Possum blossoms,

You’re probably thinking right now: WAIT! LEONIE IS TALKING ABOUT SOCIAL MEDIA? I THOUGHT THEY DON’T USE IT ANYMORE!

And you would be correct, young grasshopper! I don’t!

I still have some hot goss on what to do if you are using it however – and how to make it more profitable & less time-sucking for you and your business!

Buuuut before we get started: are you up to date with the series so far?

  1. How to Work Out Your Ideal Client
  2. Online Networking & Masterminding
  3. How to Sell More with Blogging
  4. How to Grow a Mailing List
  5. Grow Your Biz Using Free Opt-Ins
  6. Understanding Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
  7. Booking Podcasts & Interviews

Want to listen to the companion podcast for this post as you read?

Easyyyy babes! Just click play above, or subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, PocketCast (or wherever else you listen to podcasts!)

First up, transparency!

I don’t use social media within my business (or my personal life) anymore.

I quit. Kicked it to the curb. Social media and I broke up earlier this year, and it was the best thing I’ve ever done.

I developed a course based off my experiences and experiments; Marketing Without Social Media, freed up a significant portion of my own time & my assistant’s and made a return to blogging (one of my faaave things in the whole world).

But! Does this mean YOU shouldn’t use social media in your business? Of course not.

The point of this blog post (and Marketing Without Social Media) is to help you figure out how social media can serve you, and if it doesn’t how you can drop it like a hot potato.

Social media shits me because it catches so many business owners up.

You’re probably in either of two camps. You tell me which one you are:

  1. You’re signing up for every platform in existence and trying to keep up with all of them and it ends up taking all your flipping work day being on there and you’re getting no real work done. And you’re not really sure what you are supposed to be doing on there, so you try to do it all. And you probably aren’t getting the most bang for your buck because you just aren’t getting the important shit done.
  2. The whole thing is so fraught with overwhelm that you don’t do anything. Or you have one sad Facebook page that never gets your attention.

So it’s time for a social media intervention. I’m going to tell you exactly what you need to know, what’s going to make the biggest impact on your business and what NOT to do

Social Media Intervention: Do Not Let This Be A Time Suck!

I see FAR TOO MANY business owners end up spending their WHOLE DAYS on social media, thinking that’s what they need to do.

IT IS NOT YOUR JOB OR YOUR BUSINESS TO BE ON SOCIAL MEDIA ALL THE TIME.

Let me say that again so you can let it sink in: IT IS NOT YOUR JOB OR YOUR BUSINESS TO BE ON SOCIAL MEDIA ALL THE TIME.

Have a social media presence, if you want one! But you need to get bloody strategic about it!

You are messing with your business growth if interacting on social media is taking up any more than 5-10% of your work time. (By “messing with your business growth” I mean this: you are losing money. BIG TIME. I am dead serious here hon.)

Ideally it should take you as little time as possible. Your job as CEO of your own business is to be creating the strategy for your business and making sure it is done. Your job is to be brainstorming what needs to be fixed, what needs to be improved and what needs to be done to drive your business forward. Your job is to do the one thing that no one else can do in your business.

So, if your social media is a tool you want to keep using in your business, let’s get started on your very own social media plan. Because you damn well need one to make sure it’s profitable, powerful and minimally time-sucky and crazy-making for you.

Which Social Media Platform Should You Be Using?

There are two points to this:

  1. Use the platform/s that your audience are hanging out on the most
  2. Use social media platform/s that you enjoy creating content for

The biggest mistakes I see are business owners using platforms that are somewhat irrelevant to their business, or platforms that they absolutely hate.

You have options, babes! If you choose to use social media, make it enjoyable and profitable!

Here’s the top seven options, ranked by popularity:

  1. Facebook
  2. Instagram
  3. Twitter
  4. TikTok
  5. YouTube
  6. Pinterest
  7. Reddit

So how do you figure which one’s to use? Well this is where knowing your target audience comes into play again:

If your business is:

  • directed at women
  • target market likes visuals
  • food
  • fitness
  • photography
  • fashion
  • homewares
  • craft
  • blogging

I would be looking at using Pinterest and Instagram.

If your business’ target market is males, especially those in the tech industry, Reddit and Twitter could be of use.

If you produce videos or want to make it a part of your marketing plan, YouTube or TikTok are your best bet above any other video services.

How To Be A Social Media Ninja

Coming up with goals, plans + systems

This is what separates the professionals from the businesswannabes. You’re going to have to create your very own social media plan.

You need to be looking at statistics of what’s working for your business, allocating your time or team time to creating content and responding on social media, deciding what is a priority and what is not. You need to automate as much as possible and delegate as much as possible. You need regular systems in place so that social media becomes a small (but powerful) part of your marketing plan, not something that soaks up all your time without maximum results.

By the end of this section, you’ll develop your own social media plan.

Coming up with your ratio and mix of social media content Ideally with your social media profiles, you want to be accomplishing a number of aims:

  • Attracting new followers
  • Staying in front of people who already know you
  • Educating people on you/your product/your service
  • Developing a community or fan following
  • Sharing your story, philosophy and offerings so people can decide if you are the right fit for them
  • Getting them on to your mailing list
  • Getting them to purchase
  • Getting them to become raving advocates of your work

So what kind of things can you share on social media to help you accomplish these aims?

  • Behind-the-scenes photographs and details of your business (i.e. what you are working on now, what it takes to create your product, works-in-progress, your studio or workspace)
  • Photographs and images of your offerings. You can include purchase information, price and where to buy.
  • Advice, tips or tutorials that your target audience would be interested in.
  • Links to news, articles, blogs or websites that your target audience would be interested in.
  • Quote images created by you/your team
  • Quote images that are re-shared from other sources.
  • Images of results your programs are getting
  • Testimonials from past clients (whether words or videos or a mix)
  • Celebrating a client’s results whether with a name or without (i.e. “Just heard that one of my clients is now 30 days cigarette free! That’s such a wonderful and life changing achievement!”)
  • Personal sharings (if you are called)
  • Questions for your readers
  • Links to past blog articles you’ve written that have proven popular and useful to your target market
  • Links to new blog articles
  • Images of your product out in the world by your clients

It doesn’t have to be EXACTLY on message. If you think your target market will enjoy it, share it! Your target market wants to be both educated AND entertained!

Look at your stats to see what’s working!

There’s a couple of ways for you to monitor what’s working awesomely for your business in social media. Consider looking at what your most social media posts were over the last month and what your audience are engaging with the most. The more popular your posts are, the more they will rank higher in feeds, and more people will see what you post.

Consider automation tools:

There are a number of tools out there on the market that can help you schedule social media updates in advance (often publishing to a number of platforms at the same time) so you (or your team) don’t have to be there all day doing it.

They can also help you plan in advance the right mix of posts for you and make you get strategic about what you are posting!

  • Facebook Page Scheduler (this is built right into the Facebook Page)
  • Tailwind
  • Canva

The bottomline is; social media will change. It already has, massively. Algorithms change without warning, social medias disappear (MySpace, Bebo, Vine, Periscope) and your content and followers are never truly yours. If you’re using social media I strongly recommend having a mailing list. That way you aways have access to your audience, even if social media crumbles or changes its terms of use.

Focus on building success now. Focus on doing what you can now. Learn as you go along. It’s the only way to do business.

Consider having one of your team take on the role of Social Media Manager for your business, or hiring one on a part time or contract basis (up-levelling to full-time when your business needs it).

What your Social Media Manager can be doing:

  • Coming up with content in advance to be shared on your social media profiles
  • Scheduling it in, or updating in real time
  • Liking replies on Facebook
  • Responding to any questions (or directing them to email or private messages to be responded to by customer support staff).

Dealing with haters

So, unfortunately, this does need to be talked about because it does happen. As you share your work with the world and get more visible, you’ll start to receive more comments from people who aren’t in your target market, and who aren’t being respectful.

I have zero tolerance for haters or people being disrespectful anywhere in life or business – whether it is on social media or on the street. I have a No B.S. policy installed which pretty much means this – one strike and you’re out. I don’t give warnings. I don’t give second chances. I don’t care if you’re a potential customer. If you believe it’s acceptable to be an asshole, that’s how you’ll continue doing business with me. I believe people show you who they are from the beginning, and that someone who is disrespectful will continue to be difficult to work with in the future.

If anyone uses social media to be unkind or disrespectful, their comment is deleted and they are banned immediately. I don’t engage. I don’t try and coach them up to be nice people. I don’t try and change their mind. I just remove them from my space, end of story.

Of course, if it is a customer with a legitimate concern or question, we take care of them. But for all the rest of the ridunkulous nonsense that goes on, it’s an instant delete and ban.

Free Social Media Planning Worksheets!

To make it even easier for you to stay strategic with social media, I made you some free worksheets to help you:

  • craft your own profitable social media plan
  • evaluate which social media platform is the right one for you to use
  • decide on your content strategy
  • do monthly social media reviews!


Streamline. Automate. Profit.

If you decide to use social media in your biz, my loving advice to you is to use the worksheets above to figure out exactly how to streamline it.

Automate your content creation, schedule your posts, turn off endless scroll and create your own content before consuming others. Use social media mindfully and pay attention to your stats & traffic.

And if you still feel that social media isn’t for you, then don’t worry babes you’re certainly not alone.

Social media is just one of many tools you can use in your business. If you want to learn other marketing tools (either to replace social media or to complement it), I highly recommend checking out my course Marketing Without Social Media.

No matter what tools you use in your business, make sure you’re using them because they feel right for you.

We’ve got this, babes!

Big love,

FREE GOODIES:

BOOKS:

COURSES: