Crafting Social Media Strategies for New Businesses

 If you want to make a lot of money with your business, you’ll need a plan. And if you’re planning to take your business online, you’ll need a strategy.

A content strategy.

It’s not easy, since you have to figure out how to attract attention, grow your audience, and how turn them into paying customers.

That said, it doesn’t have to be complicated. Hard, yes, but complicated – not necessarily.

Fear not, we’ll tackle it in this article. I’ll show you how to ‘zoom out’ and come up with a complete content strategy, from start to finish. From “who are you” to “PLEASE take my money”. Deal?

Short Preface: We’re Here To Make Sales, Not Just Likes

I’ll keep this section very short and sweet since I already wrote about this in an article about reaching and targeting your target audience.

Read this article through the lens of “How do we make money?”

Not “How do we grow our following so we can feel good about ourselves and possibly get a free meal at a restaurant?”

In a nutshell, the goal is to get the BEST possible attention and convert it into money in the FASTEST possible way.

Content marketing is marketing, after all. Onto the marketing strategy now…

Instagram and TikTok Content Strategy

You already know that short-form video content is dominating these platforms. Nothing new here…

… but what do you do in those short videos? Do you dance? Do you create a 30-minute “short” video talking about your expertise?

You give value. That’s what you do on every platform, not just Instagram and TikTok. However, and this is a BIG however…

Value doesn’t just have to mean ‘free advice’. People also get value from your videos when they are entertained, when they laugh, when they feel something, etc. You get the gist of it.

Yes, helping out your target audience and having some nice professional editing is a great way to go about content marketing.

But if you can inject some creativity and do something a little out of the box, you’ll win the attention battle.

Okay, you got people’s attention.

You should immediately start moving them down the funnel.

In your posts and bio, make it very clear you have a lead magnet for them (you have one, right?). Keep getting people’s attention and offering the lead magnet in your posts, and you will have interested people.

You can deliver it in multiple ways.

For example, you know those “comment SCALE to get the XYZ Blueprintinator 3000”? Yeah, we see that all the time. We see it so often because it works.

Then you can send the lead magnet in the DMs and keep the conversation going. Respond to people like a helpful, genuine human. If you can, be at least kind of timely with your responses. I know this isn’t easy when you get a lot of DMs, but it pays off in the long run.

Or, you can simply have a download link. That works too, depending on your strategy.

Boosting the reels that did great organically is also a good tactic for growth.

That will get you more followers who you can enter into conversations with. In conclusion, just post and nurture people. Always try to move them to the next step of the funnel.

Now let me move YOU down my funnel. I created a free ebook that shows you exactly how to launch your business.

It will give you clarity on everything you need to do, from “idea” to “actually running a profitable business”. I strongly recommend it, not just because we made it, but because it can save you tons of money, time, and nerves. Enjoy 😀

Blog and SEO Content Strategy: What Should You Even Write About?

I usually recommend you stick to one main platform to begin with. If you’re new to social media, you don’t have to make YouTube videos, Instagram reels, and a thousand other things. Doing one thing very well is much better.

But maybe filming yourself isn’t your cup of tea. That’s okay. I mean, who are WE to judge?

If you prefer writing, I’ll give you a couple of tips to grow your blog organically.

Forget about everything you’ve heard about blogs and SEO and focus on creating amazing content.

Okay, I lied.

Don’t forget everything, SEO is very helpful. What I’m trying (unsuccessfully) to say is that you have to write very good content if you want to grow. No amount of keyword research will make your blog grow if it’s boring and not innovative.

Plan your content strategy AROUND what the target audience needs and where the market gaps are. Only then do I suggest you consider SEO. Prioritize the topics you can find great keywords around.

What Does It Mean For a Keyword To Be Great?

Firstly, you should probably avoid highly competitive keywords. If you’re new, you probably won’t rank for “best credit cards”, you know?

So find a good mix of “Search Volume” and “Keyword Difficulty (aka KD)”. A good approach to start with is to find the low-hanging fruit and rank for it. Those would be keywords with very easy to easy keyword difficulties.

(But make sure your audience actually cares about that topic!)

A couple of hundred people visiting your site every month doesn’t seem much, but it builds up. Especially if you post regularly and if you’re good at converting those people into email subscribers.

Backlinking: The Blogging Social Proof

Let’s say you own website A. When website B posts a link to your website, you have a backlink. Google likes backlinks. The end.

Just kidding, not yet.

The easiest ways to generate backlinks for your site are through blog commenting, forum profile links, forum signatures, question and answer sites, and article sites.

You can also email people in similar niches and request a backlink. When you do that, be a nice, friendly person, and present a win-win offer. Everyone likes backlinks and it’s not that hard to get them if you target the right people.

Another form of social proof that Google likes is called “social signals”. For example, if a website has 4k shares on Facebook, it will always rank higher than a website with 0 shares for the given keyword.

Convert Your Traffic: Test Absolutely Everything

At the beginning of the article, I told you content marketing is ultimately about conversions and making sales.

Then, I blatantly tried to convert you… 

Now it’s time to talk about your conversions. We have already talked about Instagram/TikTok, so I’ll talk about blogs here.

Essentially, the goal is to come up with a hypothesis and test the F*CK out of it. Let’s say you want to convert your readers into email subscribers.

Try all kinds of pop-ups (welcome, exit, timed activated pop-ups, scroll-activated pop-ups)… everything under the sun.

Try inline buttons, buttons at the end of the page… buttons everywhere even.

Try different CTAs at different places. Just test and look at the data. Let me put on my nerd glasses for a second though.

Test everything, but not everything together. If you put 7 different changes at once, then you have no idea what made the CR go up or down.

Then, you can start pairing them and you can see what happens. All of this takes time, but it’s worth it. The more you plan this, the faster it goes, and the faster you figure out the winning combination.

Email Marketing: How To Sell Them Once You’ve Given Them That Freebie

Email marketing is an amazing way to convert your traffic, but it’s not the only way. On Instagram, as we discussed, you could get into conversations with your followers and book calls.

Or you can add them to an email list. You have to think about what works for your specific product.

You probably won’t book sales calls if you’re selling protein bars or online courses, so an email list might be the way to go.

Okay, they gave you their email and they’re expecting the lead magnet. When you deliver it in the first email, make them WANT to engage with your emails further.

You mostly do that by adding some personality and creativity. People love reading fun/interesting stuff, trust me. A good number of people will continue opening your emails.

If you want to email often (which works the best), you don’t need a whole ‘welcome sequence’. You can simply send them a welcome email and then have them receive your regular ‘live’ emails.

But if you don’t plan to email often, it might be better to set up an automated sequence and then keep nurturing them with the ‘live’ emails.

In most emails, your goal is to entertain people, give them value, and sell them the product.

Takeaways

Content strategy is one hell of a beast, but with enough planning and dedicated execution, you can do it. I think that when you zoom out and look at everything you need to do, it all becomes much clearer. Here’s a recap of what I talked about in this article to help you do so:

• The goal of content marketing is to get the BEST possible attention and convert it into money in the FASTEST possible way.
• Short-form videos are obviously dominating Instagram and TikTok. But don’t worry, you don’t have to do weird dances. You just have to give value.
• Value doesn’t only mean free advice. It also means entertainment and novelty.
• Offer people free stuff and start conversations with them. Alternatively, you can add them to an email list.
• Boosting your reels is also a technique that works. Get into conversations with people who engage with your profile.
• For blogs, focus on creating the best content you can think of. Only then worry about SEO.
• Target keywords that have either very easy or easy keyword difficulty. Still, make sure they have a decent search volume though.
• Google loves backlinking. Post links to your articles in other blogs’ comments. Contact blog owners and request backlinks.
• Test a million ways of converting your blog. However, test one thing at a time. If you test a lot of stuff simultaneously, you won’t know what impacted your conversion rate.
• With email marketing, deliver the lead magnet and continue nurturing people in an interesting and valuable way. Try and sell them in every email you send out.