based around Knowing Your Numbers (one of which I’m currently doing and is super effective - it’s given me amazing clarity in my business already!) so with me being more focused on the copy, we complement each other really well.
For the love of Instagram
Think of using Instagram to let your ideal client get to know you and get to understand a bit about what motivates you and how you can help them. People follow others on social media to either learn something or be entertained so try to implement a bit of structure into your posts so that you have an idea of what you’re aiming to portray and, of course, be authentic with it. Show your potential clients enough of the real you to help them understand they want to work with you.
Are you a planner?
The key though, is appreciating those skills and accepting that being modest about them is actually depriving those people who need your skills of learning from you.
This has been brought home to me on many occasions since I started my business in September, so now is the time to embrace the variety of skills I’ve amassed over the years and put them to good use, which I believe will be more fulfilling to me too. The start (and end for that matter) of a year often encourages us to reflect on what we’ve achieved and where we’d like to get to. Have you used this break over Christmas to reflect on your business journey too? Does it mean a change of direction or a slight pivot?
First roadtrip for my new business
I was so thrilled that I’d had some really interesting conversations with some great business people, so I felt it had set me up for success. Clearly there’s a long way to go and lots of follow up to do, but it gave me a real boost to hear what potential clients find are their stumbling blocks to moving forward and how I might be able to fit into their business plan to help them achieve their goals.
Limit the Linkedin Overwhelm
So once you’ve checked through your existing connections, let’s start widening the field. You can refine your previous search by the degree of connection a person has to you. If you consider all of your connections move in different circles to you and have their own set of connections, these are all then your “2nd degree” connections. When you find you have mutual connections it gives you a common thread - “we know similar people” so maybe they would be people who would like to get to know us?
Are Facebook groups the place for you?
If you can create an engaged audience in a facebook group, you then get the opportunity to reach out to them on a regular basis, and unlike your business page where a mere 5% of your followers see your posts, your group members will receive a notification when you post. So whenever you go live in your group or whenever you post a promotion, your audience will see it. It beats paying for advertising doesn’t it? The real gems are in the conversations that you spark though, as that will give you breakthroughs in what your audience wants and needs from you, and also boosts that all-important engagement algorithm.
Start at the beginning of your social media journey
Avoid the overwhelm
This is not set in stone, but a rule of thumb would be that if you're a B2B (business to business) then opt for LinkedIn and Twitter but if you're you're a business to consumer (B2C) business then definitely be on Facebook and Instagram. You may have more of a creative business which might have you working on Pinterest and there are too many other platforms to mention but try to get started and good at one before leaping into all of them.
Try this super useful research tool
I was very proud to have won this #SBS hour accolade for a client of mine in the Spring and the excitement was off the scale. The twitter traffic over the following couple of weeks was amazing and you can harness that further by contributing to the conversations in these hours each week to grow your contact base.
Is there a membership organisation for your sector?
Did you know you can tag people and organisations in your images too, so that you can save on characters? On twitter you can tag up to 10 people in a picture and on LinkedIn you can tag up to 20.
Create a social media buzz around your next exhibition
See if a group has been set up for the event on LinkedIn and/or facebook. If it has, join it and start connecting with other members of the group. Even if they’re all other exhibitors, they may still be (or know) your ideal client. Treat other exhibitors as complementary to you and your business. No-one is direct competition and no-one can offer what you offer, in the same way that you offer it. They could be your collaborative partners of the future, so get social with them - exhibitors offer a valuable source of supportive energy and camaraderie as you’re all in the same position.
Turn your speaking opportunities into content
I first got into learning about instagram stories from an online coach, Alex Beadon, you may know her? She has always been so clear about what you can achieve if you let your audience know what you’re doing in a creative way. There are some great hints and tips that I’m sure most of us don’t know about hidden away in the depths of the platform. I know how excited I was about learning some top tricks, so I feel that would be a positive talk especially if I could help others transform their business presence on instagram.