{"id":53,"date":"2016-07-20T04:11:36","date_gmt":"2016-07-20T08:11:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sidehustlepro.co\/?p=53"},"modified":"2023-11-14T21:33:15","modified_gmt":"2023-11-15T02:33:15","slug":"how-to-explode-your-social-media-audience-with-5-steps-and-zero-dollars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sidehustlepro.co\/how-to-explode-your-social-media-audience-with-5-steps-and-zero-dollars\/","title":{"rendered":"7: How to Explode Your Social Media Audience With 5 Steps And Zero Dollars"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"wp-block-fusebox-player-single\"><script data-type=\"track\" data-hash=\"Zwg0pOdgzq\" data-track=\"7\" src=\"https:\/\/app.fusebox.fm\/embed\/player.js\"><\/script><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-buttons is-layout-flex wp-block-buttons-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-button is-style-outline is-style-outline--1\"><a class=\"wp-block-button__link wp-element-button\">Click here to get the free Side Hustle Pro Social Media Toolkit<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The number one question I get asked\u00a0is how to leverage social media to build a\u00a0brand. When people ask me this, I know that they&#8217;re really searching for a quick and dirty shortcut to get thousands of followers without having to put in a lot of work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Well I hate to break it to you,&nbsp;but there&#8217;s no way to build an engaged social media audience without consistent and authentic effort.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>With over seven&nbsp;years of professional experience as a social media marketing strategist, I&#8217;ve learned firsthand the challenges that come with trying to keep up with changing platforms and algorithms. If you want to be successful in social media,&nbsp;you have to&nbsp;abandon the &#8216;I want to make something that will go viral\u2019 mentality because that&#8217;s not how it works.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>On this episode, I&#8217;m breaking down the exact steps I&#8217;ve taken to grow my Instagram audience by over 1000% in 12 months. I&#8217;m providing a blueprint for how to grow an active and engaged social media following with five&nbsp;simple steps and zero dollars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-buttons is-layout-flex wp-block-buttons-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-button is-style-outline is-style-outline--2\"><a class=\"wp-block-button__link wp-element-button\">Click here to get the free Side Hustle Pro Social Media Toolkit<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><br><strong>Step 1:\u00a0Define Your Niche<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>When you\u2019re thinking of building your brand, you have to first identify the objective of your brand. These are the questions you have to get to the bottom of before you can move forward:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>What is the goal of your business?<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>What service do you provide?<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Who are the influencers in your space?<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>What is your unique offering?<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>What category does it fall under (e.g. food, beauty, sports, fitness, entrepreneurship)?<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Within that category, what subset of topics do you focus on?<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>What is the action you want your audience to take?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>If you are still attempting to figure this out, listen to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sidehustlepro.co\/episode-5-how-do-i-decide-what-my-side-hustle-should-be\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Episode 5: How Do I Decide What My Side Hustle Should Be?<\/a> There, I walk you through&nbsp;identifying&nbsp;your unique business offering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Step 2: Find Your Avatar<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Before you can do anything with social media you need to get up close and personal with your target audience. The goal of Side Hustle Pro is to inspire women to launch their own businesses and I want to serve the fastest growing group of entrepreneurs in the country\u2014black women.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What about you?&nbsp;What service are you providing and who do you want to serve?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Your ideal customer, reader or subscriber is your avatar. You need to find out more about your avatar, their age, where they live, what they do for a living, what they read, watch on TV, do in their downtime and which social media channels they use the most.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you don\u2019t know these things, reach out to someone who fits the profile of your avatar and interview them. You absolutely can\u2019t afford to skip this step.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For instance, I know without a doubt who the&nbsp;ideal Side Hustle Pro listener is. I know her name, where she works, know what she likes to read, her favorite tv shows, how she commutes to work, what she does after work, what are the current podcasts she has on her playlist and more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>How did I find this out? I interviewed over&nbsp;ten&nbsp;different people who matched my avatar\u2019s profile. From these intimate interviews I learned what kind of content I should cover on this podcast, what kind of resources and tools would be useful, what other experts my avatar&nbsp;finds valuable, what books they\u2019re reading and what other podcasts they\u2019re listening to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So go ahead, get to know your avatar. You can do as many interviews as you like but <em>no fewer&nbsp;<\/em>than ten.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>After completing your ten&nbsp;interviews, write out a profile of your avatar. I share the&nbsp;profile&nbsp;of my own avatar in the <a href=\"http:\/\/sidehustlepro.co\/Podcast\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">full podcast episode<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-buttons is-layout-flex wp-block-buttons-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-button is-style-outline is-style-outline--3\"><a class=\"wp-block-button__link wp-element-button\" href=\"https:\/\/sidehustlepro.leadpages.co\/leadbox\/142d6e873f72a2%3A16918b945f46dc\/5667908084563968\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">Click here to get the free Side Hustle Pro Social Media Toolkit<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Step 3: Create Valuable Content For Your Avatar<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Use your Avatar\u2019s favorite accounts as guidance for content<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Once you\u2019ve written down your own avatar profile, you will know which social media networks\u00a0you want to focus on\u00a0first. You will know what other accounts your avatar finds valuable and interesting, so you can do competitive research to plan your own content. This does not mean copy what other accounts do, this means use them as inspiration. Try new things and measure what performs the best, then do more of what works. Does your avatar respond better to photos, quotes, infographics, videos or GIFs? It\u2019s up to you to find out and create content accordingly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Post Consistently<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>The most important part of this step is that you have to post consistently, that means every day, several times a day. I know some of you will ask, well what are the best days and times to post? The answer to that will always be\u2014it depends. Using the social media metrics tools outlined in the Side Hustle Pro Social Media Toolkit, you can track the\u00a0days of the week\u00a0and time of day that gets the most engagement from your audience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Schedule if you need to<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>I know some of you are probably also thinking, I don\u2019t have time for this\u2014can I just schedule it? Yes, you can schedule posts on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, <em><strong>but<\/strong><\/em> do keep in mind that there are limitations to automation:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>If all you do is automate, people will view you as a robot and disengage. You HAVE to mix scheduled posts with live posts.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>People will comment on your posts. Go in and respond in real time.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>If a major tragedy&nbsp;happens in the news and you have an automated post go out,&nbsp;you will look tone deaf and insensitive.&nbsp;If you schedule posts, be ready and available to stop them during national and international emergencies.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Share more than once<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>When you share on social media, you should share, share again, then share ONE MORE TIME.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For every post you create, think of four different ways to share that post. For example, if you\u2019re tweeting a link to a blog posts:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>First, share a&nbsp;caption with the main point of the post and then just add the link<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Second, share a quote from the post along with a photo of the guest and the link<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Third, share a memorable fact&nbsp;from article with the link<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Fourth, rephrase the main point and share the link again<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Step 4: Follow Your Avatar and Build a Relationship<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Since you now know your avatar, you also know which influencers they follow and find valuable. Visit the influencers that your avatar follows and begin to follow, like and engage with the people who are following those influencers. This lets people know that your brand exists and puts it on their radar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-buttons is-layout-flex wp-block-buttons-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-button is-style-outline is-style-outline--4\"><a class=\"wp-block-button__link wp-element-button\">Click here to get the free Side Hustle Pro Social Media Toolkit<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Note, you shouldn\u2019t just follow people\u00a0blindly. Look at profiles, confirm that this user is in your target audience. <a rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"http:\/\/www.crowdfireapp.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">CrowdFire<\/a> is a helpful\u00a0tool to manage this process, because it allows you to not only view the followers of other Twitter and Instagram users, but if you pay a small fee it will keep track of who you\u2019ve followed in the past and it will also show you who is not following you back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Twitter and Instagram have a limit on the number of accounts you can follow per hour so be very mindful because your account can and will get snatched.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-buttons is-layout-flex wp-block-buttons-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-button is-style-outline is-style-outline--5\"><a class=\"wp-block-button__link wp-element-button\" href=\"https:\/\/sidehustlepro.leadpages.co\/leadbox\/142d6e873f72a2%3A16918b945f46dc\/5667908084563968\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">Click here to get the free Side Hustle Pro Social Media Toolkit<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Treat Social Networking Like A Real Networking Event<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Social networking is very similar&nbsp;to an&nbsp;in-person&nbsp;networking event. You want to begin a real relationship through genuine conversation, not by&nbsp;throwing your cards at people and bombarding them with your elevator pitch.&nbsp;Make a conscious effort to not only follow people, but to&nbsp;engage with them through&nbsp;likes, retweets, tweets and comments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you don\u2019t have something genuine to say or like to people you follow, you\u2019re probably following the wrong people, so revisit Step 2.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Join the conversation on Twitter<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>One of Twitter\u2019s greatest features is its advanced search tool. If you go to <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/search-advanced\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Twitter.com\/search-advanced<\/a>&nbsp;you can search by words&nbsp;(to find people tweeting about specific subjects relevant to your business) or by people places and dates. It\u2019s a great resource to&nbsp;find your target audience, follow&nbsp;and tweet with them. The great thing about Twitter is it\u2019s one big open conversation with the universe so people expect new people to talk to them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Another way to join the conversation is through participating in&nbsp;Twitter chats. Twitter chats are live chats centered around a theme that happen all the time on Twitter. They are usually hosted by a specific user or multiple users and some happen every week. For example, there\u2019s a side hustle twitter chat every Tuesday. I\u2019ve found Twitter chats are a great way to find new people to follow and to talk to people who have the same interests. You can find out about Twitter chats using the website <a href=\"http:\/\/twubs.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Twubs<\/a>, which is a directory of Twitter chats happening across the world by date by day by time. While this only covers registered or well known chats,&nbsp;it\u2019s still a good place to start.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Use Hashtags For Visibility<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>You should definitely&nbsp;utilize&nbsp;hashtags to raise your profile\u2019s visibility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>On Twitter:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Use actual terms that you want to be discovered by,&nbsp;like #fitness or #entrepreneurship<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Use no&nbsp;more than two hashtags per post<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>On&nbsp;Instagram<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>You can use&nbsp;up to 30 hashtags with each post<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Check out the hashtags that other influencers&nbsp;in your space are using<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Explore those hashtags&nbsp;to see how many posts have been made using the hashtag<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Use a mixture of very popular tags and those that are well known but not too over saturated to increase the number of people who will see your posts<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Step 5: Measure!<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Using the social media metrics tools outlined in the Side Hustle Pro Social Media Toolkit,\u00a0track the content that performs best and use it to determine what you do moving forward.\u00a0Pay close attention to what\u2019s working for you, and the influencers in your space so you can be as effective with your time as possible. Data is the absolute only way to inform your\u00a0content strategy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>My special guest on this episode is&nbsp;Muoyo Okome, Founder of <a href=\"http:\/\/appbusiness.co\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Daily Spark Media<\/a> &amp; the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/groups\/dailyspark\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Daily Spark Entrepreneur Community<\/a>, who details how he was able to grow his account from a little under 600 followers to 25,000 in less than a year by studying his Instagram insights. He used the data on the most liked and most commented posts to plan his content strategy and explode his social media audience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And that\u2019s it folks. Those are the five steps to explode your social media audience with zero dollars. I\u2019ve been following these steps since last year and just to give you a picture of my own growth:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>On Instagram:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>In July 2015 I had 589 followers, it\u2019s now July 2016 and I\u2019ve just crossed 10,000 followers. That\u2019s over 1000% growth in 12 months.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>On Twitter:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>I launched the&nbsp;Side Hustle Pro Twitter account in May 2016 and in two months have over 1300 Twitter followers.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>These are the platforms I\u2019ve invested the most time in, because I know exactly where to find my avatar there, and I used the steps outlined above to not only&nbsp;grow my audience but to genuinely connect with my audience. The result is, the <a href=\"http:\/\/sidehustlepro.co\/Podcast\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Side Hustle Pro podcast<\/a> debuted in the Top 20 in business on iTunes, buoyed largely in part by my social media audience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Are you ready to invest in building your own social media growth? Use theSide Hustle Pro Social Media Toolkit as your guide to finding and building your audience.&nbsp;Keep me posted on your progress in the comments!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-buttons is-layout-flex wp-block-buttons-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-button is-style-outline is-style-outline--6\"><a class=\"wp-block-button__link wp-element-button\" href=\"https:\/\/sidehustlepro.leadpages.co\/leadbox\/142d6e873f72a2%3A16918b945f46dc\/5667908084563968\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">Click here to get the free Side Hustle Pro Social Media Toolkit<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/sidehustlepro.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/Vivian-Kaye-Side-Hustle-Pro-600x600.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-296\"\/><\/figure><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The number one question I get asked\u00a0is how to leverage social media to build a\u00a0brand. When people ask me this, I know that they&#8217;re really searching for a quick and dirty shortcut to get thousands of followers without having to put in a lot of work. Well I hate to break it to you,&nbsp;but there&#8217;s [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":296,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spt_transcript":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[2,3,21,35,40,5,7,8,9,11,41,42],"class_list":["post-53","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-marketing","tag-black-women-business-owners","tag-black-women-entrepreneurs","tag-entrepreneurs","tag-facebook","tag-instagram","tag-passive-income","tag-podcast","tag-side-hustle-pro","tag-side-hustles","tag-sidepreneur","tag-social-media","tag-twitter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sidehustlepro.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sidehustlepro.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sidehustlepro.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sidehustlepro.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sidehustlepro.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/sidehustlepro.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8662,"href":"https:\/\/sidehustlepro.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53\/revisions\/8662"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sidehustlepro.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/296"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sidehustlepro.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sidehustlepro.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sidehustlepro.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}