In the influencer space, social media is where many of us invest our time and energy in order to be successful in the social media marketing space. We are constantly looking for social media solutions to connect to our business growth, and use those solutions to better support us in gaining brand partnerships. As a social media coach, I’ve worked with a number of influencer to help them look at their social media platforms and their techniques in order to see where there is room for growth and how they can use social media to grow their revenue.
As an influencer, social media is an aspect of our profession. We need to focus on it all the time and keep it managed so that we can actively engage with our followers and share our content.
Over the years, I’ve made a lot of mistakes on my own social media, and it has halted my growth. But recently, I have been doing more and more research, taking classes, listening to podcasts, and just becoming all knowledgeable about the various platforms out there so that I can grow as a blogger. With my research, I have started to expand my reach which has brought me an increase in brand collaborations and revenue. My blog is growing so much that I no longer call my blog a “side-hustle”, but another full-time job.
And with the knowledge that I have gradually accumulated, I am here to share with you the social media platforms that you should be focusing on and the social media solutions that you can implement to grow your influencer business.
Social Media Solutions FOR INSTAGRAM
Of course, Instagram is one of the biggest platforms that helps us as influencers to connect with more people and to share content. Even more, some brands solely want to collaborate on this platform and will also help to share your content to further your own reach. As an influencer coach, I’ve shared with many of my clients that one of the traps of Instagram is to fall into the Instagram loops that many people participate in to gain a large amount of followers in a quick amount of time. I will admit that I was one that fell in to that trap. I was so busy focusing on my numbers that I didn’t actually engage with my followers or produce quality content. At a certain point, I realized that I was wasting my money. These giveaways were only bringing me followers who were interested in winning that iPhone or collection of high-end makeup. They were not interested in actually following me and engaging with my content.
The key to growing an active and engaged following is to be consistent and engage with your followers while also connecting with other like-minded bloggers. If you are interested in giveaways, connect with other bloggers in your niche and do a small giveaway with them. Make sure you are liking and commenting on various pictures on your feed, of your followers, and of new people across the Instagram universe. Also, make sure to comment and respond back to those who comment on your IG posts (preferably within the first couple hours the comment has gone up). Another key thing that I have learned is that if you actively comment and engage prior to putting up your own post, people will go and like and comment on your post once it goes live which boosts your post higher in the feed and more of your followers will see it.
Social Media Solutions FOR PINTEREST
Pinterest is another big platform that is exceptional for promoting content. The higher the number of followers that you have the more likely that your pins will be shared thus giving you further reach and potentially getting you new readers. Many of my newsletter subscribers have found me through Pinterest. They would discover an engaging pin, click to read more, enjoy my content and then subscribe to my blog and social media channels. The key to growing your Pinterest is consistent content and engaging pins.
I am a big advocate for Tailwind. It keeps my posting consistent without me having to be on Pinterest throughout the day. With using Tailwind, my pins are shared at very specific times that are pinpointed based on the engagement of my currently following. By having a new pin go live when they are sharing pins means that my pin will be shard and I could potentially gain more of a following. A bigger following means that there are more people coming to visit my site and again, that means more brand collaborations and higher revenue.
Social Media Solutions FOR TIKTOK
TikTok took the world by storm when it first emerged. Many people, especially millennials, started off first thinking it wasn’t a platform that was going to be for everyone, but one mostly focusing on Gen-Zs. And even as a social media coach, I didn’t fully take it seriously when it first emerged and ended up kicking myself in the long run. TikTok is not going anywhere and it’s become highly apparent that it is a force to be reckoned with especially with the Meta brand pushing Instagram Reels and Facebook Reels to compete in the space. Video content is something that many people connect with, so if you are not integrating video content into your social media strategy, you did to do so ASAP. With so many platforms, even Pinterest, pushing video content, brand are starting to request that as a deliverable more and more and are looking specifically at influencers who are able to offer it as a deliverable.
When working to create content on TikTok, my first tip is to make sure that you are multi-purposing the content on the other platforms that you are on. Create content that is going to resonate with your audiences across multiple channels, while also creating some posts that are exclusive to TikTok so that your followers on other platforms have to follow you on TikTok to see that specific content. Then for actually creating, try to batch your content creation. Take a day to do your research on trends and then on a different day create the content and plan out the posts. It can be quite a lot of work, and if you are just starting out on the platform, you may not see results right away, but it takes on video to go viral and you could end up having a very strong TikTok presence.
Social Media Solutions FOR FACEBOOK
Facebook has always been a force in the social media world and as a social media coach, it is one that I still tell people to have a presence on even if it is just to have it as a support platform. Although it is not the force it used to be, it is still a social media platform that influencers need to be focusing on. The first thing with Facebook is make sure you have a page for your blog. And then make sure that page has all information about your blog and social media channels so that you are cross promoting and putting leads back towards your pages. I also highly recommend that you connect your social media channels and blog to your Facebook page so that you can share posts from everywhere straight to your Facebook page.
Many brands will actually focus on Facebook by creating posts just there that are used for ad bases. They will ask you to connect the partnership so that when the post goes live they can back it with ad promotion. This helps them as the brand as well as helping your page. But brands do look for an active and well-developed page. They will not ask to collaborate with you on a page that barely has any content. So make sure that you’re not only sharing your post from other platforms to your page, but creates post singularly for Facebook. Sometimes these posts may just be to generate conversation with your followers, to host a giveaway just for your Facebook tribe, etc.
