I want to present a topic that is a little confusing for business people, and that is social marketing. The definition that you’ll find on Wikipedia is marketing for the intent of changing of behavior for the greater good of society. That’s a great definition but that doesn’t quite match up with with what we’re focusing on today. I’ve seen other definitions of social marketing center on using social media to sell. While social media is one great component of marketing, it is not necessarily a PRO-SOCIAL component of marketing. I want to add a little something in here for what I feel like is the missing component when people are trying to market or trying to create content for their website and their social media. The missing component are the answers to these questions: “What do I post? When do I post? What do people want to hear from me? Why don’t people want to hear from me?”
The answers are found out among the masses. You must be present in your community, you must be present in your industry, you must be first as the industry expert. And if you don’t understand what to post, it’s because you’re not listening to those to whom you’re marketing, and that’s the first principle of marketing, no matter what form it takes. No matter what platform you’re on, if you’re doing it yourself, if you’re paying a marketing expert, you must know and understand your target market. You must know what plagues them every day. You must know how to speak to them in a way that solves their problem. They’re going to pay you to be a solution provider, and they’re going to pay you well if you understand how to speak to them in a way that is not sales-y. We’re not trying to create sales training on this video — we’re trying to market in a very authentic solution provider way. That probably sounds a little strange to some, and that’s okay. We’re going to do a one-hour challenge that will help you to work this out.
Day One – One Hour Challenge: Yes, one hour. One hour every day for the next 30 days. I want you to map out where you’re going to be in your industry. Day One is just your plan. Take an hour and create your plan. Your plan consists of addressing the following for yourself: where I’m going to be, where my ideal customers are, and what I’m going to say. You will also need to answer, “How I’m going to get in front of them in a way that is client-attractive, that positions me as the industry expert and the solution provider?” So that’s Day One. That’s it. Just create a plan. From there, I want you to start capturing what you’re doing every day. Share that. Social media is not about creating all this new crazy content; it’s sharing what you’re already doing. If you’re already doing great things in the community, those are the things that you want to share.
For Larek Point Consulting, in addition to tracking what we’re doing for the next 30 days (which should be a little crazy and a little fun, so bear with us because it should also be wonderful), We’re actually going to have some industry experts come on and do videos to share with you what social marketing means to their industry, and how they help businesses just like yours everyday get found, get more clients, get in front of their ideal clients — the list goes on and on and on. Growing your business doesn’t mean hiding behind your laptop and posting a few memes on social media. Now, we like memes, they’re kind of cute; it’s fun, but that can’t be your only platform. It can’t be the only way that you’re going to find clients. So social marketing begins with being social. Social with a cause, social with intent, not just out hanging out, but being productively social; being present in your industry.
So this 30-Day challenge will give you 20 hours. (If you add it up, there are 20 business days in the calendar month.) You’re going to have 20 hours to map this out, and we’re going to walk you through it. We’re going to show you exactly how to do this. Day One, create your plan: what’s on the calendar, where are your ideal clients gathering, where are your industry referral partners gathering, where are the industry experts gathering. We need to know these things, so that’s your very first assignment for Day One: create your plan for the one-hour challenge.
Stay tuned for a few more videos from us. Stay tuned for lots of tracking on social media. We’re going to show you where we are, what we’re doing, why we’re doing it, and give you ideas of how you could do that for your business as well. We are getting social with social marketing this month.
