How Relying on Social Media Can Hurt Your Business
Wanna know what really chaps my hide?
Social media.
I'm not a fan of any social media platform but the one that's really getting under my skin at the moment is Instagram.
There have been a lot of changes with Instagram over the past year and it's getting harder and harder to get your content seen. Instagram instructs you to post engaging content and to use their new features like guides and reels to gain exposure on the platform and in so many words, they tell you that they want you to be cool and not spammy.
Here's what they aren't blatantly saying.
The only reason why they want you to spend countless hours on their platform, using all of these features is so you can help them meet their goals. And their goals are to keep people on the platform for as long as possible so they make money from putting ads in front of those eyeballs.
I'm not mad at that at all because that's just business.
Here's what I don't like. Just when you start growing your following and building your business by following their instructions, they pull the rug from under you and deactivate your account because although they wanted you to be cool.. they didn't want you to be too cool.
I can tell you that I've had my Instagram account deactivated several times and I consider myself lucky to have gotten it back. A few days ago, my account was deactivated once again because I guess I got a little excited checking out the lash art some of you are creating and commenting on your posts. I'm guessing to Instagram, I spread a little too much sunshine on their platform in too short of a timespan.
I hope that they'll reactivate my account but if they don't, although I won't like it, at least my world won't be turned upside down.
The reason why I'm sharing my personal experience with you is because I know that a lot of lash artists rely on social media to attract clients and build their business and my hope is that by sharing, it gets you thinking about what you'd do in the event the social media platform you've invested time into was deactivated for no good reason or worse, if your account was hacked. (I've experienced that too. No fun)
Here's the lesson. I learned this the very first time I had my instagram account hacked. You never want to rely on social media alone to build your lash business.
Sure, it's a great way to get your work seen by more people and attract clients if you know how to use it, but you shouldn't rely on it 100% because social media platforms have all the power to easily wipe out your account along with your hard earned following at the push of a button. And because you've agreed to their complicated terms and conditions, there is nothing much you can do to get them to reverse their decision so you can get your account back.
Your goal with social media should always be to build an audience and move that audience over to a platform that you own.
Once they're on your platform, you won't have to worry about the next algorithm update or the possibility of losing your account. I think we've all seen how difficult it is to get our content seen on places like Facebook and Instagram lately but with your own platform, you're not in competition with other content on a social platform, instead you'll be able to send out your message, knowing that your audience will see it.
Alright so let’s say you’ve build your audience on social media and you’re ready to move them to your own personal platform. Two questions may come to mind for most people.
How can I move clients off of social media?
What personal platform do I move them to?
Let’s start with the first question.
Ideally, you have a website for your business but this will work even if you don’t. To move people from social media to a platform you own, you first need some kind of an offer or freebie for them. That could be a promotion, an article, an ebook, a free video, tutorial, etc.,… most importantly, your offer needs to be something that you know your ideal client will want bad enough to give you their personal information to get it.
As an example, most of the clients that come to me are new to lash extensions and have been researching lash extensions and lash artists for a few months. The reason why they haven’t booked an appointment is because they’re not sure of what to look for in a lash artist or what they can trust. So because I know this about my ideal clients, I created an ebook that tells them what they want to pay attention to and what they should know before they book an appointment with a lash artist.
The ebook is specific to what they should look for in an artist based in California and I literally walk them through everything from educating them about lash extensions to knowing state requirements for their safety.
Having a freebie like this helps to build trust with my audience because I’m giving them something for free without asking for anything in return.
Once you have your special offer to move people off of social media, you need a place where you can keep the conversation going with them.
The most common place for that is with an email host. I’ve used Mailchimp and Constant Contact but these days, I keep all of my emails saved to Kajabi since I also host online classes on Kajabi and use a lot of their other features, but there are tons of email hosts on the market that you can choose from based on where you are in your career and they range in price from free to hundreds per month depending on the size of your email list.
When you have an email host, you can deliver your freebie to your ideal client and keep in touch with them on a regular basis (ideally weekly) to build a relationship with them and to share your offers when they’re available.
Another option to keep in touch with your audience is through text message. This is something I also use to keep in touch with my audience using an application called Superphone. With text messaging, I can immediately get the attention of my audience however, I don’t use it as often as I do email because most people use text to communicate with people they’re close to like friends and family. So I don’t want to innundate them with a bunch of business texts.
Now here’s something really cool about moving people from social media platforms to your own platform.
For every person you move off of social media to your own platform, on average, you’ll earn a dollar a month for each PERSON on your list.
So if you have 400 people on your email list, you could earn $400 or more per month by keeping in touch with those people and giving them lots of value. This is something that all digital marketers know and as a business owner, it’s important that you know this too and that you’re always working to grow your email/text list off of social media.
As of this article, my Instagram account is still deactivated and like I said earlier, I hope that I get it back this time around. But if I don’t, because I am doing what I share with you today, I know that it’s not the end of my business. In fact, it won’t hurt my business at all because I’ve worked really hard to move people from social media to a place I own.
I hope this blog serves you and helps you to make more money in your business. And if you want to have helpful articles, special offers, tips and tricks delivered straight to your inbox, make sure to click the button below this article to get on my email list.
I look forward to keeping in touch with you.