Mastering the social media marketing funnel is important to help you grow your business and doesn’t have to be just throwing spaghetti against the wall. In this episode, Jenny and Lynsey teach how to master your social media marketing.
IE 379: Mastering the Social Media Marketing Funnel
Lynsey Mahoskey is a social media coach and marketing agency owner at Her Hive Social. She offers coaching, management, branding, and other services to content creators.
She started as a mommy blogger in 2013 to help other moms in similar situations and then moved into influencing, network marketing, and currently into coaching.
Lynsey has a podcast called Confident Content Creators and a Facebook community with the same name.
What is a social media marketing funnel?
Even though “social media” is in the name, it is only one part of your marketing funnel.
We have all seen the “sales funnel” analogy that is wider at the top, and like a funnel, gets smaller, leading customers to buy from you. When you are talking about your overall sales funnel, social media is at the very top of that funnel, meant to pique the interest of your potential customers.
You can have a marketing funnel within that marketing funnel. You are creating that “know-like – and trust” factor on social media.
You have to first get someone to know about you. This is the visibility piece of the funnel. Then, they have to get to like you by binging your content and engaging. That will lead them to trust you.
Once they trust you, you can move them further along in your sales funnel.
The biggest misconception is that social media is an overnight success. You will not post about an offer or product one time and have billions of people who do not even know you buy it. It doesn’t work that way.
People have to see things anywhere from 6-8 times before they take any action. That action can be getting on your list, going to your blog, or looking at your sales page.
From the sales page, you have a conversion rate that matters. You have to continue to talk about it so that more and more people know you offer that service. People have to see it more than once to buy it.
How do you create an effective social media marketing funnel?
To create an effective social media marketing funnel, you need to know exactly who you are talking to and know your audience. That will allow you to speak directly to their needs.
Sometimes, when we are following people, we think they are in our heads and know exactly what we are thinking. That is usually because those people are talking directly to us as their dream avatar or ideal client.
Know your audience first and then create engaging content based on what the person wants, needs, and has going on in their lives. How can you relate to them?
Your content needs to be relatable, educational, and sales-related. You always want to use a “Call to Action (CTA)” to move them closer to buying from you.
Many people figure out their audience and create their content but then miss the call to action.
Is there an effective way to present your call to action?
There are many CTA’s. It could be “Join my email list.” “Comment,” or “Follow.”
The easiest way to decide what kind of call to action you need is to determine what you want the person on the other side of the screen to do.
- Do you want them to follow you?
- Do you want them to click the link in your bio?
- What is the action that the piece of content is intended to spark?
Once you know that, ask for it. Simply ask for what you need. Tell them exactly what the next step is.
Is it to watch the next video? Is it to comment or share? Your call to action is to ask them to do what you want them to do next.
What are your top tips for building brand awareness on social media?
When people think of brand awareness, they think of having the perfect font, pretty colors, or the perfect template in Canva. That is not your brand.
Brand awareness is the values that your brand stands for and the people that you help.
Consistency in your message is the most important part of brand awareness. Posting regularly and being authentic in who you are is also important.
People can figure out who is fake and they don’t want to buy from that person. How do you authentically show up as yourself?
Different customers have different values. Instead of trying to speak to everyone, niche down and know your market.
Who do you resonate with that is going to value what you have to offer? What makes you feel good and what is easy for you to show on social media?
That is the brand that you want to niche into. You will create that brand by consistently showing up and aligning yourself with those values.
When you know your avatar, you can list their pain points and solve their issues with your content. It becomes more systematic and less difficult than we try to make it.
Instead of being scared of redundancies, you will talk about their pain points over and over so that potential buyers will see it and have enough trust to buy from you.
What types of posts are the best on social media to make people take action?
The set-up is different for every type of social media platform so you need to mix it up. Each platform will vary as far as the content needed for people to take action.
Lynsey likes to lead with engagement across the board because that will hack the algorithm of the platform you are on.
Not only do you need to entice people to engage on your posts, but you also need to engage on other people’s posts. This shows the algorithm that you are interested in being social, which is the reason for social media.
You can test and see how different people interact with your content on all the various platforms. This is why it is key to know who your audience is. Once you know who your person is, you also know where they are hanging out.
You don’t have to be on all the social media platforms. You just have to be on the ones that are where your dream clients are hanging out.
How do you measure the effectiveness of your social media marketing funnel?
You can check your analytics within all of the social media platforms. You can check click-through rates, conversion, and engagement rates.
To track the full effectiveness of your funnel, you have to have a website with sales and analytics that are tracked.
Are people buying? Where are they coming from? What social media platforms are leading them to you?
Analytics will tell you where the majority of your audience comes from. When you know how people got to your website to make a purchase you will be able to know the effectiveness of your funnel.
You want to try to get people on your list when they come to your website. This will allow you to foster that relationship to bring in repeat customers.
If you want a loyal following, you want to nurture them. When you offer a freebie and get an email list, you can send them a monthly newsletter or weekly tips.
Social media is rented property. You never know what is going to happen to those platforms. The platform could shut down or you could lose your account because you were hacked or broke community standards.
You don’t own your following. Getting them on your email list is going to give them a better opportunity to nurture them into a sale, especially if you have high ticket sales because those take a lot longer.
What can we expect to learn as part of the free Her Hive Social community?
The Facebook community Confident Content Creators, Mastering the Art of Social Media Marketing, is a networking group where you can meet other business owners, learn how to market your business on social media, get free coaching, get free master classes, and be surrounded by like-minded people who are trying to grow their business on social media.
