ELENA PETERS | MIDLIFE BLOGGER

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How much time do you spend on social media each day? If you’re like most people, you are probably registered on two or more different social media sites. And you probably repeatedly visit them throughout the day.
 
Obviously you understand that if you are active on social media, then so are your customers. With almost three billion people living in the world engaged on sites like Facebook, there has never been a better tool for mass communication.
 
Over the last ten to fifteen years, social media has become one of our primary means of keeping in touch with friends and family. It has become a significant outlet for news, and for many people it has become the only place they consume current affairs.
 
But more importantly for bloggers, consumers are turning to social media to help them make purchasing decisions.
 
Businesses have been harnessing the potential that social media has to offer. Many companies have been investing in artificial intelligence chatbots to provide a smooth messenger interaction with their customers; it helps relieve pressure on their call centres.
 
You’ve probably realized that a social media presence is something that you need to have for your business. And you may have even set up accounts and tried to get followers.
 
But there is a difference between having a presence on social media and running a current page with tens of thousands of followers. Generating the kind of momentum that you will need to grow your business takes time, effort, and an understanding of how social media works.
 
And honestly, most bloggers do not have the time (or mental energy) to do social media properly. You can seriously waste hours and hours scrolling your feed, interacting with others and sharing your own posts, all the while considering that time as “blogging”. But let me be blunt. It is not.
 
Harnessing the power of social media to build your blogging business is far more than making sure you are being active on each platform.
 

 

3 Steps To Successfully Use Social Media To Grow Your Blog Business

 
1. Have an end game
What do you want to achieve on social media? Is it to gain followers, grow your email list or convert sales? Remember, we are talking about business here so that implies you are wanting to make money with your blog. Simply wanting to increase your pageviews is not an end game unless you are able to successfully convert readers once they reach your blog.
 
I come across many Facebook fan pages with massive followings and huge impressions because they share cute memes and the latest trending videos. But I will bet that all that activity on Facebook does not convert to clicks to their sites, let alone sales. In other words, what a waste of time.
 
As a business, you need to always be funnelling people towards your goal. If you don’t know what that is, how can you be successful.
 
2. Plan a strategy
Once you have plotted out your goal, you can create a strategy. Plot out all the steps you wish your new potential customer/client/subscriber to take from social media to your end game.
 
Social media is step one. You want to attract not only the right readers, but ones that want the transformation/product you offer them in your end goal.
 
If you have absolutely no idea how to do that, ask. Create a survey for your email list or make a poll right on your social media platform. If you don’t get any replies, change your questions and ask again. Keep asking until you get a clear understanding of what your audience wants and how to serve them best.
 
 
3. Know when you need help
As bloggers we wear many hats. And the pressure to do it all is great. But honestly, you don’t have to. If you want to grow your blog business, you have to understand what you can and can not do that has the biggest impact on your monetization strategy.
 
I know it can be scary to let go of some control or to lay out money when you are barely making any. But you must think about what will get you to the income level you want the fastest way possible. That may mean operating in the red for awhile.
 
Hiring a social media agency can be hugely beneficial. Not only is it a time saver, allowing you to focus on more important tasks, an agency can manage your social media for you faster and way more efficiently because frankly, that is all they do. And it is their job to stay on top of changes, like those pesky algorithms that give us all heart palpitations.
 
Some of the things that a social media manager can do for you:

• Post regular, fresh, and relevant content to your page daily that will help generate the right followers.
• Solicit interactions that will spread your brand across multiple news feeds.
• Reply to comments on your social media.
• Encourage interaction through competitions, or elicit responses to questions that will help you get new followers effortlessly.
• Create a call to arms using a ‘like’ and ‘share’ technique using striking images.

 
I know you may think you know social media and how it works, but I strongly recommend you look into hiring someone that specializes in the platform you wish to tackle. The benefits from doing so far outweigh the cost if you are looking to up-level your blog business.
 
Whether you choose to hire an agency or not, understanding your customer base is essential when it comes to social media marketing. Know your avatar. Analyze your audience base and what their interests are. That is how you will be able to find the right social media platform you need to focus on.
 
Making a success of your online presence will not be instantaneous. It may take months or even years of hard work. But, by providing exceptionally good, original content that speaks to your audience, you will see a sharp rise in the number of followers and the level of interaction on all of your social media accounts. Which ultimately should lead to more money to you if done correctly.

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