When I speak at conferences the most often asked question I get is "how do I stand out in social media". Not an easy one to answer in the ever changing world of Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram. Social media moves fast, remember Vine, Pinterest or Google plus? You invest in one platform and suddenly it's not useful anymore and you have to completely change tact. Even blogging on LinkedIn isn't what it use to be for reach, now we need videos!
The challenge for professionals running their own businesses, solo-preneurs and corporate escapees is that your core product is your brand. People buy you. So your marketing plan is based on your thoughts and ideas so you can capture referrals and more genuine leads from wanting a skilled professional in your space. So with social media changing so fast, how can you effectively get that message to market?
My answer is that it's all about the message, not the mediumthat counts, and I believe that in 2019 the clarity of your message will be your key differentiator next year do to one key factor...digital fatigue.
A major trend this year was the amount of people getting off social media. The biggest social media platform in the world is Facebook which is loosing young users at a staggering rate as mentioned in this Recode article earlier this year.
The number of U.S. Facebook users in the 12- to 17-year-old demographic declined by 9.9 percent in 2017, eMarketer found, or about 1.4 million total users. That’s almost three times the decline expected.
Facebook just isn't that cool anymore. But the trend isn't just Facebook. Community organisations and entrepreneurs alike are sprouting Digital Detox groups and events to bring awareness to the issues caused by too much social media. Here is one from Beyond Blue if you need a hand.
If people are reducing their social media consumption, how do we reach them? Well the truth is, people still have problems and needs. They want to buy things and have services provided. They just don't want to be sold to. Customers want to choose themselves. So instead of listening to all the noise on social media, they will ask friends and get advice from their small and trusted communities and most of that advice will be online.
If you take these three trends together: speed of change in social media; reduction in time spent on social and customers tuning out of marketing messages, there will be a return to good old fashioned referrals. The difference is that referrals are now online.
Therefore, the answer to how to stand out in 2019 is to have a super niche and clear message and provide that to only your tight nit community so you are the go-to person for that service in your area. Your marketing then transforms from pushing your marketing message to thousands of people to find a few clients, to providing helpful advice to hundreds of fans to have a few clients find you. e-ttraction my friend, digital attraction.
For my clients I advise them to start with how many clients do they really need. It's normally a relatively small number. Then work back to how many fans we need and how do we communicate with them authentically. Create useful content that genuinely helps them on their journey and share it on all mediums - LinkedIn (articles, posts and video!), Facebook (personal sites & pages with a little boost) and shared to all other social sites. Create once, share many times.
I produced a simple yet extremely effective worksheet for my coaching clients that helps them to calculate the number of clients required at each stage of the buying journey and also what content to produce - you can get a copy here for free.
For all the small businesses out there I hope this helps your marketing planning for 2019 and happy to have a chat and give you my other tips for next year, just send me a message and I will reply with next steps.
All the best,
Andrew
P.S. For anyone in Melbourne, the Brand event on Wednesday 14th November, is now sold out, but you can register for the waiting list here. Or come along to my Pitch Workshop Wednesday 28th November to get razor clarify for your message.
