In this post, you're going to learn a simple but effective social media plan for getting more results while spending less time.
Remember the days before social media? Nope – well get out because you're making me feel too old. But if you do, you likely remember having much more free time and mental bandwidth to focus. You also likely remember the freedom that came from not being practically glued to a screen 24-7. Ahhh, I can *almost* feel it now.
But these days as a business owner, is social media necessary?
The magic eight ball says ‘signs points to yes.’
But social media can also be a lot less time-consuming and a lot more advantageous for you using the strategy I’m going to teach you here.
We harp a lot on social media. It can be a quick path to not so great feelings – overwhelm, comparisonitis, stress and more.
But don't get me wrong, social media has also brought a lot of positive changes too – being able to stay connected with people from all over the world and as business owners, it's allowed us to grow online businesses.
But even when social media's good, it can sometimes be a little too much of a good thing. So what if you could simplify? What if you could go from feeling GUILTY over not prioritizing social media when it comes to your business and focusing on doing much more in much less time?
Introducing The EASE Framework
I was FEELING that overwhelm myself and I was also FEELING that overwhelm from my audience, from you, too when it came to content. And so I knew that a different paradigm was needed. A different way of looking at content that would help free business owners up from all the shoulds and not enoughs, to help them do less while actually making more progress, more impact and at the end of the day, more money from their content and marketing.
Which was the origin of the EASE content framework – which really boils down to the only 4 platforms or strategies any content empire needs to focus on in order to have a profitable and well-rounded strategy that cares for its own audiences at every step along the customer journey.
In case you're wondering – EASE stands for Educate, Attract, Sell and Engage. And while you can learn about all these from me (I'll link to some resources below), when it comes to social, we're going to focus on the Attract and Engage slices of pie 🙂 Because you don't need to be on all the social platforms, you really only need 2 – one for each of these 2 purposes – attraction and engagement.
So let's talk engagement.
Step 1: Choose Your Engage Platform
So many business owners only keep their eye on how big their audience is getting and not on how engaged they're keeping their existing audiences. It's a big oversight. Because someone with a tiny engaged audience can actually make a lot more money than someone with a huge and unengaged audience. I've known business owners with less than 200 people in their audience who are making over $200K and I've known business owners with 60K people on their email list and following them on their Instagram who has trouble even making 1 sale from their launches. This is where your engagement platform comes in.
How are you keeping your existing audience engaged? How are you having real back and forth conversations with them? You don't need 5 different places, you just need 1 place that you go all-in on. And this requires time too. Time to get in there and start conversations and keep conversations going.
Platforms that make for a great engagement platform would be things like Instagram, a Facebook group, or a forum.
Key action step: Pick 1 social media platform where you'll engage regularly (around 30 minutes a day) with your audience
Step 2: Choose Your Attract Platform
Even though we're emphasizing engaging your existing audience, that doesn't mean we want to abandon audience growth completely. The people in your audience change and evolve – so even though they were a perfect fit potential client last year, doesn't mean they'll continue to be. So you need to be adding new people (as long as they're the right people).
So in addition to an engagement platform, we also need to choose one that's going to help you grow your audience. In other words, a platform that's designed to get you in front of new eyeballs. So this could be something like Pinterest, paid ads, guest posting or podcast pitches, speaking, etc. If we're focused on organic social, your best bet might be Pinterest.
Key action step: Pick 1 social media platform that'll help you get your content in front of new people.
Step 3: Take it 30 Days at a Time
Once you've chosen your 2 platforms, it's time to get strategic and create a 30-day plan to use the platform. So for each one, answer the following questions:
- What are the metrics that tell you how well (or not) this platform is working? Where can you grab those metrics?
- For engagement platforms – this could be the number of comments, engagement score, number of engagements
- For attraction platforms – this could be the traffic it's generating to your website, reach, impressions
- Where are you at currently for those metrics? For the past 30 days?
- Where would you like to see those numbers after 30 days of focusing on this platform?
- What are your one-time actions on this platform for the 30-day period? Maybe it's optimizing your profile, creating templates, and researching hashtags. What are 3-5 things you can do to improve your profile or get set up for success on the platform? Maybe it's something you want to learn about the platform.
- What are your weekly actions on the platform?
- What are your daily actions on the platform?
Next, create a daily and weekly checklist and execute it for the next 30 days.
Then at the end – take your metrics again. Where are you now? How much have you grown? What tweaks do you want to make to the strategy?
Ready to Make Social Media Work for You?
Some of the main reasons I hear people don't “like” social is that it takes too much time, they're sure if there's an ROI and they get more enjoyment by spending time elsewhere.
By simplifying the number of social platforms you're using, creating a step by step action plan for using and measuring your growth on your chosen platforms, you'll turn social from something that feels like a black hole of time to something you can get in, get out and check off your list. Or even outsource when you're ready for it!
Here's to you working smarter not harder when it comes to social media ☕
