My goal is to make this article a bit of a homework action piece for you to create your perfect ‘social media funnel’.
In case you don’t know yet what a social media funnel is, don’t worry.
Just keep on reading.
So, let’s get started!
First things first.
You want to get clear on WHAT KIND OF CONTENT you want to predominantly talk about and showcase throughout your social media.
The important thing here is that besides some occasional abbreviations from this rule, you want to stay congruent with your social media marketing strategy.
Next, think about WHY your potential followers would even want to follow you and like your posts?
What is it about you and the kind of things you put out there, that makes your future tribe engage with your posts?
For example, are you a super talented food photographer like my friend Rachel Korinek and post about your life as a food photographer, including tips on what it takes to succeed in this industry?
Or, are you a fashion fan like Chriselle Lim and post style tips and tricks for the fashion hungry gal (or guy for that matter 😉 )?
Maybe you are a personal life coach and want to showcase tips and tricks and ways a person can improve on his/her life?
Or, you are an innovator of physical products and take your audience through the development process?
Whatever it is, people follow other people on social media for 5 pre-dominant reasons and each account falls into 1 or 2 of these 5 categories:
- INSPIRATION. Think luxury travel, staying in world-class hotels, wearing brand clothes, dining with Richard Branson, etc. Most fashion, travel and lifestyle bloggers will fall under this category as well as successful business people, models, motivational speakers, etc.
- EDUCATION. Lighting and editing tips for photographers, social media or business tips for aspiring social media agency owners, relationship advice for struggling singles as a dating coach like my friend Dr. Samantha Burns, etc.
- COMMUNITY. Think of any type of popular Facebook or Linkedin group, as well as communities such as Pencils With Promise or magazines that have social media accounts (which are pretty much all). People flock to those social media sites to relate to and build relationships with people that have similar interests.
- ENTERTAINMENT. Do you have a way with making people love through, for example, your youtube sketch videos or funny Instagram posts, you will fall into this category.
- INFLUENCE. Think Chiara Ferragni, Gigi Hadid, Taylor Swift, Gary Vaynerchuck, JP Spears, Amanda Cerny, Amy Porterfield, you name it. Every one of those examples of influencers, rock it in their respective industries.
Yes, there are sub-categories among these 5 major ones. However, each sub-category will still fall under one of those 5 big ones.
What you need to do, is decide on 1 major category that ALL your content is going to revolve around.
So, chances are you are not a top influencer *yet*.
What this means is that you can scratch out this category and pick one of the 4 remaining ones.
Where can you add the most value?
What brings you the most joy?
After all, you want the content to be as authentic as possible that you post on social media. As such, it kind of has to come natural to you WHAT it is that you post about.
Are you more of a teacher personality, then ‘EDUCATION’ is your category.
Are you a natural at making people laugh, focus on ‘ENTERTAINMENT’.
With each category, you can achieve your goal of driving more traffic and ultimately clients to your business.
Now, let’s focus on talking a bit more business.
There are a few things that each and every social media profile needs to include if you want to truly optimize it to use it for business.
I will also refer to these optimizations as ‘social media funnels‘.
So here are these qualifications:
[A] A rocking profile picture. Refrain from using sketches or drawings as your profile pic (unless you are an artist but even than, people usually would love to see your real face) or company logos if you are an entrepreneur or want to become an influencer.
If you are a medium-sized to big company, of course, feel free to use your logo as the profile pic.
Important note: Always, always, always make sure that your profile pic looks good on all different social media platforms and that, for example, no words are cut off or anything like that.
[B] A great, all encompassing and hopefully creative short bio.Â
Oh yes, the bio!
That dreadful piece of social media profile real estate.
However, it needs to get done.
And you need to really really do it well.
The main thing here to keep in mind is to not think about you, but think about your clients.
I know, I know, it’s pretty obvious but you’d be surprised at how many profiles of – for example – coaches or agency owners, read something like this,
“I’m Joe. I am a kick-ass business and lifestyle coach. My goal is to help 1 million people find and live their true purpose. Let me help you today turn your life around…”
And so it goes.
What is wrong with this?
It’s pretty much all about ‘him’ or ‘me’.
Yep, the me-monster has taken a hold of Joe here.
Sure, he mentioned that he can help you turn your life around but at this point, why would you care – am I right?
It IS okay to say how you can help people or what it is that you do, of course.
Try and be a bit more creative with it though.
Here is a great example of a more creative profile description by the beautiful digital entrepreneur, Hilary Rushford:
“Personal stylist, biz coach. More joy, less overwhelm. Founder DeanStreetSociety. Creator of #ElegantExcellence. Teach at DeanSt.co/live. Style tips: DeanStreetSociety.com“
More interesting than the first one, isn’t it ;)?
[C] A high-quality banner as a header. Depending on your industry and what business you are in, this banner can look very different. Look at what some of your competitors are doing as well as people who are already a few steps further ahead in your business.
I would recommend NOT to look at influencers per se in your industry, because what is working for them now might very well not work for you at that stage of business you are in at the moment.
[D] A lead magnet landing page as your website url.
Main purpose: Convert social media followers into email subscribers.
On my Facebook Profile, for instance, I have some definite Calls To Action as website URLs which right away lead to some lead magnet pages.
This is what it looks like:
And this is a very basic example of what a lead magnet page would look like to help you start ‘owning’ your social media traffic:
As you may very well know, you can add URL LINKS to really any type of social media platform so what type of social media network you choose to be active on is not as important as following through with creating a complete social media funnel ;).
Side note: If you are a blogger, it is totally okay to use your blog as the website URL because most successful blogs have usually opt-in forms right on the first page of their blog. IF you don’t, stop reading right now and take care of this so that you do. If you have questions at this point, be sure to comment.
You will also be surprised at how many businesses could improve in any one of these four areas.
If I can give you one tip, I’d say to not be afraid and test out different things.
Test out different profile pics and see which one gets the most engagement.
The same goes for your bio. Ask your existing audience for feedback. You can never go wrong with asking ;).
Finally, I want to talk about something very important.
I want to talk about the importance of asking the RIGHT QUESTION.
You see, in all of your social media marketing and client acquisition endeavors, your primary question should never be,
“How do I get more clients?”
Instead, it should rather be,
“How can I serve my ideal clients better?”
Ask a different question.
Shift your focus.Â
Get different results.
Be sure to like this article if you found it helpful and share it with your community <3.
Let’s do this!
P.s.: If you want to UP your social media game specifically on Facebook, check out my #CONNECT program. It rocks ;). Here’s a freebie on how to use Facebook groups for lead generation:
[…] How to channel more clients through your social media efforts? […]