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Whether you are just starting your business online or have been at it for a while and you're not growing, do not give up. You never know who is watching and how continuing to show up daily can catapult you to the next level.
Growing a business, building an audience online, or getting new clients take patience and dedication. It takes just one post, article, or video to blow up online, land your dream client, or start a partnership that can revolutionize your business.
Today I will go over how to create consistently and how to overcome not growing your business.
Just like any job, you need to show up consistently to collect a paycheck creating content online. Most business owners give up after a week because they are still waiting for an immediate return on investment.
Creating content online is a long-term game that will 100X your business if you get it right. If you get it wrong, you will not grow online and will have to resort to running paid ads or paying others to create content for you. Your goal should be to grow organically, so you can have your ideal customers buy from you with zero marketing costs.
To start seeing any growth on any platform, you need to start solving problems for your ideal customers. This is how you gain their trust, build relationships, and grow your following online. Provide value to people consuming your content by providing answers for free.
Tie your product or service to a core problem your followers are facing and teach them how to solve that problem. This will translate into more people following you online, more leads coming into your business, and other creators sharing your content.
Solve the problems of others to earn their attention, and then spend their attention wisely on your offer or service.
When creating content, you should always focus on education over entertainment. Educating your audience will help you build a relationship with them while also building trust. This way you can create authority and pre-sell your services and products easily.
Do not focus purely on entertainment. Entertainment without value will only get you so far until the next big creator or trend comes along. If you build you following purely on entertainment, you will be stuck chasing trends, trying to do yourself out every time you post, and you will be building a shaky following that is there for a laugh and not value.
Combine education and entertainment to lock your followers in and build their knowledge over time. The best content creators combine education and entertainment together to teach more easily and build better retention into their audiences.
If creating content to gain an organic following is your primary goal, you need to create weekly and daily systems to help you create content consistently. Having systems in place will make it easier to write and film content, along with giving you a schedule to follow.
I always suggest batch-creating content one day of the week for 7 days to get ahead. This way, you are able to create content easily. My weekly content creation schedule has me writing all of my content copy on Monday, filming video content on Tuesday, and editing/scheduling content on Wednesday.
I spend an hour each day doing these tasks, and it helps me create and schedule all of my content weeks in advance. By having a weekly system in place, you can 3X the amount of content you create and put out weekly.
The number one way to grow your social media quickly when you are just starting out is to be social on social media. Reach out to other creators, business owners, and freelancers and start a conversation.
Engage on their content, leave comments, and build relationships with other people online who will like, comment, and share your content. This will help you grow quickly online, grow your network, and have your content be pushed organically. Being social on social media is key to growing online.
Start by leaving 10 to 20 comments on large accounts in your niche and then commenting on the comment of viral posts in your niche. In your comments, provide value, and attract others to your profile to start building a following.
Not all content formats work in different industries. Depending on your niche, find out what content types work and do not work. For example, in the real estate niche, short-form video content is key. Potential followers want to see the insides of houses on video or a realtor talking about specific features of a property instead of just looking at static images.
While on the other hand, in the self-development niche, carousel posts perform better due to the longer read times and followers wanting to learn more in a text post. As you start creating content for your business, look at what other creators in your niche are doing and double down on the content formats that are working.
99% of being successful on social media is different from what you say but how you say it and deliver it to your audience. Only some consume content the same way, so find the content formats that work for your audience to grow online!
As you create content for your business, don't worry about small view counts or only a few people seeing your content, as you never know who is watching.
Last week I had Cameo reach out to me and ask if I wanted to work with them on some merch design on a freelance basis based on a post I put on Behance over a year ago. The post itself has 50 views, and it was of some previous illustrations I had completed in 2020 I thought the post was a failure because it “didn’t perform well.”
This wasn't the only time this happened either; a few months ago, I had the opportunity to work with Banza (the chickpea pasta company) based on an Instagram post that had a low view count as well. So never underestimate who is watching! Even if you have a small following you can land huge opportunities.
So keep on creating daily, educating your audience, and sharing your knowledge to land huge opportunities that you can leverage into bigger projects.
Create content daily to leverage your knowledge, products, and services. Over time you will attract your ideal audience by creating content that resonates with them. As you do this, you will land big projects and famous clients and build an audience that will help you grow your business. All you have to do is be consistent, create content around your audience's core pain points, and share your knowledge for free.
→This week’s action step: Plan out 7 days of content for your business. You can start with a simple outline that helps you plan what you are going to post and when. As you work through the outline batch, create your content on different days. On day 1, write all your content and captions. On day 2, film any video content. On day 3, edit and schedule your content for the following week.
Starting a successful online business starts with having a strong brand identity system. Whether you're new to business or you've been around for 100 years, you need a logo and branding assets to help you gain trust with your customers. I can help bring your business to life.
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