Consider the Source

With organic reach down to 5% or lower, Facebook has become purely a pay-to-play platform for businesses. Facebook Groups are the exception, and may be one of the most powerful marketing tools available. Here’s my strategy for how to build and nurture an audience of super-fans. 

Sign up for my online course Social Media Strategy for Business: https://controlmousemedia.com/social-media-strategy-for-business

Social media is a great starting point to drive awareness of your business, but let's face it – there's a ton of noise out there. One strategy that can help: Twitter Ads. If you haven’t tried ads yet as a part of your content strategy, here's a quick guide to getting started. 

Sign up for my online course Social Media Strategy for Business: https://controlmousemedia.com/social-media-strategy-for-business

There are no shortcuts in building a business. At least it’s not worth playing the odds of putting stuff out there and hoping to get lucky. Or looking for tricks to beat the system. Time and time again, I get people who come to me asking for quick hacks and work-arounds. “I need to build an audience – quick. Can you help me?”

The answer is no. Building an audience requires honesty, patience, and a genuine desire to solve problems for others. And those things take time. Yes, a little luck along the way can help. But as I say all the time, "hope is not a marketing plan."

Medium is a "social blogging" platform run by the folks at Twitter that is focused on long-form content, and it is an often-overlooked platform for business.

Medium has a ready-made audience, and delivers your content to your followers (and others via algorithm) via an e-mail feed. You can gain more a lot more potential exposure this way, which might help you boost your own blog. The downside is that it’s a lot of work to produce another set of long-form content separately from your blog.

But can't you do both? Or is it bad for SEO? I believe that you can coordinate the two without succumbing to what’s called "digital sharecropping." Listen to the episode to hear me discuss the considerations from each side of the two potential strategies you might use.

Sign up for my online course Social Media Strategy for Business: https://controlmousemedia.com/social-media-strategy-for-business

Running an ad serves only one purpose – awareness. People can't take the next step with your business if they're not aware of it. There are a number of ways to create awareness, but using an ad as a part of your overall content strategy can give you a chance to accelerate the process a little.

Awareness doesn't guarantee attention, and it certainly doesn't guarantee that someone's going to care about what you do. That's where the principles of content marketing come in – providing real value to real people, over and over again, until they come to trust you enough to do business with you.

Listen to the complete episode for how to do this, including some starter strategies if you're new to Facebook Ads. 

Sign up for my online course Social Media Strategy for Business: https://controlmousemedia.com/social-media-strategy-for-business

Pinterest is still one of the most popular social media platforms, and it has been evolving into a great marketing tool for small businesses. Here's a "starter strategy" to get you up and running and taking advantage of their business-friendly features.  

Sign up for my online course Social Media Strategy for Business: https://controlmousemedia.com/social-media-strategy-for-business

Instagram and Snapchat are each powerful social platforms that can help you construct a visual narrative around you or your business. But each have specific limitations as well. Here’s a quick comparison so you can make a decision for your business. 

Sign up for my online course Social Media Strategy for Business: https://controlmousemedia.com/social-media-strategy-for-business

"Should I be on Snapchat?" is one of the most frequent questions I get from small business owners.  

Snapchat provides an opportunity for you to show a side of your business that's more personal – that there are real people in your company, doing real things. The flavor of it is different than the other platforms, though. By its very nature, it's not for hyper-produced content. It's for stuff that is more real or raw. But like anything in business, you want to do it with a strategy behind it. 

In the episode, I highlighted a few examples of people making good use of Snapchat for business: Mark Suster (@msuster), Erica Blair (@theericablair), and Jay Acunzo (@jayacunzo).

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Sign up for my online course Social Media Strategy for Business: https://controlmousemedia.com/social-media-strategy-for-business

It’s fun to create and share images. So it’s easy to see why Instagram is one of the Web’s most popular platforms. But under Facebook’s ownership, Instagram is evolving quickly. What we’re seeing is a series of strategic moves to make the platform much more brand-friendly.

Here's an overview of some of the key Instagram strategies for business: How to use Instagram as a storytelling device for your brand; How to set up a clear, direct, and optimized user profile; Two strategies for how to make the most out of Instagram’s one-link restriction; Setting up a business account in Instagram and why it’s important; Hashtagging etiquette for business accounts; The basics of creating a Facebook Business Manager account so you can run ads on Instagram.

Here's my account should you wish to see some of my images: http://instagram.com/mboezi.

Good things happen when you respect your audience enough to let them come to a buying decision on their own. Are you willing to give up some control for a deeper relationship with your customers?