Episode 15 | 3 More Tips to Improve Your Social Media Promotions 

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Welcome to the Boss It Podcast. My name is Sophia Noreen and I took an Etsy startup and launched it in big box retailers within 12 months. As a creative with an entrepreneurial drive, I left my full time career in healthcare to find better harmony between career, family and self care. We believe you can have it all. Yes, you can launch and run a successful scalable business while maintaining harmony in all aspects of your life. We believe we can learn from each other and draw on many experiences to create the best life possible. During each episode, we will share proven life hacks that will keep you on top and striving every day. There should be no hesitation.Make a plan. Take action. We are here for you. This episode of the Boss It Podcast is brought to you by the free masterclass, "How to Sell More with Influencer Marketing". Planning your campaign will take time and energy. We know this because we have successfully increased our sales and brand name exposure through influencer marketing. If you are running a product-based business right now, you must join our free masterclass. Head to bossitclub.com and go register for your spot in this class. We have a limited number of spots. So make sure you claim yours before they are all gone. Can't wait to see you then. Hello everyone. Welcome to another amazing episode of the Boss It Podcast. My name is Sophia Noreen, and I'm going to be your host for today. And we are going to be talking about promotion again, because that is how important this topic is. I'm telling you guys, if you are not promoting your business or your initiative or your service or whatever you are you know, going out and doing in the world today, people forget. And they don't realize that you're out there trying to serve those individuals. So you need to promote your customer regularly, consistently. You need to show up. And that's why I really want to speak on this topic again. If you missed our last episode, we gave three tips on how to promote using influencer marketing. So go check out that episode if you have not yet done so. Today we're going to talk about how you can continue to promote your initiative by using different strategies. So I'm going to talk about three different strategies. Again, they are focused on social media, but the reason for that is because social media is a very big part of any small businesses path right now to success. I think social media has been really great at leveling the playing field. You don't have to have a great big budget. You don't need to spend money on things like just general messaging. Before with traditional media, you would have to spend a lot of money on ads on the radio or TV or, billboards. I still see McDonald's billboards hanging around. But you won't be able to compete in that category. So social media has been really great at leveling that playing field. And I feel like every small business, either you're just starting out or you've been in the game for awhile, if you're not leveraging social media on a weekly basis, if not a daily basis, you are missing out on great opportunities. So let me share with you three tips on how we have been able to grow a product-based business on Instagram. Now you can probably apply this also to YouTube, TikTok or Facebook. But I'm going to speak specifically to Instagram because our customers are living on Instagram. And that is where we spend most of our time as a company. So the three tips are collaboration, user generated content and responsiveness, and I'm going to go through each one of those in detail. Before we get started, I should let you guys know that if you are not driving and you are able to grab a pencil and a paper or your notebook, I would just grab that so you can write down these tips. Because the main goal for all of our podcasts is to give you really actionable tips that you can promote and start doing what we are suggesting right away rather than just hearing the podcast and not acting on it. No, no, no, no, no. Our whole strategy for you is to make a plan and take action. So let's look at the podcast as a way to plant the seed and start planning. So if you are not driving, which we're in the middle of COVID recording this, so if you're listening to this right, when we release episodes, your chances are you're not driving. So hit pause, grab a notebook, grab a pen and make sure you take notes. All right. So the first one is collaboration. There are different ways to collaborate with different companies or different social media influencers. And I've had a lot of other companies, small business owners and brand influencers; people that own their own brand and they're trying to promote their brand to others. They're asking us how we're growing and how we are getting traction. And one of the number one ways to do this is by collaborating with other small business owners. It doesn't matter if they're in the same category as you. There's enough to go around. Do not look at your other fellow business owners as competition because they're not. So you must go and collaborate with them. Tap them on the shoulder and ask them if they want to join a few of your initiatives. Or if you're invited to an initiative by all means, why not go and check out that initiative? Why not help support their initiative? So collaboration can take many forms. A few of the ones that have worked really well for our company, Also Sophia, is we have set up a ton of giveaways with different companies or different influencers. Giveaways are a great way to essentially share your profile with other brands' followers and vice versa. If they're promoting the giveaway on their profile and you're promoting the giveaway on your profile, you're essentially speaking to two different audiences at once. So I'm sure most of you are very familiar with giveaways on Instagram. But if you're not, I will definitely link a few great articles in our bio for this podcast. So you can check them out after the show, but definitely try to organize a giveaway with different companies that are similar to yours or have a similar following. So for example, if you are a children's storybook author and there's another company that sells toys and you have a similar following but you think that there's some customers that may be missed on either side and they basically would love to buy your product as well why not organize a giveaway with them? That would be a great way of going about it. You can also organize a giveaway with influencers who would potentially be your ideal customer. So we have spoken in a previous episode, I think the episode just prior to number 14, we've spoken about how you can identify your ideal customer. And then of course go ahead and make sure that the influencer has the ideal customer as a follower, and then you can organize a giveaway with them. So the goal really is of course, you want to increase your followers. Of course you want to promote, but you want to make sure you're promoting to the right people. I wouldn't, as a children's author or a book company for children, go and align my giveaway with somebody who is, say, a fitness instructor, because chances are that their following is not really interested in children's books. Sometimes it happens so we tend to go and we pick out people to partner with, and that doesn't really line up with our ideal customer and it really doesn't help promote our sales. The next thing that might be something great to highlight you as a potential brand owner is doing story hops We were able to not only highlight our products during the Eid and Ramadan celebration last season, but we were also able to identify and highlight the brand owners. So we were able to put together our wreaths, our door wreaths. And we were in the video and we were able to hang them up. And it was story hops. So the way a story hop works is you would, again, collaborate with another company, another small business or a brand influencer. You would talk about a similar topic. So say in this case it was decorating our door wreath for Ramadan and for Eid. And then we would jump from story to story. I would tag the next person that our followers are supposed to go and check out their profile and then they could go, and tag the next profile. I would think of it like a leapfrog. But I find story hops are really great because, again, it's identifying your ideal audience sitting somewhere on Instagram, maybe with a different brand or following another influencer. And you want that follower to also follow your account. And because they're your ideal audience, they're more likely to purchase. So make sure you check out the option of doing story hops. You can organize that as well with a brand or an influencer. Now in regards to the number of story hops, I wouldn't do more than five. But again, I'm not sure if people have tried more than five. Five, I think is a good number because then your followers who are watching your stories don't become overwhelmed. Challenges have also been a really good way of collaborating with other brands and influencers. We have been really fortunate to do different challenges over the past year. It really highlights that all you need is a little bit of motivation, a little bit of encouragement, and you can get things done. So I've seen a lot of the one room challenge, which is a great initiative for all of these influencers and brands that are helping in redecorating and home decor. Because now you have a family that's cheering you on and saying, oh, look at that challenge. Look at them, go, they're doing the one room challenge and you see the before and the after. And I think it's really fantastic. So when you use that hashtag, too, it becomes such a popular hashtag. You see other people's profiles. So if you were to do something like a one room challenge, and you essentially use that hashtag people that are on the explore page might even find you because of that. And then perfect! Viola. You actually have a very warm lead customer, because they're looking for that exact thing that you're promoting You're doing interior decor or you're a DIYe,, perfect. Because they're looking for that inspiration So they're going to go ahead and follow your account. Or if you're a brand that's trying to do the one room challenge and you are essentially selling things that help with promoting home decor, even better because now you can highlight and showcase your products. My suggestion is to look at different trends in the challenge category on these different social media platforms, and that will also help to collaborate with other brands and influencers who are doing the same thing. All right. So those are our three tips that we have for you for collaboration. The next tip we have for promoting is using user generated content. And what that means is asking your past customers for testimonials. And we realized the power this had very quickly during our selling campaign because we saw everybody was showcasing their decor for Eid and Ramadan, of course, because they want to show off. They're like, wow, look at this. It's amazing. And then we're like, oh my God, goodness, this is great. So if somebody took a picture and they tagged us, then we would ask them, oh, do you mind if we can get the original photo? And then we have that in a catalog available for us if we need to pull user generated content. And the benefit of this, it's showing a few things. One, it's social proof that other people have trusted you as a product based business. Or if you're a service based business, taking photos of your brides and grooms, if you're a photographer. Or if you're a doula, showing pictures of your past clients with their babies. It's basically social proof because other people have trusted you with that service or trusted you with that product. So social proof is number one, and then it also increases customer confidence. If theres social proof, the confidence level goes up. So they're most likely to purchase from you. I highly suggest that if you have not done so already, tap your past customers on the shoulder. If it's in the moment, that's the best time to ask them. So if you see somebody, purchase something, they tag you. Or they purchase something and they're really happy, then go ahead and ask them if you can take that content. And then the benefit is you can later on use it in your stories. Tag them, of course. Use it in their posts, use it in your ad campaigns. And it works. People really enjoy seeing other individuals enjoying your service. Testimonials is also a very important thing you can ask for, especially if you're a service-based business. I would highly encourage asking for testimonials after each encounter. I know it's difficult and it's tiresome. But if you can somehow automate this request, then you're more likely to get more testimonials. We actually use an amazing app on our Shopify website. So if you're hosting a product based business on Shopify for your e-commerce store, you can look into this app, it's called Loox. L-O-O-X. And what Loox will do is it will send your customers an email requesting a review of the purchased product and requesting also a photograph. And in exchange, the customer will get a discount code, which is great because the customer now has an incentive to come back to your store. And the customer also provides a photo. And what Loox will do is it actually will take the photograph and the review, and it pops out on the side of your page. So as you're scrolling down the page, Looking at all the products on that website, you'll see a review pop in and out. And the review will pop in. It'll show the photo. It'll show the testimonials. So it's not even like you have to go and hunt for the reviews. The reviews come to you as a potential buyer. So it works out really nicely for all parties involved. It works out nicely because the happy customer is able to get another discount. They're able to send their review and their photos, and they're rewarded for doing that with a percentage discount on their next purchase. The new buyer gets the testimonial, brought to them as they're going on the page. So I highly suggest Loox if you are hosted on Shopify. I'm pretty sure the app might be compatible with other e-commerce shops. But Shopify is the one I am using and that is where I have installed Loox. The next and the last tip I have for you guys is being responsive. It is tiresome, I know, to always be in your direct messages or your messages on Facebook, your messages in your TikTok, your messages or your comments on YouTube. And also now your messages and comments on Instagram. But it's really important. I feel like you are acting as a customer service agent on your social media accounts. I have seen in the past some small business owners will put, "Please do not DM me. I will not respond." I get it. It's very frustrating. My suggestion is somehow turn them off if there's an option for that. Or try to remove the button. Because. I feel like your customers are sitting on these social media platforms. Your customers are seeing you on these platforms. And so naturally, if there's an option for messaging or commenting on your platforms, they're going to want a response. And by responding and becoming that face behind the brand, they're more likely to purchase from you. There's a very important saying that circulates in the entrepreneurial space, and it's that people purchase from people they know and trust. And so if you're selling something that everyone else has, they're more likely to buy it from you if they know and trust you. And the only way they will know and trust you is if you have a conversation with them. And yes, you can have a conversation with them on Stories, but that's a one-sided conversation. That bond is strengthened even more if you communicate with them behind the scenes, like through messages and through comments. So my suggestion is to spend a little time. Block it off in your day to just really engage and communicate with your fellow community, with your community. Either you reach out to them and you communicate through comments and DMS, or share other people's content on your stories. Post someone else's content on your stories. That is really important. That's called engagement. That is called being responsive. And that is called basically being respectful to your followers if they send you a DM. One thing I'd be really careful with is in your direct messages on Instagram, it says primary, general and requests. And I know many people may know this already, but for those who don't, make sure you check your requests. Because there's people who are sitting in there waiting for your response, and they don't know that their message has gone into requests. Now they just think that you're ignoring them. So please be careful when you're checking your DMS. If you're not aware of that already, go check your social media profile thoroughly and make sure you're catching all of your messages. Same goes for Facebook. Businesses who've connected their Facebook and their Instagram, please keep in mind that people could be messaging you on your Facebook. Make sure you go check your Facebook messages, especially on your business page, because you may have customers that are waiting for a response there. Okay guys, we have covered a lot of ground. If you were taking notes, that's fantastic. If you're unable to take notes, that's okay. You can always go back and look at our show notes, which is on bossitclub.com. My suggestion now is to really look at all of the tips. So collaboration, user generated content and responsiveness, and make a solid plan of how you are going to incorporate these tips in your social media presence and how you're going to use these to start doing more promotion. Now, if it becomes part of a routine or ritual every day where you're responsive, or you're asking for user generated content, like using an application, like Loox or you're initiating different collaborations or taking up opportunities when they come for collaborations, then I think you're going to be able to really see a large growth in your social media presence, and hopefully this will translate directly into sales. The takeaway message for today is you need to just keep going. You just need to show up if you are really passionate about your business. I know it's hard sometimes to get out there and promote, but you got to do it. You've work so hard. Promotion and marketing it's a lot of work, but it's about 50% of your business. I find it hard, too, sometimes to go out and promote. And sometimes I'm not very good at it either It's difficult. It takes energy. That's why we have huge companies out there helping do this thing called marketing. Okay guys. So that's all we have for today. I am so happy you've joined us for another episode Remember if you know anybody else would benefit from this level of content, please do share the podcast with them. You are doing them a great favor And if you really, really loved this episode, please go and leave us a five star reviews on iTunes. We'd greatly appreciate your feedback. And remember to hit subscribe or follow so you always catch an episode. Okay guys, that's all we got for today. Thanks again. Remember, make a plan and take action and yes, you can have it all. So my fellow bosses, did you enjoy that episode? Now is time for you to make a solid plan and take action. 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