In this episode, we cover:

A 5-step, structured approach to effective content & social marketing.

How to monetize your online presence.

Tech tools that can help you target your ideal clients.

Today’s guest, Ian Cleary, is known as “the tech and tools guy” in the content and social marketing space. Ian is the founder of RazorSocial, an online source of tools and training for building audiences, relationships and revenue. He’s built his own subscriber list to over 20,000 in under 2 years! Ian spoke with me about ways to monetize your online presence and become a leader in your agency’s niche.

We all know we have to produce content to be successful online. We create content and post to our website to attract an audience. We share tweets and messages to build awareness and drive traffic. But Ian says that without a clear, documented strategy it’s all just a waste of time. That’s why he created a structured process for building your online influence.

What is the PRISM framework?

PRISM is the process for establishing authority in your niche. Authority is like online currency and Ian says technology is the key to establishing authority. Here are the 5 steps to building your PRISM Funnel:

P – People

You need a relevant audience who is tuned in to your content and intentionally interested. The quality of your audience is more important than the quantity of followers. You could have 10,000 Twitter followers but waste your time, or 1,000 followers that are precisely the right target.

Since you can’t be everywhere and reach everyone, the key is to carefully select the channels that will reach your ideal clients. You need a clearly identified plan in order to effectively build an audience with the people who need your services.

R – Relationships

People like to do business with people they know, like and trust. Useful, valuable content helps you build relationships. While you can’t build relationships with everyone, you can focus your attention on a specific part of your audience. Enter into your content strategy with the intention of providing content to all, but only helping a portion of them.

Ian mentioned Nimble, a customer relationship management tool he uses. This tools builds a profile on specific audience members he identifies and automatically updates itself with other relevant information across multiple data channels.

I – Inbound Traffic

The real action happens on your website. The real goal is to generate inbound traffic to your website. Social followings and relationships are great, but it is imperative to redirect them to your site in order to do business.

Pro Tip: Try pinning a post to your Facebook and Twitter accounts. This post should link back to a landing page where you capture subscriber info.

S – Subscribers & Social Retargeting

Over 70% of website visitors leave and never come back. Even though you’ve got great blog posts and promoted them socially, it’s imperative to build your email list. Opt-in are your opportunity to continue to demonstrate your authority. By subscribing to your list, your is  prospect raising their hand and giving you permission to market to them. With their permission you can begin sending sequenced emails to establish trust and authority.

To target the people you are losing at the subscriber stage, you can set up code from Facebook to track and market to them. This way you are building two types of lists: an email list and a social retargeting list for further marketing.

I find there are 3 types of traffic:  cold, warm and hot traffic. I market differently to prospects based on what how which category they’re in. The key is to continuously test and tweak!