25SOCIAL MEDIA

Connect With Your Audience

IDEAS YOU CAN USE TO

25

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1. Business TipsWe all get asked questions all the time in our businesses.As it’s specific to you and your business, what kind of tipscan you give people?

If you’re in SEO, for example, and that’s your area ofexpertise, can you write down ten tips that you couldshare incrementally on your social media presences?

People love tips.

2. Humor/RelatableSo many people try to segment their social presence and say,“We’re just a business. We can’t put out anything that’s notbusiness-related.” I’m just going to throw a massive flag onthat, guys.

People will connect with you around things they care aboutway before they connect around your business.

Humor is one of my top engagement tools. Whether it’sfunny memes or you just have something funny that’shappening in your life or your business, share that.

If you think about it, what do you engage with? Do you findyourself drawn more to a sales pitch or more into somethingthat’s fun and engaging and entertaining?

3. Inspiration/MotivationInspiration is the number one most shared type of contentacross every social media platform.

It’s true on Instagram and, incidentally, I even found this to betrue on LinkedIn.

If you’ve ever looked at any of my social presences, you’ll seethat I share a lot of inspirational or motivational content. Asentrepreneurs, we need that connection, in my opinion. Weneed to me inspired. We need to be motivated.

Today, you don’t even need to be a graphic designer to createyour own visual content. You can use web-based tools likeCanva or some of the phone apps like Typorama, Word Swagand Legend.

4. Open-Ended QuestionsI get some of my best engagement from open-endedquestions.

About two or three years ago I posted an open-endedquestion on my Facebook page that said, “Peanut butter and…” People loved it!

Ask open-ended questions. People love to talk. They love toanswer questions. In fact, if you’re stumped on what open-

ended questions to ask, go to the Google machine, type in“open-ended questions” and voilà, you will have a ton ofresources and content to generate some ideas of your own.

I challenge you to post the peanut butter question and seewhat kind of engagement you get.

5. Offers and DealsDid you know that getting deals is still the number one reason that people Like brands onFacebook?

Who doesn’t want a deal? We all love deals. We all love free offers. We all love coupons. We alllove discounts. Share those types of things on your Facebook, Instagram or any of your socialplatforms for that matter. Give people a deal.

6. Behind the Scenes/Sneak PeeksBehind the scenes and sneak peek posts can be easier for someone like a solo-

preneur who doesn’t have a large staff and controls most of their own workschedule, but that doesn’t mean businesses can’t do this!

Chocolate Johnny does this amazingly well through live-streaming onPeriscope. Thought, technically, you can do exactly the same thing with photos.

Showcase your business on other social media platforms by letting people seebehind the scenes. Whether that’s your personal life, things that are happeningwith you personally or whether that’s things that are happening inside yourbusiness.

People love to feel like they’re a part of what’s happening in your business. Ican’t tell you the amount of people that have met me in person and knowthings that are going on in my life. They’ll reference something that happenedmonths ago and connect with me around that particular peek into my lifesimply because they saw it on social media.

Again, it’s such a great way to let people engage and connect with you.

7. OpinionsYou can do this a number of ways. You can give yours, ask fortheirs and/or simply ask for theirs.

You could give an opinion on something in your niche andthen ask what your community, your audience, and your tribethinks of it. Again, people love to give their feedback.

Remember…opinions, everyone has one.

Here'swhat Ithink...

What doyou think?

Let'sdiscuss...

8. Industry NewsWe all have things happen in our business or in our space and yetwe sometimes don’t think to share these. The reality is lots ofpeople don’t have access or don’t slow down long enough toresearch and find out certain types of information. There’s a hugevalue proposition in this.

One, you are educating your community on things that arehappening in your space or in your niche. Two, if you do thisroutinely, you will become an industry news or thought leader.People will come to you because they know you know what’shappening.

Mari Smith does this amazingly well. She’s a Facebook expert. Onher fan page, she shares tips, resources, et cetera as it relates toFacebook. People go to her because they know she is going tohave the inside scoop on what’s happening on Facebook.

9. Fill in the BlanksI kind of referenced this before with open-ended questions,but fill in the blanks are great as well.

It’s a different way to phrase a question and the best onesonly require a one or two-word answer, which makes it easierfor your fans and followers to answer and engage with.

If you’re stumped on what to do for fill in the blanks, go to theGoogle machine, type “fill in the blanks questions”, and Ipromise you will get tons of ideas that you can repurposeand/or craft that are specific to you in your space.

10. Strike Up A ConversationIt amazes me that so many people don’t do this. When you go to asocial event, don’t you strike up a conversation with somebody? It’sexactly the same on social media. Take the time, strike up aconversation, maybe give your personal take on an issue, ask what theythink.

I have seen Gary Vanerchuck do this on Twitter. I thought it wasincredible. It was just a simple question that, again, was a conversationstarter for him. He said, “How was your day today, guys?” and then gavehimself an hour to engage with his followers.

That’s a conversation starter, guys. It was a door opener for him to talk toliterally, in his case, hundreds of people.

Take the time to strike up conversations on social media. It's an amazingway to build relationships. If somebody is tweeting you, instead ofsaying just, “Hey, thanks for the retweet,” or not acknowledging it at all,ask them a question! Simple conversations can be amazing way to builda relationships.

11. TestimonialsWe all know that we should be using testimonials on our websites, yet, we don't do that on social media. Why in the world do wenot do this?

One of the most effective strategies that I used to sell my book when it launched was to take testimonials that people would leaveover on Amazon, create a graphic of those, and guess what guys…I put them on my Fan Page! I shared them on Twitter! I sharedthem on Instagram!

Instead of saying things like, “Go buy my book,” or, “Go buy my product,” or, “Go buy my service,” or, “Hey, I’ve got the best deal going,”

or, “I know I can help you,” just let the words of your happy customers speak for you!

12. Open Q&A'sOpen Q&A’s are one of the things that I’ve done on Periscope, Facebook and in some of my closedFacebook groups.

Every once in a while, I’ll do an open Q&A in one of those closed groups and I’ll say, “Hey, I’m goingto be available for the next hour. Ask any question you want.” It’s a great way to provide value andget some real-time engagement with your followers.

13. PollsYou can use a poll for a number of different things like collecting opinions and/or ideas. This isreally value based. Again, it’s an engagement tool, but it’s also a great way to get greatinformation.

What should you do if you’re not getting a bunch of comments or engagement on that poll onyour Facebook page? Tweet it! Tweet it over on Twitter or share it on your personal profile. Drivepeople to that poll to get people to engage with it. They may not see it otherwise.

14. Caption a PhotoPeople love photos that elicit creativity. Asking yourfans and followers to caption a photo normally getssome pretty good engagement as well asinteresting captions!

People seem to love creating captions for funny,cute, silly, and weird photos. It’s an easy and fun wayto get some more engagement going!

15. Make PredictionsThat’s one of the top things on social across the board. People love predictions. Theywant to know what you think.

Now, sometimes those predictions backfire on us, but that’s okay. Predictions are justwhat they are. Maybe you see a trend happening and you make a prediction on it. Evenif what you predicted doesn’t happen, people still love knowing what others think.

16. Crowd Source IdeasAsk other people for ideas. It kind of goes back to when you’re asking for opinions, but bespecific. In other words, maybe you’re getting ready to do a new product or a new coachingplatform or anything of that nature…ask! Ask people what they think.

Crowd source ideas. You will always, always get amazing feedback if you crowd source ideas.

17. Current EventsThis is great because it gives you an opportunity tocapitalize on what?…Hashtags. It gives you an opportunityto be found under hashtags that are trending.

Pay attention to what's trending on Facebook andTwitter and insert yourself into the conversation bycreating posts about that particular trend and leveragethe hashtag.

Now you have an opportunity to get into the feed forthat trend.

18. Highlight Your CustomersSo many people don’t take the time to do this. Give kudos to those who are buying yourproducts and services, may be your top fans, or just pull out a fan on your Facebookpage. Same on Twitter.

Let your social media followers know that you value them. It's important.

19. Tech Tips or ToolsPeople love tools and they love tech tips.

These tips can be things that will shorten thelearning curve, shorten the timeline ofsomething or give you a way to do it in a shorterperiod of time, or do something that youcouldn’t have done otherwise because you don’thave the skills. Graphic design, for example.

20. AdviceIt doesn’t have to be your advice, but if you have some great advice and you feel like it’svaluable then share your advice!

You could share something that you learned from a mistake you made. It doesn’t have to endin a success, although it could be a success.

Share your experiences. Again, yours or others. It doesn’t have to be your experiences.

21. Think Out LoudThis is one of the things that I do quite frequently. Somethingwill be said on social media and it will make me think ofsomething else or it will make me spawn an idea or something.

Thinking out loud, whether it’s a rant or whether it’s just athought in the moment, should be shared on social media.

Those are as real as they get too, by the way. Thinking out loud.

Some will say, “Do you put a filter on that?” That’s up to you.

Sometimes with rants you might want to step back from it forten minutes or count to ten and say, “Deep breath,” before youput it out there.

Every rant I’ve ever done has driven tons of engagement. Justsaying.

22. Recommend Others to FollowYou can do this on a weekly basis and in a number of different ways. Do it as a blog post. Put itout on Twitter.

Whatever the case it, recommendations are huge.

They can be helpful as everybody has people in their niche that they might want to share withtheir community.

23. Debunk MythsThere are always things out there that people assume to be true when they’re not true.

Take the time and say, “Guys, this isn’t true or isn’t always the case because of…” whatever it is.Debunk those myths!

24. Share Video or Audio ClipsNow, we see people sharing video pretty frequently, but you don’t hear people say, “You shouldbe sharing audio tips or audio clips.”

Those are just as impactful. In fact, maybe in some cases more impactful. If someone is on theirphone and they can’t watch something, they still might be able to listen to something.

Absolutely share video and/or audio clips.

25. ASK!ASK your followers what their biggest pain points are. You will get incredible feedback from this.

Plus, if you know what your audience, your tribe or your community struggles with and you craftyour products and your services to address those pain points, when it comes time to sell stuff, ohmy goodness guys, you are in so much better shape because you already know people want it.

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