What I want you to be able to differentiate by the end of this article is the difference between a social following that is built on egocentric attention compared to one built for client value-driven content. If you trying to market yourself and build a fitness following, do you want it built on their interest in your knowledge base or your constant flow of fit selfies?
It is important to monitor what is responding well and getting noticed so that you can narrow in on the market you are touching. However, I urge you to dig deeper and ask yourself why you’re getting interest and is it coming from your ideal audience? From personal experience, just looking at stats on previous posts. My initial overview would be if I’m shredded and in minimal clothing, my response in the way of likes, comments, and sometimes even dms… is a lot higher. However, is this really from an audience that I am looking to attract? I guess this depends on your direction, but for me, this is not a market that will be responsive when I decide to push a signup or product launch.
In a world now where having a website, having a big social following or your own logo is not special, we are having to find new ways to stand out. This is caused pitches to be more farfetched, for nudity boundaries to be pushed and the world to become more and more aimed at instant gratification. So, unless you want to play the game of how much of your body you can expose without getting your account shut down, I suggest you try a different approach. What I want to open your eyes to is the idea of MASSIVE VALUE.
What is it that gets you up in the morning and the last thing you think about at night? Once you find that level of passion that you are ready to display to the world I want this to be the WHY to your brand. How can you create massive value that you can display in a unique way? To build on the HOW, I want you to build a direction in the way you see your business, how are you going to take this to the next level and create a culture of raving fans. Are you building into a program, training series, consulting, etc.?
Don’t worry if you don’t have an exact product in mind quite yet but I want you to at least keep in mind that if you are wanting to capitalize on the passion and culture you are trying to build. You will want to build a direction behind your efforts. The great thing is, as you grow your audience, they will basically direct you towards the gap in the market if you really listen!
You now know you have a market in mind and you have an idea of the service you are looking to provide. So how do you effectively market this? What is involved and how do you maximize your efforts. This brings us to the Three Core Elements of Marketing.
Marketing Three Core Elements
-Paid media
Paying to get leads. This is an obvious one, but one that is generally pushed too early on. Sure, money will push your business to get more eyes in front of your work. But if you don’t want to piss money away, the ability to get a natural reaction and viral awareness to really find their unique interest first will be much more valuable. Then once you promote what already has a natural affinity with your audience you are away!
Once you know their interest, paid marketing is still all about value and entertainment. This mistake is made all the time as nobody goes to Facebook to be sold to. They go there to connect with friends/family and be entertained. So, you can know all the tricks with audience insights, retargeting, pixel tracking etc. but if you bypass this idea you will be frustrated with the lack of interest in the work because it lacks connection.
-Owned media
Your own content, nobody can take this away from you. This is what you have created and this is (hopefully) what adopts your whole brand vision. This is the stuff that really allows you to create a following. Nobody will become a raving fan because you write great ad copy, this is certainly important. But WHY they stop and take in your content consistently will be because of value you bring to their lives through your content.
So, as it is harder to see the long term financial gain of spending hours writing and creating content to build up your brand. You must realize this is the crucial part of being able to show the world what you are all about. So hone in on what that is and don’t just throw up a pic because it’s Wednesday and you ran out of ideas!
-Earned media
Referrals, reference
Now if you have done a good job at creating compelling content that really finds the pain point of a particular audience. You should start to gain some traction. Networking and building relationships with others in your niche has always been crucial in building up a brand, however people have been unaware on how to approach this.
Once you have content that is gaining traction, the goal is to build on this reputation and start looking to reach more viewers. Without shoving it down people’s throat with paid posts straight away, consider doing guest posts and articles for well-known brands to grow this audience first.
If you understand these three core elements to building an audience, you will be well ahead of the game. With so many get-rich-quick systems around, there is a false misconception that you can just create one or two pieces of content and promote the shit out of it to gain traction. However sadly this won’t work (trust me, I tried), as you really haven’t built an awareness and understanding for what your target audience really wants first.
If you are looking to take your marketing to the next level or want to discuss how to construct your next business venture, head over to www.oliverwoodlifestyle.com to sign up to my email list to receive a free evaluation of your current online presence.
This evaluation is valued at over $150 and I don’t take this lightly, however as I work on a one-on-one basis I want to get a good sense of how I can help you and allow you to get a good feel for how I operate as I believe this is the only way to create a seamless service