We’ve seen how important social media influence can be for the average business.
So, given this importance, how exactly do you, a business owner, go about building up your influence when it comes to social media?
In a word, carefully.
Where to Start Building your Social Media Influence
The thing with social media is that it’s so easy to use that the temptation is to, well, overuse it.
The only thing that is worse than talking to an audience who isn’t listening is wearing out your welcome with a receptive audience.
I’m going to give you some solid tips and tricks that are guaranteed to grab a social media audience and keep them engaged and attentive right through a sale and beyond.
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What’s that you’re saying?
Before you can begin to build your social media influence, you have to have something compelling to say.
In other words, how are you going to position your business when it comes to the audience you’re trying to reach?
This position is your message and the message is what you’ll be communicating to an audience via the various social media platforms.
Your message is simply how you market yourself to the general public, both online and off.
Many businesses make the mistake of beginning to communicate on social media without first developing a clear message or clear way to communicate that message.
Other businesses make the mistake of falling off point when it comes to their message.
Either way, a business that makes these mistakes will likely not be able to build social media influence, since they are confusing any potential audience in regard to what they are saying.
Think about your message in terms of a political campaign.
Politicians have talking points and they stick to these points no matter what and no matter the question they are asked.
This helps drive home their message in the minds of their potential constituents.
Your business’ social media message has to be as pointed, consistent and clear as a politician’s talking points.
When you talk on social media, there can be no doubt in the minds of those listening about what your business is, what it does and the level of service and expertise it provides.
The take away here is that when it comes to social media, think before you speak.
Turn your message up to eleven
If you’re in business, then you are in the business of solving problems.
No matter which way you cut it, every business takes a customer’s problem and makes it go away.
That’s what businesses do.
The businesses that most efficiently solve the problems that their customers face are the businesses that become the most successful.
It’s that simple and that straightforward.
If your business has solved customer problems to their satisfaction in the past, then those successes and those satisfied customers are the basis of your marketing efforts.
Potential customers want to be able to trust that you will take care of their particular problem quickly and cleanly.
Pointing out examples of previously satisfied customers lends legitimacy to the rest of your marketing message.
As they say, nothing succeeds like success.
What does all this have to do with social media influence?
In a nutshell, a great deal.
You see, social media is not an isolated means of marketing your business.
Instead, it should be cleanly integrated into a cohesive marketing campaign.
In other words, you should be using social media to amplify your message, not to broadcast an entirely new and different message.
A lot of businesses become obsessed with social media.
As a result, they spend way too much time worrying and fiddling with various social media platforms.
They actually spend too much time on social media, engaging in all the wrong kinds of communications.
When you use social media to magnify what you already are saying, you should find the time spent on social media decreasing.
In other words, it is quality communication that counts, not the number of times you make a post.
Talk, but don’t converse
Social media is all about creating engagement with an audience.
This engagement leads to communication which, in turn, leads to trust.
The thing is the communication portion of that formula does not mean that you are holding a conversation with your audience members or, worse yet, chatting with them.
Instead, proper use of social media means that any conversation is one way – you talk and they listen.
Social media, when used properly, will create authority.
You broadcast your message and prove to people that you can solve problems, as we discussed above.
A problem occurs when business owners confuse their personal use of social media with their business’ use of social media.
In the one case chatting, disagreeing and even arguing are perfectly permissible.
In the other, such behavior is instant death when it comes to influence.
Authority figures do not chat, defend their positions or argue about the validity of what they have to say.
As soon as a figure of authority engages in conversational behavior, they begin to lose weight and influence.
Talk to your audience on social media, don’t talk with them.
This doesn’t mean that you are talking down to your audience or talking at them.
It simply means that you are reinforcing your business’ expertise in the minds of your audience as a problem-solving organization.
The takeaway here is that you don’t want to even try to connect with everyone on social media, you only want to connect with those people who will resonate with your message.
Find more social media tips to help you build and grow your business here:
- What is Social Media Influence and How You Can Use it to Engage with Your Audience
- The Basic Steps to Get Started Using Social Media for Your Business
- Why is Social Media Influence Important
- Your Buyers Live Online, Making Decisions based on Social Media
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