As entrepreneurs, we need to create visibility of what we have to offer, so that we can make a living.
Let’s face it, social-media is great to get more eyeballs on your business.
It’s a lot more difficult running a(n) (online) coaching business without being present on at least one social media platform. Why not use this great opportunity?
Well, I can think of some reasons…
I stopped doing marketing
I get why a lot of heart-centred entrepreneurs feel resistance towards using social media. I was also one of them. I literally stopped doing marketing, because I was so sick of the content crap out there. And how a lot of entrepreneurs sell hollow offers (without real value) in a manipulative sales funnel.
After looking for a different way, I also discovered an authentic way of how people were doing marketing on social media. With integrity and making a real connection with their customers. Giving real value in every step of their customer journey.
In this article I will describe how to grow an audience on social media without losing your humanity and keeping in touch with your heart-centred values.
Let’s first dive into two forms of making your content visible to your audience. And on how you can use both ways of growing your audience in a heart-centred and authentic way.
Organic content
What is organic content? Organic means that you are not paying money to promote your content on social media. You pay with your time. Your audience grows because of word-of-mouth and networking.
When using an organic way, it takes a lot more time to reach people. There are two reasons for that. First reason is that current popular social media platforms earn money by getting paid with sponsored ads.
So, it is intentional that your content reaches less people when you don’t pay for it. The algorithm that social-media platforms prevents that all your following will see your content.
The second reason is that when you start, your audience is limited. We all know only a limited number of people. And the second-degree network is limited. From those people, not everyone will be a potential ideal customer. Not everyone from your market, will also resonate with your message and values.
The big advantage is that the quality of your audience is far superior. You can literally build a community of like minded people. They will also refer your content, your offers etc. to people who are like minded. You will have a lot more ideal customers from your audience.
Paid advertisements (sponsored content)
With paid advertisements, your reach is a lot higher. The more money you spent; the more people will see your content. It will take less time to create a bigger number of people.
It will also attract more people that are not fully resonating with your message and values. That means your community will be more diverse and less ideal. Meaning that you will need an extra way of filtering the ideal from the non-ideal customers in your community before you start selling.
Social media platforms have detailed information about the users. So that people that pay can search in detail on different data. Targeting means selecting people that will see your content, based in the data that the social media platform has collected about its users.
You can prevent losing a lot of money when you get better in targeting the people that will see your ads. The better you know your ideal customer, the more people that are close to this ideal customer are seeing your content.
It takes time (and money) to learn how to use ads or you could hire someone to do it for you. But once you have the hang of it, then it’s easy to scale up.
Organic growth versus paid advertisements
To conclude, growing an audience organically will result in a community of people that are likely to resonate with your message and values. It will take more time to build such an audience, but you will be able to sell more easily to people that are also a better fit in personality and values.
However, it can take several years to build a sustainable number of people where you can sell your offerings too. It makes sense that you want to expand your network at a higher speed. So that you don’t need to wait long time to make a living of your business.
When using ads, it can speed up audience building a lot. Though, it could require an extra step to have a better match with your offerings.
How do you grow an audience authentically?
The word authentic, can have different meanings for people. What I mean by authentic is that you can be yourself in all aspects. Resulting in a marketing, offer creation and fulfilment that aligns with your personality and values.
When you are a heart-centred entrepreneur like me, then you will also create offerings with the intention to help your clients in the best possible way. Not intentionally manipulate them into buying offerings that are not worth it.
With caring in mind, each piece of content is created with value in mind. Using your own aligned way of doing marketing. Not tricking customers into buying something that they later regret.
By creating content, that contains your personality, values and, using your own words, you will also build a real connection with people. Even when you are using an automated way (paid ads, automated sales funnels, …), this keeps your business human.
Customers only buy from people. There are many ways how you can do this in marketing. Also, when using paid advertisements, you can connect with people. Some media are better suited for this than others. But it all comes down on doing something that aligns with you.
When you use advertisements to share your best authentic content, then you are increasing the number of people that see your personality. And you can invite them to your community. Then probably it will take less time to create a sustainable business.
Virtual summits and collaboration
Another way is by collaboration with entrepreneurs that share your values and are somehow complementary to what you do. You can both exchange content and/or do combined offerings in each other community.
Organising or contesting in a summit with like minded entrepreneurs can also boost your online presence without the need of advertising. When each speaker talks about the summit in their community, it can really boost the number of people following the summit. And getting in front of many new people that connect with you.
Alright, I hope to have inspired you on your social media journey! 😉
Steven Poelmans
Steven Poelmans has supported hundreds of entrepreneurs and companies to build scalable products and grow meaningful businesses. He decided to restart his career and founded The Freedom Story Academy to support impact-making coaches and entrepreneurs worldwide to rewrite the way they work, live, and breathe and help them to structure and launch online services.
Steven Poelmans
Steven Poelmans has supported hundreds of entrepreneurs and companies to build scalable products and grow meaningful businesses. He decided to restart his career and founded The Freedom Story Academy to support impact-making coaches and entrepreneurs worldwide to rewrite the way they work, live, and breathe and help them to structure and launch online services.
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This Post Has 2 Comments
Well said Steven!
Thank you, Michelle!