7 top tips on how to use social media for profit

by Karen Hall, 101 Things

Social media - we know we should do it, but only a handful of us actually like it (for business), and even fewer of us have the time, let alone the energy, to come up with the ideas and the images; the headlines and the hashtags.  It’s exhausting!

But a recent research report by Deloitte showed that 56 cents of every dollar spent is influenced by a consumer’s digital interaction with a brand.  So if you still think social media is for other businesses, you could be slashing your revenue potential in half.

I see this every day in my engagement with Mortgage Brokers. I recently had a broker tell me that she’d rather clean the shower than do her social media (which I know will resonate with a lot of you), and others are sporadic at best.

So here are my seven top tips for utilising social media for profit:

1. Get your Google My Business page firing and concentrate on collecting reviews on this free page.  We have mortgage brokers who get 70% of their new clients through this channel, for free!

2. Be on fewer social media channels, and do them well.  Turn off Twitter, but please consider GoogleMyBusiness and LinkedIn

3. Get professional photos taken - of you, your team, your office (if you have a physical presence) and you out and about with clients!  These are gold for using across each of your social media platforms because people buy people

4. Optimise the channels you’re staying on - we offer a 51-point checklist to optimise LinkedIn, Facebook, GoogleMyBusiness and Instagram so that your posts - and time and effort - get seen by more people

5. You’ll never be short ideas on what to post on if you follow this plan

   1. Share 2 pieces of relevant content

   2. Post 2 educational pieces - the story of a client scenario you solved or FAQs you get asked.  Or use https://answerthepublic.com/ for endless post ideas

   3. Post 1 piece about your business - and don’t forget to post testimonials

6. Stop winking in the dark - if you don’t have enough followers, it doesn’t matter how good your content is, very few people are ever going to see it.  According to LinkedIn, if you have less than 500 followers, you’re actually ‘algorythmically invisible’ to them.  So get engaging to build you followers and connections, but be targeted - numbers for numbers sake still won’t get your messages in front of your target audience

7. Save time! 

   1. If you hate writing, use https://www.rev.com/ to speak and transcribe your story into almost word-perfect blogs, ready to go

   2. Use free image libraries like https://www.pexels.com/ or https://pixabay.com/

8. And finally, remember social media replaces nothing, but complements everything.  It’s only going to work if you put the time and effort into it, or outsource it to stay focused on your core business of meeting and servicing your clients.

Karen Hall is the marketing director at 101 Things