Top 5 Social Media Do's and Don'ts for Business

How would you like it if your social media worked harder for you this year, and every single post that you made got you leads, prospects and sales, and you stopped chasing people away?

And I mean EVERY post got more engagement, not just the ones where you were trying to drum up some business interest. Would that change your business? I'm guessing it probably would!

In this blog post, I'm going to walk you through the top three goals that you should have for any and all social media posts that you make, and the number one mistake you absolutely must not make or it's going to kill all of the progress you made even if you are delivering on all three of the primary goals.

And of course, the most important thing you should do once you’ve nailed those top 4 tips!

Now, when I first started my business, I had an initial burst of interest and activity from my friends and family and my warm market, and things were going pretty well. But in all honestly, I really only knew about one of the three goals that my social media posts should have, and I was making the number one mistake over and over again!

Even though my warm market, my friends and family, the people that love me, were willing to forgive my poor behavior, and were still willing to try out the products that I was trying to sell……the minute that initial burst of activity popped with my warm market and I ran out of people to talk to, it was like crickets. You could drop a pin and you wouldn't hear anything on my social feed. It was horrible!

So I realized very quickly I had to change what I was doing. But for the life of me, I couldn't figure out what was wrong with what I was doing because at the time I was in a network marketing company and my upline was telling me to do all the these things that I was doing.

They tell you follow the leader. Trust your upline. Just do the work.

Well, that only worked to a point, and then it bit me in my butt. That's why today in bringing you these tips. And if you stick around to the end (because I know everyone has ADD, you've got a thousand things to do) I will give you my number one tip to making all those posts across all those platforms super easy and not actually that much more work than just making one single post.

You can be everywhere at once with all the right stuff so that your success will multiply even faster. Be sure to stick around to the end for that.

Build Your Personal Brand & Build Know + Like + Trust

Goal #3 should be to build your know, like, and trust factor with your network and to build your personal brand. Now, know+like+trust is also synonymous with the word rapport. You want to build rapport with your network. You want them to feel like they really know who you are even though they're only seeing you through a screen.

Over time, repetitively, of seeing you, seeing you, seeing you, you're going to attract your perfect people. You're going to attract the people who are into what you're doing. You'll also repel the people who aren't quite right for you. But that's good because they're not right for you, so you don't want them around anyway!

Now, one of the mistakes I made early on in my business is that I wasn't really thinking about growing my personal brand. I was thinking about growing my company's brand. I was posting a lot about my company, my company, my company.

Although posting about my company may have been boosting their brand, it was destroying mine.

So, you want to make posts in such a way that you're building curiosity, you're attracting people, they're getting the know the real you, not just the company you represent. The stronger of a personal brand you create, the more people are going to stick around and be curious to see what the next post is that you're going to make or the next live video that you do.

You're just going to create a really strong following. Just keep in mind, building rapport and building your personal brand is an absolute must.

Drive Online Engagement to Offline Conversations

That brings us to goal #2, which is to start offline conversations. Every single person who likes or comments or throws down an emoji or a reaction, or anything to any of your posts, business-related or not, start a conversation with those people.

It means that the algorithm is allowing them to see your stuff, and the more you feed that algorithm, the more you take those online reactions to offline conversations….the more they're going to see your stuff in the future, the more they're going to respond to your stuff in the future. And, every one of those conversations can ultimately turn into a business conversation down the road if you're fostering that rapport and that know+like+trust with them.

So always, always to take it from online to offline conversations, or text messages, Facebook messages, DMs, whatever. But you're not having all the conversation on the post itself. You're bringing it to conversations, into messages, things that are off of the public view. When I say offline, I just mean off of the public view. It turns into a one on one kind of situation. That should absolutely be the goal of any and all social posts you make, whether they're business-related or not.

Turn online engagement into offline conversations. Offline conversations are NOT in the public view.

Invite People to Take the Next Step

Finally, guys, it takes us to the #1 goal that you should have for every single business-related social post that you make, which is to invite them to learn more or to take the next step.

What is learning more and taking the next step mean? Well, it could be inviting them to a Facebook group or a Facebook challenge. It could be inviting them to join your email list or inviting them to take a look at a PDF guide. It could be inviting them to a webinar, to an event, or to a one on one conversation or a face to face meeting.

It can vary depending on where it is you're trying to drive the traffic. But the ultimate goal is to invite people to just get one level deeper. Because public social posts, they're not very deep, they're not very close to your inner circle.

But if they take one step closer and one step closer and one step closer, the closer they get to you, the more steps they've taken with you. The more you've qualified them as a truly interested lead and prospect. They're raising their hand again and again with every step that they take with you, showing yes, I'm interested, yes, I'm interested, yes, I'm interested.

When you get them into that cycle of saying yes, yes, yes, yes, when you finally ask for the sale, they're going to say yes because they've already taken all of those steps with you! You just have to invite them to the next step with you to go one level deeper, learn a little bit more, and take that next step, get closer to your inner circle.

When you get them into that cycle of saying yes, yes, yes, yes, when you finally ask for the sale, they're going to say yes!

This is good for them because it helps them to feel like you're listening to them, you're meeting their needs. You're never being pushy, you're just inviting. It really, really helps to build trust as well because you're not pouncing for the sale right out of the gates. You're just asking them to look at one more thing, one more thing, one more thing. It feels a lot less salesy for everybody. You're simply inviting.

Never Sell Directly from a Post

The number one mistake that you must never, ever make on social media posts is to try to make a sale directly from the post itself.

Now if you're doing this, give yourself a little grace, forgive yourself. Just let yourself know, as soon as you know better, you can do better. Don't give yourself a hard time about it, but definitely clean up that behavior.

Because, if you're trying to make a sale directly from the post, it absolutely kills all of the progress that you've made with the three goals that we just talked about. You're going to come across as salesy, and you're going to come across as pushy. That's definitely not building know, like and trust.

In fact, it's repelling people. You've killed goal number three right away. Then if you remember goal number two, the whole point of making these social posts is to start conversations. If you're coming across as salesy and pushy, no one's going to want to have a conversation with you. So even if you do message them, they're probably not going to respond because they're thinking “Yeah, they're just trying to sell me something…..no thanks!”

Then of course your number one goal is to invite them to learn more or invite them to take the next step. If you're trying to sell directly from the post itself, you become that mall kiosk person that everyone is avoiding and not looking at. They don't want to talk to you, they don't want to interact with you. You don't even have a chance to invite them to learn more because they're avoiding you like the plague!

If you're trying to sell directly from the post itself, you become that mall kiosk person that everyone is avoiding and not looking at.

So let's make sure that we don't have you doing that. Social posts are not the place to sell. They are a place to build know, like and trust, create some curiosity, maybe learn a little bit about your leads and prospects.

If you're asking questions or they're interacting with you, great! Start offline conversations. Sometimes in social posts you can invite and create a little curiosity.

For those of you who'd love to learn more, feel free to join my Facebook group, feel free to join my email list. We're running a challenge, etc. etc. You can invite them to the next step. That doesn't feel salesy. Trying to make a sale directly from the post, yeah, that feels salesy. So we don't want to do that. That's going to kill all of the progress you made with your first three goals.

Post Consistently & Focus on VALUE

And finally - the tip that makes all of the other ones work - be sure to post consistently over a long period of time! Every social media platform has their own algorithm which will either boost or minimize how visible your posts are but one thing is same between all of them…

Every algorithm requires consistent posting in order to become more and more visible!

When it comes to growing an organic audience, using social media is a long game. The winners are always, always, ALWAYS the people who play the long game the best.

The more value you bring to your audience, the better as this will help engagement whether the posts are business related or not. How can you judge whether a post has “value”? Simple - just ask yourself if the post will either educate, entertain, or inspire someone. If the answer is yes, you are good to go my friend!

BUT WHERE DO I SELL?

For those of you who are wondering, but if I can't sell on my social posts, where do I do the selling?

I will attach a PDF guide that explains where to actually do the selling. It's going to give you a full overview of not just social posts but what to do in posts, what to do in messages, what to do in Facebook groups, what to do in challenge groups, what to do if you have an email list or sales funnels, webinars, etc. it breaks down every single step and it lets you know where to sale and where not to sell, where to build trust, where to build your brand, and more.