How to stand out with YOUR start up in 2021
With this one, winning approach that makes you the slayer and not the slave!
Today you have one of the most powerful, free assets to get your business discovered fast, and more importantly it has the ability to transform itself along with your business into a giant dominator, birthing millions of paying clients in very little time. But what is it and how does it work in 2021?
If you have a new business or product to launch in a new start-up or even if you already have an existing business that you wish to grow, no doubt you are thinking of using social media to win your day — right?
Ever look at social media streams and think how are you going to cut through all that content that seems to spill out of your phone in a never-ending stream … and how are you going to pivot your startup into a raving success amongst all this already existing content?
Sure you have. We have all stood in that place. But here is the one thing that is going to help you churn out your winning strategy - making you a slayer of your social and not an invisible subject of it.
CONTENT
Content is everywhere today. We live in the digital era and the last year with the pandemic made competition for many businesses a blood-thirsty game of survival. But if you have the right strategy and the right content — no advertising budget is going to be able to blow you out of the water. Here are my top tips and they work pretty well for me as my stats below show.
Your content must have a purpose
It is easy to get into the cycle of just ‘posting’ or just ‘blogging’ or just ‘writing’ for the sake of it with a start-up, especially at the beginning when you have to wear many different hats.
But getting the structure of your content is crucial to the success of your business and your sanity.
Create a planner
When you create a planner for your content you will become more resourceful with your time as well as more coherent with your strategy. It will be easier for you to join the dots in the planning of your marketing.
Now let’s join those words together: content + marketing = content marketing.
Yes, you are creating content for marketing purposes and this is the purpose.
So many people create content for business and wonder why it is not converting.
If your content is not converting, it has no purpose. Most people that fail in this area have not created a planner. Trust me on that.
How to create a content calendar
You can use a FREE template over on Canva and print it out and complete it.
However, I use one that also has the embedded function of posting for me on social media to the schedule that I have set up. (Promorepublic)
It makes my life easier and I can clearly see my planning across multiple businesses. I can change posts and swap things around too without issue so it works for me.
How to get engagement?
Everyone is always worrying about not getting enough engagement. If you start worrying more about this than the core assets of the engagement process, you are going to drop yourself into an addictive cycle, much like a crack head is to crack.
Here is what to do instead.
Know that, in order for your content to get engagement, you need to engage.
Fact.
Remember that planner?
Here is how you are going to fill it.
You are going to create content that adheres to the 3 E’s.
What are the 3 E’s?
They are: Educate, entertain, engage.
However, the way that you should bridge these, is by creating emotion by finding a pivot point or trigger.
If you are struggling with this one — ask yourself this.
What do the pyramids of Giza and the Louvre have in common?
They are unique, they are magical, they are strong, they have a purpose but no one really knows exactly what that purpose is but they know that they do have a purpose. That is their secret sauce: the intrigue, the mystery, the adventure …. Your content marketing needs to do the same.
When you think about the pyramids or the Louvre, an emotion is manifested within each and every one of us.
People want to know more about their purpose and have done it for hundreds of years. That has driven millions of people to engage with these subjects.
Your approach to your content needs to drive emotion in a similar way.
Why?
Because people are triggered by emotion.
This is why Tik Tok® is wiping the floor right now. This is why Instagram® brought in reels to match them and facebook® fight for a piece of the content pie by highlighting facebook® lives and now Youtube® has shorts.
On that note — don’t overlook shorts. They are boosting my growth on youtube.
Are you getting the picture?
Avoid ghost posting
Ghost posting is when you post and leave. You don’t answer questions or do anything to engage with other people.
I spend time every day engaging on social media — you should too.
The biggest kick for me is that I always learn and discover new things when I do this. It’s like my daily dose of the modern encyclopedia.
Look for the hidden jewels by using platforms like Quora, Reddit, and Medium.
I know when I answer a question on Reddit that I will get 50–100 new visitors to my blog. Why?
Because I have given value and either answered a question or joined in on a discussion.
Posting isn’t always about your product or service so ensure that you mark on your content calendar when you are going to spend time engaging. Eventually, it will just become a natural process. Be careful not to drop links everywhere — no need to do that, just optimize your social media profiles, and if people want to connect they can.
How to create emotion without clickbait
Clickbait is when you are creating content using words or content that you know you have designed for use to make someone click and follow through to your website.
Platforms like facebook® are always updating their policies to make sure the next clever strategy to this is swiftly deployed.
With business pages, you can strike for this. Facebook® refers to it as ‘inauthentic engagement’ and it’s going to put you in facebook® jail or even get your ad account shut down. If you or your business is monetized by facebook® this will demonetize your account. Even sharing what you think is a useful bit of info in a facebook® group can be seen as inauthentic engagement.
I did it once and got demonetized for about six months. The worst was that I had no idea what I had done. I had posted a tutorial showing how to do something with no links or anything. So sometimes you can make mistakes really naively.
Here’s how to watch your language too when posting anything:
Words like: FREE, Freebie, Giveaway, Like, Share are typical clickbait words that will decrease your posts reach if not get them deleted altogether.
You can use words like this instead: Make every penny count, Make your wallet Happy … you get the idea.
This will then lead to your Call to action.
What’s a call to action?
This is where you give direct instruction to the person engaging with your content such as: Learn more, Subscribe, Buy now, etc.
However, don’t overuse it. I think one CTA (call to action) in every three posts is a healthy balance to start with.
Again make sure these are marked down on your content calendar.
How to curate emotion
What works for me is being original and don’t copy the last viral sensation. It’s sad, unprofessional, and will do more damage to your business or brand than you could imagine.
Look more to building a relationship with the audience you wish to attract.
Discover what interests them, what they respond well to, what ideas, methods, products, or services they find helpful or simply adore.
You want to be a leader, not a follower don’t you — so lead.
Know that people are often more likely to buy because they want it NOT because they need it, (remember that emotional element!!) so steer away from false pursuits embedded within your marketing content to create a product that they will need unless of course your product or service is specific to a need.
Learn how to switch off
Creating content and then engaging with it, is a necessary part of content marketing today but you have to be real. You are a real person and you have a real-life — outside of Social media and content marketing.
Don’t get dragged down the rabbit hole of letting Social media suck you in so that your time and emotions then become a slave to it.
Remember you are the slayer, not the slave.
Plan, post, engage — switch off.
You will also find that when you plan the time you will spend on it and STICK to it that you will create better content and will most definitely be better at managing your business.
Successful Startups are like successful entrepreneurs — they have understood the importance of time management.
No-one is any good to anyone, least of all yourself if you are screwed up about counting or chasing follower numbers or something similar.
If you create meaningful content and put a minimum of two pieces of content out a day; over a period of time, you will see a difference in your business and how people engage with you.
Remember, content is King.
Consistency is Queen.
