Running a business is similar to becoming an octopus. 

What?

Stay with me for a second. 

There are so many aspects to your business and you need to have your hand in each one - content, sales, marketing, bookkeeping, advertising, budgeting, etc. And when an octopus only has 8 arms (or is it legs…tentacles?) you are stretched too thin and run out of time, money, and creativity. This is why it’s so hard to manage social media when it comes to your business.

 

I know, I’ve been there. When you’re a one-man team, it’s hard to constantly scroll, comment, create, post, and schedule while running the actual business to go along with it.

 

Tired of social media? I get it. Here’s my advice if you need to take a snooze on social for a bit. 

 

Client Referrals 

 

 

Think of the connections you already have through your business. Past and current customers, friends, collaborators, colleagues, and more. These are your cheerleaders and the best way to grow your business is by growing your own network. When you have a new product dropping, or a new service ready to launch, pull out your megaphone and shout it to the rooftops! Informing your connections and letting every single person you know that you have something coming up is going to generate buzz and drive people to the site to check it out. 

 

Affiliate Marketing

 

And while we’re shouting to the rooftops…add in a little more skin to the game. Give your partners and colleagues some extra dough for every person they refer to you. It’s a great motivation to push referrals your way, as they receive a kickback as well! It’s a win-win for everyone involved and that extra push will motivate your colleagues to think about you more often in a business setting. 

 

Collaborations

 

Let’s take it even one step further with referrals. Online and in-person collaborations are one of the best ways to market your service. Find related services and products through your colleagues and reach out for potential collaboration opportunities. You can speak on a webinar, feature a piece in their newsletter or vice versa, request a tag or link in a social media campaign, etc. Collaborations, whether online or in-person are a great way to capture new leads. Think about it, these are people who follow and purchase products similar to yours, so by collaborating with another business you are educating them about your services, and featuring your best products without the content and creativity needed to find them on social media. The work is already done for you! 

 

Paid Ads

 

If you follow me, you’ve heard me say time and time again. Organic social media marketing is important, but paid advertising is where you are going to cultivate your leads and paying customers. With the advanced advertising opportunities, especially through Facebook, you can pinpoint your customers and immediately reach your target market, for a very small budget. Define your audience, their likes and pain points, their location, age, hobbies, and more - and test a variety of ads for as little as $7! Once you test a few, you will find the ones that work, and POOF, off you go with a number of automated campaigns that will not only capture the customers you want but also drive them to your website and sales pages! 

 

Running your own business takes a lot of work, time, and effort.

Adding social media on top of that sometimes can be overwhelming. If you feel as if you need to take a break from content creation land, it’s ok! Because as you can see there are a ton of other ways to grow your business, and drive those leads into paying customers.