A few months ago, my team suggested we produced a workshop in my hometown, just to see how many people would be interested in learning about social media marketing. I loved the idea and decided to reach out to some of my amazing friends who are in the marketing field and they were on board. Social Media Bootcamp was born!
Why a social media Bootcamp?
When you do an open call to entrepreneurs, small business owners who want to get visible, and marketing agencies, you need to consider that no content will be one-size-fits-all. We decided to call it a Bootcamp, because we were determined to teach as many lessons as possible in the 4 hours we had together. Since Capital Factory is the center of gravity for entrepreneurs in Texas, we decided to partner up to host this amazing event.
Social Media Marketing Strategies Covered During The Workshop
In preparation for the Bootcamp, I drafted a 5-step strategy (secrets to conversions from social media) that every business must have, as their fundamentals for their social media marketing.
1) Data and metrics.
2) How to build a brand by leveraging the power of culture.
3) Avatars and hooks grid to target 🎯 the audience.
4) Why your manifesto must be part of your content marketing.
5) How to influence people to buy from you.
Here is what I knew about the audience before even started the workshop:
- Most business owners fail at seeing social media marketing as a tactical activity, instead of integrating social media marketing into their entire marketing system.
- Social media is a communication channel, but most business owners only see it as a promotional channel.
- Business owners are feeling overwhelmed with so many social media platforms and formats to share a message, especially Instagram and Instagram stories.
- I knew I was gonna have a savvy, smart, curious, driven, and hungry individuals who were up to no joke and no fluff!
I didn’t have a Power Point or any slides deck. I wanted to give the audience what they wanted. So, we kicked off by allowing each participant to speak! I wanted to know them, one by one. What brought them there, what was their business, and what was the number one thing they wanted to get from the Bootcamp.
I felt an instant connection with the room. They had so many things in common, yet, so many different backgrounds and schools. After listening to what they wanted to learn, I was ready to put their business ideas into the test!
Social media has affected the way we make purchasing decisions. We have a new sales journey.
The Before
Before we had access to massive amounts of data on demand, brands treated digital marketing following a linear approach. They were convinced that a series of repeated pieces of content would help consumers to “funnel” the information and would persuade them to make the decision to buy from them.
Social media changed the digital space. The opportunities to join conversations are endless; turning the funnel idea into obsolete.
The After
Consumers are educated. They have access to data, on demand. If they want to purchase something, they get it. Typically, consumers are persuaded the most by their friends and connections and that persuasion doesn’t happen in a particular order.
Marketers have adopted a non-lineal funnel approach. Consumers turn into loyal clients or advocators triggered by loyalty, not following a particular “funnel”. This is called the loyalty loop.
Christine Young did an amazing job, sharing her cliff notes on Twitter. My team captured her tweets and turned them into a video for you!
As a brand, your goal is getting people to like you, trust you, and believe in you. Social media is a great communication avenue to achieve that goal! The key is to stop using it as a direct response marketing (the infomercial style) and create a content marketing strategy that turns your followers into loyal customers.
In other words, no more cats videos, memes, and irrelevant content!
The 5-Step Strategy To Succeed in Social Media Marketing
I asked them to draw a sandwich and it’s funny because, at some point, I called the sandwich a burger! But… the sandwich (not the burger) had a bottom and a top and 3 ingredients in the middle.
Having the opportunity to help entrepreneurs having a breakthrough is one of the most rewarding things that I’ve experienced in life. I crave for those moments! Obviously, I wasn’t just teaching and speaking. I called for volunteers who wanted to get feedback on their work!
Carla Birnberg from Your Box Box was one of the volunteers. As she read her company’s mission, we were able to identify a deeper way to communicate with their audience by designing a manifesto.
Messaging is key, especially for the crowded social media newsfeeds. We must communicate messages that allow us to create tight bonds with our audiences so that they feel connected with us because we get them. They feel like they are one of us. They belong. We should incorporate our manifesto into our branding and use social media to share it. See this example.
We scored great wins! Especially getting clarity about audience targeting using the Avatars and Hooks Grid
The audience had the chance to create a plan to switch from a transactional, promotional, and tactical social media marketing to a strategic, intentional, and profitable one. This process started with the first ingredient I covered, Avatars and Hooks Grid.
Lori Stinson volunteered for our Avatars and Hooks exercise. We were able to craft her future buyer persona and created different hooks.
Targeting your audience is the key to a successful social media marketing strategy. Having a clear idea of who do you want to attract and all the details about them makes your life as a marketer really easy. Where to start?
Start with your favorite client
- How long have they been in business?
- Size of the company.
- What made them buy from you?
- What do they treasure the most about your relationship?
- Why do they stay with you and don’t go to your competitor?
- Do they have a particular culture?
- Do you know their set of values?
For the Hooks, map your future buyer’s journey
Once you know your Avatar, the next step is creating a “hook”. This is where your content marketing comes handy. What information would add value to them? How would they prefer to consume that information? Would they appreciate a video rather than a 5,000 long blog post? Would they appreciate a tutorial?
Keep in mind, hooks are not the typical freebies that lead people to a transaction. We want to switch from a transactional, promotional, and tactical social media marketing to a strategic, intentional, and profitable one. This requires that you give more value. How much is more value?
Follow the 3×1 rule
Share 3 valuable pieces of content with your future buyers and then make the 4th your pitch. This can be a sequence, but not necessarily. Your future buyers are smart. If you prepare high-valuable content, for example, blog posts, they will read them. If they feel that your content adds value, they will get your offer. Your job is to earn their trust.
The audience helped Lori with content ideas based on what they would love to see from her company. It was a lot of fun!
Julia McCoy from Express Writers Lead The Afternoon Session
The Bootcamp gave the audience a real plan to switch from a transactional, promotional, and tactical social media marketing to a strategic, intentional, and profitable one. Without a doubt, content marketing strategy is the key to approach social media marketing from this new perspective. And who else can lead this content marketing session better than the content hacker?
Seriously, Google her name and you will see. Best-selling author, awarded as top 25 marketing influencers by LinkedIn, published in multiple magazines, CEO of a successful content marketing agency in charge of ghostwriting for prestigious organizations around the world. She’s so successful, and yet, so humble.
Trustworthy content surpasses ads (by far)
Julia opened her session with some shocking stats about marketing tactics that are not bringing ROI (but they are still very popular). Somebody isn’t listening to the audience and that’s the reason why we felt the urge to host this Bootcamp.
People are not responding to advertising.
From 2016 to 2018, the return on ad spend, the conversion rate on a traditional cold ad funnel, went from 11.8x to .6x ROA.
The general rule: it’s not about what can I get from my audience, it’s about how much more I can give them.
I was seated in the public, watching Julia giving her presentation. Everyone was literally shocked and almost mad that they had put so much energy and effort into tactics that are no longer effective.
Julia’s presentation was outstanding. She covered 5 types of content you should be publishing to grow your brand.
- Blog
- Site content (web pages)
- Emails
- Social media
- List-Builders (Downloadables: Lead Magnets, Free Ebooks)
She gave clear examples of how to’s, which made it very easy to follow. You can find her recap here.
Marketing Panel
After Julia’s presentation, Kim Barnes, communications expert, and video marketing consultant, joined us to lead the marketing panel. We gave the audience the chance to ask us anything and they took advantage!
What are some of the guerilla marketing strategies you recommend, that are free?
Kim Barnes, an expert in communications gave us advice on how to leverage Facebook Live. She discussed some of the major mistakes to avoid, to build a brand, for free.
How do we manage to produce content for different channels, especially what to share in our business pages versus our personal pages?
I loved that each of us shared a piece of wisdom about this topic. As a content marketing expert, Julia shared the importance of having time just to create ideas, separated from content production, to avoid fatigue.
My 2 cents on this topic was to treat every channel individually and establish a voice that met the audience’s expectations. For Instagram, for example, you must meet the visual requirements. Amazing pictures, creative content, and out-of-the-box stories.
Can you explain everything about hashtags?
Hashtags were the most wanted item! I’m glad I had the chance to explain the concept using baby steps! A hashtag is a code and is used to create boards. Boards are “parked” on Instagram and users love searching for boards. For example, if I’m visiting San Antonio, I will search #sanantonio and explore what users are sharing. It’s almost like reading reviews, but 10x better. The key is to put yourself in the shoes of those who are searching. Where do you want to get visibility? That’s the most important question and that’s how you design the hashtags you will use on each post.
How many hashtags?
It depends! If you are building your brand and want to use some guerrilla marketing, go for 30. There’s nothing wrong. But once you have an audience, limit to 15. If you’re using 30 and some of them are very popular, be careful, since those can be banned occasionally, causing your posts to suffer from the famous “shadowban”.
