Do you speak social media marketing? This blog post is going to be a little cheeky, so, just remember…it’s all out of a place of service for you, no shade here.

When I think about social media marketing, I try to think about it in the way that YOU are thinking about it.

You might start thinking about:

• Branding
• Campaigns
• Comments
• Engagement
• Groups
• Hashtags
• Live Launches
• Saves & Shares
• Trends
• Views

But I think about:

• Authentic Connection Strategies
• Automation Structures
• Brand Atmosphere and Development
• Creative Conceptualization
• Consistent Messaging
• Data-Driven Creation
• Sales Skills and Psychology
• Strategic Outreach

The fluency of your skills can be shifted from platform to platform, but if you’re only skilled in finding the perfect hashtags, following the trends, and hoping for views then we’re not working with a social media strategy. 

But we can be and I’m here to empower you to shift your thought process, your strategic approach, and your mind about how social media can serve your business and your community at large. 

All that I am sharing with you below is pulled from a larger marketing strategy because it is simply a trickle-down approach from your high-level marketing strategy.

These are the pieces I see missed the most in folks’ social media marketing strategy and it’s usually why it feels extremely difficult for the average business owner to handle all marketing across the board and yet often outsourcing to a marketing agency also feels wildly out of alignment because the brand isn’t concrete enough to hand over to another team.

Authentic Connection Strategies

We mentioned a few opportunities in the original list of tactics or strategies you may start thinking about when you hear the words “social media strategy.” Things like engagement and groups have little to do with the platform you’re utilizing and more to do with a skill set that you can shift over to major platforms like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and TikTok. 

Authentic connection strategies are just that: authentic ways you connect with your absolute-clients across several platforms. 

Some of the ways that we teach our clientele to create relationships are through:

• Engagement practices with a list of leads that they’d love to work with (liking, commenting, viewing, engaging with, and directly messaging those leads in an effort to build a relationship first before seeing if the work-relationship is a good fit)
• Parallel audience engagement through a visibility plan (business coach serving a marketing consultant’s audience with strategic business tips that help the community, the business coach’s efforts to serve more clientele, and the marketing consultant’s desire to do the same)
• Outreaching to new potential clients through specific mediums (groups, hashtags, competitor communities) to begin the creation of a new relationship

When I think of social media strategy I catch myself wondering if the above is being covered in said strategy or if the focus is fully on content alone. A social media strategy is heavily reliant on the what, when, how, and why across platforms and acts as a designed-plan to get in front of potential clients, but if content is the only focus then we’ll lose before we even start. We talk more about what’s needed alongside content here; enjoy it after you finish this blog post!

Brand Atmosphere and Development

You can have a DIY brand or a luxurious-you-invested-five+ figures-in-the-brand-development brand and yet if there’s not an atmosphere around your brand that’s been developed based on the clientele’s needs…then we’re missing the point.

The payment exchange, the perfect strategy guides, the incredible logos, and the stunning designs are only a portion of the strategy when it comes to branding. 

Brands are built on the test of time and the timeless capability of being able to serve clientele within an atmosphere that they’re comfortable in, supported by, and feel welcomed into.

This is the area that I harp on the most with clients because they regularly feel like the offers are the brand or the colors/logos/designs are the brand, but the way that your community and potential clientele FEEL inside of your brand is more important than a logo. 

A major shift to take into action here is to begin to review the stories that led you to this time, this day, and this business. For example, I didn’t take one course in marketing and call myself a marketing professional; armed with my marketing degree, a decade of marketing knowledge, and titles such as Marketing Strategist, Copywriter, Social Media Strategist, Manager, Editor, Co-Editor, within the retail, corporate, higher education, and start-up sectors…I’ve been able to package up my expertise for our clientele in a way that empowers them in the now.

The stories I have from my experiences above and the way that I’ve taken my IRL knowledge into the online business world are what sets me apart from other marketing professionals. What sets you apart from your competitors? Begin to develop those brand stories and overuse them until you can’t repeat them ever again. It’s the reminder and cue your community needs to trust your experience. 

Consistent Messaging

This effort is so similar to the above that I want to empower you with an action-based approach to ensure that you’re consistently communicating to your clientele in a strategic way:

• Perform an audit on your marketing presence. What happens when you Google yourself?
• This is what your absolute-clients are going to do, therefore, review the words you’re regularly using, does it match the brand where it is now and where it’s going?
• Do the words call in the absolute-client you’re seeking to catch the attention of?
• Are you channeling the attention from those absolute-clients to a place that they can be served or are you simply inspiring, telling, and hoping for a conversion based on your marketing? 
• Are there obvious brand stories, content pillars, and simplistic calls to action that your community can pick up on, remember, tell a friend, and purchase from you because they’re so simplistic and so regularly harkened back to?

Key Takeaways

The online business space makes social media marketing feel like an arcade game:

• How quickly can you go viral?
• Have you secured X amount of followers?
• Are you getting X amount of reshares? 
• Where are your views at?

But I hope to empower you with a legacy-minded focus that your social media marketing strategy can only be based on solid ground and the solid ground begins with the second list from the top of this blog. See here for more of the main pieces we utilize in our consulting containers to help our powerhouse female founders set everlasting foundations for their companies to serve their absolute-clients in a simplistic, yet powerful way. 

If you feel like marketing and sales are hard, difficult, or overwhelming…it’s most likely because you’re having to piece together a lot of disconnected strategies or “one-hit-wonder” strategies that don’t allow for consistent connection, collaboration, and conversion. If you’re seeking support, review our services page. If you’re interested in more ways to increase revenue without burning out, all while serving your absolute-clients (our version of ideal clients!) and retaining them then find our complimentary resources here. 

Bio:

Ashleigh Henry has been in marketing, sales, and leadership positions for the last decade and it was exhilarating for Ashleigh to climb the retail, corporate, higher education, and start-up ladder holding positions such as Marketing Strategist, Copywriter, Social Media Strategist, Manager, Editor, Co-Editor…until it wasn’t. Alongside her degree, Ashleigh decided to bring all of her experience into the freelancing world until it became clear that she didn’t just want to pay the bills – she wanted to create a company that was foundationally built on cheetah print, legacy-minded marketing, and sexy sales structures that could stand the test of trend and time. The Cheetah Company, founded by Ashleigh, does this for female entrepreneurs through their education, coaching, and consulting services. Learn more about Ashleigh here.