Social Media Marketing – What’s holding your business back?

I (Melanie) want to share with you a little bit about about the community, our content, and what is holding you back from reaching your business. Finding the right audience in social media is something that business owners tend to struggle with.  Finding the right audience is one of the things that I feel super passionate about. Part of our mission here at Chic Influencer is to teach you how to brand yourself and how to speak to the right audience. We teach you how to make sure that your page has the right look and feel so that people don’t actually jump over your page, but they stop, they read your content, they become great raving fans, and then they want to become a part of your community. They want to be clients. They want to be a part of the services that you have to offer.

I believe that a lot of you out there have a very good vision and mission for what you want your business to be. But, you are casting your net so wide. And you are so afraid that if you narrow your audience, if you start speaking more about your audience, that you’re actually going to cut somebody out. Anybody? Want to raise your hand right now and say “I’m afraid to narrow my audience because I don’t want to miss out on a sale or I don’t want to miss out on a new sign up.”. Here’s what I’m going to tell you: You’re actually missing out on sales and sign ups and followers and engagement because you’re not getting specific with your audience.

This was something that I had to learn the hard way. When I first launched my business, I had a 2 business partners and we all started our business at about the same time. Two of us had young children under the ages of 3 and we were building our business. The other girl had no children and wasn’t married and was probably about 8 to 10 years younger than the other two. And when we were marketing and showing up on social media and talking about what we had to offer, she was the visual genius at that time.  She could come up with eye catching images and eye catching graphics, and she was really good at writing the content. And because the three of us were success partners, we decided that we were just going to all use the same concept, the same group idea, and we were going to market with that.

Here’s what happened. It worked really well for the girl that was in her twenties with no kids because we were speaking to her her idea of women getting ready for spring break (it was a health and fitness accountability group). It worked great for her… her audience was planning their spring break and they were buying super cute bikinis. But myself and the other girl we were moms of very small children and we were still in our postpartum Journey. We had houses and jobs and we were running in the rat race of life and raising kids. I was still in maternity clothes and trying to get my body back while trying to gain self confidence and love and acceptance of this new role.

So, the other girl had 10:15 news sign ups. She filled up her group. I had zero. What I realized from that  was not that I was horrible at my job. I didn’t think that I shouldn’t be doing this business. I didn’t take it personally. I just got curious! I took a step back and I said “so out of that situation,  where did I miss the mark? Where did I do wrong?” I didn’t let it shut me down. What I realized is that that’s not my audience! I was trying to speak to the 20-something that were on my page. They related to her way better than they related to me. So I was like okay, “who’s my audience”? Well, it’s people like me! It’s moms trying to get their body back and gain self-confidence. I decided I was going to run a “Battle of the Bulge” group because that’s very much my life. And I started showcasing other moms that were building their confidence, who were getting back into their regular jeans, who were not frustrated by their muffin top, and who were finding a way to do it around young children. And I filled my challenge group!! I had 10 people who had signed up. I was seeing the return on that investment.

The reason and bottom line is it was all marketing. It was all strategic. It was making sure that I was speaking to my audience. That’s the golden ticket about building your business! It’s about saying to yourself “Sure, I can help the person in my twenties. I can help the person in their thirties. I can help the person in their forties and fifties. But, what group do I feel like I REALLY add the most value?”. It is women who are ages 30-45 that have young children, that are building a business, that are working full time, who want to have a certain lifestyle. That’s who I speak to the best. That’s my niche. That’s my audience. That’s who gets me excited to do this job… knowing that they are my audience!

So, if you are feeling like you’re just out there grasping at straws and that you’re looking at what everybody else is doing, you have to stop right now! You have to stay to yourself “No more of this. I need to get focused on who I speak to best. Who is my ideal audience? Who are the people that I can really serve? Who do I get excited about connecting with?” That’s going to be your focus.

Do not think in a scarcity mindset. Do not, for one moment, say to yourself “I don’t know if there’s enough people out there”. Do not look around and say “so-and-so does the same exact thing and she does it better, so why bother?”. Everybody does not do it the same. Everybody does not have the same personality. You are not a carbon copy, you are an original!

It doesn’t matter if I have two kids and Katy has two kids, we’re very different. Both Katy and I work in the same network marketing industry, we both have two children, and we both have backgrounds in education. But, both of us are wildly successful with very different markets. Speak to your audience.  Do not look at what the competition is doing. I promise you, if every time you go to make a piece of content, if you say to yourself “Does this speak to who I want to work with?”, you are going to get a better result than if you say “I don’t want to leave people out”. I want you to get crystal clear on who your audience is that you want to speak to.

And the last thing that I want to share is: Stop over-thinking it! So many people delay their business success until they have the perfect avatar, the perfect brand, the perfect Instagram, the perfect website. No! It is not about perfection, it is about right now in this moment, you making a piece of content and putting it out there! If it doesn’t do well, if it doesn’t get a lot of likes, if it doesn’t get a lot of comments: don’t delete it, learn from it! Say to yourself “What did I do wrong? Was there not a call to action? Was my image not eye-catching?”.

We become these collectors of information and think that we have to know everything and take every training before we can actually see results. No. What makes you successful is your ability to take action repeatedly over time and learn from it.

Just like the story about me running that promotion early in my career and it didn’t work for me, I leaned in. I got curious. I was a new business owner. If I would have shut down and I would have stopped, I wouldn’t be here today. I want you to lean into that too. I want you to get curious about what is working, what isn’t working, and what your audience wants to see from you. It is a self evaluation process.

Actually Katy and I were talking this morning and planning out our training call for our Chic Community on Monday (this week we are talking about aesthetics, your bio, the look and feel of your page, presets, who should your audience be, above the fold, what is your 9, and more). As we were talking about these things, even now, 7.5 years later, we still audit each other’s social media.  We were looking at it and saying “this is what you stand for” and “this is what you value”. Do that with your success partners. Make sure that your brand, the look and feel of what you have, actually depicts what you want people to take away from what you’re putting out there.

We love talking about social media marketing in the Chic Influencer community.  We want you to check us out. We want you to come in. We want you to be a part of our community.  We offer more training about your aesthetics, branding, bio, and your visuals and just really upping your competitive edge so that you really stand out and that you don’t blend in with the rest.  We know that is something that so many people struggle with. It’s not too late to join us and get into the community! Once you join, you get access to everything that we have done before in the past… all of the trainings and resources! You can sign up here!