The Business Guide
Just a regular guy that decided to quit his stable job and start a business. After successfully being in business I've learned a thing or two, unfortunately the hard way. I've created this podcast to share my successes & failures and to talk about the "real" ins & outs of business. I'll be personally sharing my stories along with guests.
As Business Owners we wear so many different hats and we have so many different struggles, we will breakdown those struggles together and talk about how we've overcome them and how it's shaped us to be better. If your a business owner currently going through a struggle, I hope this content helps!
The Business Guide
Social Media Strategies: Effective Social Media Use for Small Businesses
In this episode, we're diving deep into social media strategies tailored specifically for small businesses. If you've been struggling to make social media work for your business or you're just getting started, this is the episode for you.
We’ll cover everything from choosing the right social media platforms to creating engaging content, maintaining consistency, and effectively engaging with your audience. Plus, I’ll share some personal success stories and actionable tips that you can implement right away to start seeing real results.
What you’ll learn in this episode:
-How to select the best social media platforms for your business.
-Proven strategies for creating content that resonates with your audience.
-The importance of consistency and how to maintain a content calendar.
-Tips for engaging with your followers and building a loyal community.
-How to leverage analytics and paid advertising to maximize your social media impact.
Whether you’re a seasoned business owner or just starting out, this episode is packed with insights that will help you elevate your social media game. Don’t forget to subscribe to The Business Guide with Jonathan Wagoner for more tips on justifying smarter business moves!
Hey everyone, it's Jonathan Wagner and I am your host of the Business Guide. Thank you for joining me on another episode. Today's podcast is a topic that is essential for every small business, which is effective social media strategies. I want to make sure you stay tuned. Every business needs to know how to optimize and utilize social media to grow your business. If you're finding it hard to make social media work for your business, or you're new and you need to develop a strategy, this episode is for you. Jumping into it, guys.
Speaker 1:As mentioned in the past, I'm just a regular Joe Schmoe, small business owner that has been doing this for a little over 12 years and I've just really been tired of I'm tired of the noise, tired of the noise from so many different businesses that want to grow your business or want to help you succeed in business, and they don't actually offer any support. Right, it is all smoke and mirrors when it comes down to it. Sometimes some things work, sometimes they don't, but I have had my fair share of trial and error in so many different things, and that's really what's driven me to create this podcast for you is there are so many business owners out there that have the same struggles or the same problems, and I think if we can get together and have a platform together and answer questions, this will help grow your business, but help others grow their business. So I am so passionate about helping people grow their businesses and there's no strings attached. Right, you go on to Instagram, youtube, all these different platforms where so many of these creators are utilizing their social media strategies. At the end of the day, it is to grow their bank account and, hey, they're in business to make some money. But at the end of the day, as small business owners, we are the ones left with trying to figure out how to just, at the end of the day, grow our business. And sometimes we can implement stuff, but when you're talking to guys that you know have hundreds of millions of dollars, they are not in the same struggle as we are as small business owners. They can definitely put out some good content that encourages small business owners, but they're not in the same boat. I'm in the small business owner boat with you, and so that is why I have this podcast, so I can just help people. Help people get their questions answered and you're not alone. So let's dive into the ins and outs of business together and, as a reminder, I am not a professional podcaster, nor have I done this before, so this is unscripted, this is unedited. I want the raw version going to you so you get just the real um, you can really relate to the realness of this podcast.
Speaker 1:So, first up, guys, choosing the right platforms. So this day and age, social media is everywhere and now billion-dollar corporations have definitely jumped in and advertised directly to their consumers. We are consumed with ads after ads after ads. I think, now that social media influencers have really taken off and have really kind of leveled up the game, you can indirectly advertise to your clients with social media influencers, but it all starts with the right platform for your business. Now these strategies are going to go into the actual social media strategies, but I'm actually going to share what works for me, what doesn't work for me and how just being on social media in general has helped grow my business and make my business hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions of dollars, off of this particular strategy, if you will.
Speaker 1:So, depending on what type of business you have, you're going to have to find out what platform works for you the best. Now, if you've got maybe a cookie restaurant or a little bakery, something there, you're going to want to find exactly where you can put content out for your audience because you want to come up with a target audience right. So if you were a restaurant looking to go viral or get a little bit of traction, then you want to find the platform that's going to be best for you. If you're a restaurant that maybe has some older, maybe senior citizen target audience, if you will, maybe you might want to go to Facebook and advertise over there during a certain time, not saying that the young generation isn't on Instagram, but you definitely want to find out on these different platforms where your target audience is interacting with your content. So when I do content for my business, I definitely throw it out as a net. Using Instagram, for example, I like to put quick little videos, helpful videos, together on Instagram.
Speaker 1:Now my social media strategy, guys, just so you know, is I'm not trying to push my product or service as an ad. So if you are maybe an AC company, you could come out and you could create a little video that says we have this $150 special or whatever it is. You can add client testimonials, you can do things like that. So there's so many different strategies when it comes into what you're actually going to implement in social media, but you have to really at first tinker with everything. Are you tinkering with more of an organic audience? Are you tinkering with a paid audience? And again, I'm going to share what I do on mine that I find successful, and you know. Then you obviously need to go in and play around and see what's going to happen on you know excuse me, see, this is the unedited part You're going to have to go ahead and play around and see what's going to happen on you know excuse me, see, this is the unedited part You're going to have to go ahead and play around on yours and see what best suits your business.
Speaker 1:So so many different options Facebook, tiktok, snapchat, instagram X, all of these different platforms, youtube. So what I have found the best strategy for me is figuring out what my audience is on those different platforms. Now I find on Facebook for my business, I have a little bit more interaction directly with clients messaging me. So while I may have a handful of views or a couple hundred views, whatever it is on my videos or content, I have clients engaging to me there, and those clients are normally an older population. I would probably say they're 50 plus. That is more just. We're having conversations with the clients. We're then following up on maybe the educational content that we've put out there for the client.
Speaker 1:Versus Instagram, instagram is definitely a younger generation. If you will, we're probably seeing our target audience on Instagram Now. You can customize your target audience. When I say target audience for me right now on just this content creation is, this is just me putting this content out. This is not me sponsoring the content or running ads or anything of that nature. So what I'll do on Instagram is we'll put the same video up and we'll have just more engagements. If there's any type of silly strategies or maybe something where I'm trying to just be funny in my industry that engages pretty high on Instagram, it gets a lot of likes, it gets a lot of shares. We will get some messages. We don't see as many as we would on Facebook, but we definitely get some messages there. It on Facebook, but we definitely get some messages there.
Speaker 1:Moving over to the platform X, or formerly known as Twitter, we very seldomly go on that platform. We should be doing a little bit, maybe more, on that platform. It does have a huge audience and it is growing. But what I found that my audience likes in that platform is news, and I normally don't have news to provide. Although the type of business that I am in the emergency service restoration business is, we will occasionally have catastrophic events and just weather events, right. So those events could be a huge rainfall coming in, wildfire that's ripping through, maybe an earthquake Information where it is ongoing throughout a couple days, maybe leading up to the event, not in an earthquake situation, leading up to the event, the actual event and then the recovery of the event. So what we'll do is we'll go on to X and we will go on and we will start tweeting. That was the former word, I don't know what the word is now that they use, but we will give play by play. Hey, be prepared for this event. This is what you can do to prepare.
Speaker 1:During the event, we will actually just repost different things that our county will post out. We'll maybe post out some friendly things and we're not selling them anything. We're going out just as an information only and just providing quick information. And then, after we do, you know how to rebuild or what to watch out for, and things like that. After that is all done. We let that sit up for maybe a month or two and then we go back and take that down because we do want it specific on that event. So we use that platform very seldomly, maybe a couple times a year, and when we are on that platform it is a very active time for us and for our audience engaging.
Speaker 1:Now that happens to work for me. I have found best for my business. It is more of an informational game which then turns into leads for my business. This is not an ad that I'm putting out and I'm looking to generate money immediately For me and the business that I'm in. I am a very reactive type of business. People need me at some point or maybe will never need me. Therefore, I put out content that they can see when they may be experiencing issues or just overall brand awareness.
Speaker 1:Snapchat I will say I have not done too much with Snapchat. I know that there are different businesses that use Snapchat filters. A good example for a good Snapchat filter that we have done. In the past we didn't really see too much movement on it. But go to a local community event. Maybe you have a booth there and, for example, we have, which is pretty big in California. Now we don't sponsor it, this is just an example but we have something called the Strawberry Festival, so you could actually go in and you could create a filter that you could buy and you could label it with your logo. If you did the county fair or you did something of that nature, where people are going to go on and they're going to utilize Snapchat and they're going to utilize the different filters, you could make a nice filtered design and, of course, have your business name there.
Speaker 1:Now, again, that isn't going to do anything maybe much for your business other than brand awareness and it is very cost-effective, very inexpensive to do. You can run it 24 hours at a time, week at a time, anything you decide that you need there. So a very cost-effective Snapchat has not really worked for me. Maybe might work for you, but these are the things you need to explore. So we went over Facebook, we went over Instagram, we went over X.
Speaker 1:I think it's fair to mention LinkedIn. I do know of a gentleman that I work with, but LinkedIn has not worked for me. But the gentleman I work with has been very successful on building relationships on LinkedIn, so he will go in and send out messages, kind of friend in his inner circle, if you will people that are like-minded individuals or possibly going to need his service in the future or may know of clients that need his service. So he will network through LinkedIn and he has been very successful on LinkedIn just going into networking. Now, guys, my last episode on building brand awareness with a low budget check that out, if you haven't. This is what it is all about.
Speaker 1:These strategies are long-term plays. This is not something that you're just going to turn on overnight and you're going to be a sensation. You're not going to have a video that's going to go viral on your first time. Maybe you'll get lucky and you will. I wouldn't count on it. This is building a brand and an audience around your company over time and then slowly, when they need you or when maybe they have a friend or family member that needs you, they will be able to engage with you because your content has been very present in their feed. So this is definitely a long-term play. There are definitely strategies on paid ads and we'll go over that.
Speaker 1:I have that jotted down to where, if you do have a special or you do have a deal, you can definitely jump in and get that business, but anyways. So I think that I'm going to go into my next. This is called my segment two. I'm going into the next segment. So content creation and consistency that is what I want to spend a couple times talking to you about. This really speaks to me as a business owner.
Speaker 1:We have a thousand different things that we have to worry about at any time. I think the unspoken or at least I speak about it often is how many different hats we wear in business. This is an example. I know this is a podcast. If you're watching the video version of the podcast, you can tell I am in a shirt and tie today which I'm normally not in. I am in a shirt and tie today which I'm normally not in. Today, one of my businesses needed me to be the legal representative in a case where we were being deposed. Now, just for the record, we did not do anything wrong. We were being deposed because somebody is going after somebody else and we have documentation on that, but nonetheless, I had to be the legal representative.
Speaker 1:Today, us business owners wear a thousand different hats. Sometimes I will walk into my business and I will say I need to get this, this and this done today and it takes a different direction to, all of a sudden I am the HR or I am the IT guy, or all of a sudden we're looking at vehicle maintenance. Us business owners wear a thousand different hats and now, in the day and age of social media, we have to wear this social media content creation hat. And it is challenging. For example, when I go out to put videos out for my company, it is an entire scheduled down day that I have somebody with a camera follow me along all day. Now, fortunately, I have those resources you may or may not An iPhone, a microphone these are really good things that you can use to get the content out there. So do not be discouraged by content that somebody else is putting out there. I think it's funny.
Speaker 1:We had Shane on the other day, shane's kind of Shane's adventures. Shane had been following my videos and my videos are very educational. They are put together very nicely and, yeah, we just get them kind of across the interwebs right. I've encouraged Shane to jump on and do social media Now in his business. His clients don't necessarily reach out to him. Clients like us reach out to him when we need him, but he needs to position himself to get more clients like me. That will refer him to their clients. So I said, hey, you need to start putting some social media out. Well, he came up with a video where he put together and it was a very basic, very, very basic video he put out there and it was him cutting some drywall, putting it in a bag, walking it around, and he actually had a very good amount of positive you know positive, you know Positive reaction to that video as he was explaining it to me, as a lot of people were explaining it as ASMR and they really liked that video. Well, that branded his business and I think that that is phenomenal. So, while he didn't have a guy walking around with him to do this content creation, he was able to take his iPhone out and essentially video document his job and it worked.
Speaker 1:So these are the things as business owners, we have to consistently try. I've consistently tried, maybe taking videos of our job sites as we're doing them and then putting them onto Instagram and Facebook and all of these different platforms TikTok as well and I have found that I like a well put together informational video. So I go ahead and set a down day for me. I try to do it once a month. Sometimes it's every other month and I'll bring change of clothes and it's funny, the camera is deceiving. I had a friend that reached out on one of my videos and said, man, you're putting a lot of these videos together. How do you put them all together? And I said, hey, this series was all done in one day and it had been released over time and he didn't know because I was changing outfits. So these are the things as business owners need to get creative with. We don't have a lot of time to do it, we are stretched thin, but content creation is huge.
Speaker 1:Another thing for us and I would recommend for contractors is we use a program just every single day for our job documentation not sponsored. If you want a referral link, it would be super cool because I do get paid from them. If you want a referral link, I'll drop it, but nonetheless, go sign up. It is a great, great program. It is called CompanyCam. Companycam does huge things for our business where we're able to document the job sites as they progress or if we're going out on an estimate, and lets us categorize the clients and things like that. So one for our overall business. This program helps.
Speaker 1:Moving on to the content creation side, this also gives me all of the content I need to post to our stories and maybe before and after pictures, as my guys are already taking the photos and I don't need to go out and make a special trip. And I used to have to do that where either I was going out and making a special trip and or I was telling my guys, hey, can you take some really, really good photos for me and then send them to me? This app just, I mean, we use it. We do a lot of insurance documentation and things like that, so we already need it. But I'm killing two birds with one stone. Now I'm training my guys up to take a banger photos at all times so I can then reuse those photos on my social media. So I would encourage you to figure out what works best for you on your content creation. It is definitely a challenge.
Speaker 1:Now, another challenge that I didn't think was going to be a big deal and it actually is a big deal but you need to get almost like a calendar put down for your content releasing. At first, you put together a post, you send it out, no big deal. The thing is on social media. You want to be present, you want your clients to know who you are and you want to consistently be in their ear. But if you post once a month, you're not going to consistently be where you need to be present. You want your clients to know who you are and you want to consistently be in their ear, but if you post once a month, you're not going to consistently be where you need to be. You need to be active on these platforms. There are so many of my competition and competitors that are active on the platform, so I want to be just as active, and that is really hard. So, creating a calendar and saying this is when I want this to go out and I do it on my computer. I don't jot it down, but saying, hey, this is when I want this to go out and these are the platforms I want it to go out and I set myself a reminder.
Speaker 1:Another thing that I like to do is I like to do holiday posts Merry Christmas, happy Halloween, thanksgiving, happy Fourth of July. I love all of those posts for my business as it engages each holiday with my audience and well wishes for my company. But think about opening presents on Christmas Day, or think about having the family gathering on Thanksgiving. You're busy and we're small business owners. We want a freaking break. So what I do at the beginning of the year every single year, is I go on Canva. Canva another great platform. If you're not on Canva already, they've got some really cool free options. Go around and explore on Canva, because a lot of my social media posts that I have to type in or kind of make a pretty, if you will, I will do it on Canva. It is a game changer for small businesses, again, not sponsored by them. It would be nice, but we have a very limited following at this point. Canva super, super dope, super dope.
Speaker 1:But anyways, at the beginning of the year I will go in and I will spend literally two hours and I will create every holiday post that I want to go out on social media and I go in and then I transfer it from my computer and I save it on my phone. Now, there's probably other ways of doing it, but that's how I do it. Then I create a folder on my phone in my pictures and just put holiday post, do it. Then I create a folder on my phone and my pictures and just put holiday post and then I go into my calendar and I select a time on that holiday that I want to release it. Now I could use scheduling software and I have in the past or scheduling dates and things like that you can do that. I prefer to just go in that day on those holiday post and drop it day on those holiday posts and drop it. So really easy. I mean I think I have 12 or 14, 15 holidays that I do that are already made at the beginning of the year, so that's 12, 15 posts.
Speaker 1:Right, make it as a post, share it as a story. You've got a little content. Keeps your followers engaged in your brand. This is the stuff that we need to do to get in front of our competition. Now, moving on, when you're putting this content out, remember this represents your brand.
Speaker 1:It is so important to show if you order. I mean, let me give you an example. I know this guy and he can do a remodel of a kitchen so beautifully when you're in person and he's done it. It is really a sight to see and it is beautiful when he takes a picture and sends it out to a client or sends it out and is showing it to potential clients or just sharing it on his Facebook page. The pictures are absolutely garbage and do no justice. Something as simple as just taking a towel and wiping his lens and cleaning it would be great for his photos. It is so foggy you can't see it. It's blurry, low light Doesn't open any windows. These are the things that, as business owners, you need to take a step back and, as you're planning out your content creation, remember that if you offer a quality product, you want your clients to see that quality product. So take a couple extra minutes at staging the area that you're going to take the photo of, or at least make sure your camera is doing its job. Make sure the lighting looks good. This is important for your content.
Speaker 1:Before I get on to my next segment, if you will no, I'll wrap this into my next segment, which is engaging with your audience. So from time to time, we want to make sure well, I'm always taking messages and likes and things from my clients, but I also want to engage with them that I want them to continue to follow my page, that they're not just going to see boring. Maybe videos that are helpful tips right, those are engaging but I don't want them to get boring. I want to know what my audience wants. Even in this podcast, I think I've ended almost every episode of what do you want to hear from me, or right into the show with your questions, because I want to engage with you. I want to make sure you are being fulfilled on the content that I am putting out there, right? Just like it takes you time to put together a beautiful cake for your business, if you're a bakery, you're putting that together, you're taking pictures. You want to make sure that it's not just going in front of maybe one person and they're just swiping away or unfollowing you later because that's all you put out. So we do some engaging content, we do challenges, we do.
Speaker 1:I like to do random gift card giveaways, either Starbucks or Visa gift cards. It doesn't cost me a lot. I mean I'll put together $25, $50 or $100. Now, when we talk about ads later, ads can get expensive. Now, on social media, you can target your audience, you can target your city and by all means, that ad is pretty inexpensive. But sometimes I want more organic engagement from my local community and I don't have a product that I can give away. Now, for some reason, I keep bringing up a bakery today. So if your business is a bakery, you could have a giveaway where you gave away a cake or you gave away something that would engage your audience and you could do that once a month or once a quarter. That is not going to cost you a lot of money to do. In my business I don't have something I can just give away like that. My services happen to be a little bit more expensive and unplanned A client never knows when it is going to happen. So I have found that giving gift cards away and keeping my audience engaged that way is a good little playful way. And of course, they have to like, they have to comment and they have to follow, they have to share. So there's certain rules that we do and we do get maybe 50 or 100 different new followers on our business page that engage with our business over time.
Speaker 1:I will tell you this this is a long-term play. I am thinking of an example that I did, probably about four years ago. I did a gift card giveaway for $100. And this lady followed me. She shared, she did everything she was supposed to, she really stood out and you know, thank goodness she won right. So we went out. I personally delivered her the gift card and just said hey, thanks for being a follower, make sure you stick around for more. She is engaged with almost every piece of content that I have put out there Now for about three and a half years. It never turned into any work In my business. I don't know when somebody is going to need me. Well, her mother's place had a flooding and who did she refer? It was us and we made thousands and thousands of dollars on that job, so that $100 gift card was the best money spent. But I had to wait and there was no guarantee that it was going to work. But I stayed present in her feed and I gave her the content that she that she wanted, right? I gave her a reward for subscribing and later we got that referral.
Speaker 1:So really leveraging your audience, figuring out what's going to work, what's not going to work, is really going to be on you. What type of content or contest, excuse me, what type of contest you're going to put out there? Ask questions, ask questions. I'll occasionally go on and say, hey, what's everybody doing this weekend? And I'll get a good response. I'm not looking to sell them a business or, excuse me, sell them anything in my business. I'm just asking them a question of what they're going to do over the weekend, but I'm keeping them engaged and they're remembering my business and then, of course, share user generated content.
Speaker 1:So I think it's funny. That's not funny, funny, but I mean we have these social media influencers. This is an actual thing. This is. This has come around in my area. We have had our fair share of social media influencers. Um of all sizes use our business and, shamelessly, I will say I know you're on social media, would you mind giving us a shout? And then we get a little shout out. They'll create their own pictures, their own video and we'll get a shout out. And I've probably asked I've probably had about 10 throughout the years, and I want to say years, because it's probably been about four or five that I really started picking up that kind of social media. If you would and probably four or five of them have shared content that goes out to a huge audience, and now there's just more people engaging in my platform.
Speaker 1:Now I'm in California. It doesn't mean no good if somebody subscribes in New York. Well, it does, because that New York person might be engaging with my content. Now, while they're not here locally, they're still engaging with my content and you'd be surprised I had a. I've had a couple instances on TikTok where I have kind of been, because on TikTok my strategy is more of an informational source and I have had people consumers directly reach out to me on TikTok questions on their water damage or fire damage and I'm able to refer people to them. Now it does not do anything for me other than show the industry that I am somebody that can be trusted. Therefore, if you have somebody in your area, you can refer me. So build alliances in your industry.
Speaker 1:There are ways to monetize it. I mean, I'm sure I could have asked for a referral or a kickback, something there. I don't need it, I don't want it. But there's definitely strategies there that you know, depending on what your business offers that you can. You know you can adapt to a nationwide presence. I can't.
Speaker 1:Back to user-generated content. So have those social media influences. You ever stumble across one, have them. Have them give you a shout. And again back to the bakery example. It could be your mayor, your city council members, somebody that that is just popular in your community, and asking them to share your business. Remember, we're always promoting ourselves. Don't be ashamed to ask. It is your business? You think that you know, when these big corporations go out and do something out of the kindness of their heart is because they're doing it out of the kindness of their heart. No, it's a branding. It is a branding opportunity for them, and they're always consistently pushing themselves to ask for different things. So it doesn't hurt to just ask. And then, of course, as testimonials come in, maybe a Yelp review, maybe somebody went out where your content comes from, so you can streamline it and keep the flow on your platform going, or these different platforms going is super crucial.
Speaker 1:Now, moving on, I want to talk a little bit about the paid advertising. Now, paid advertising did actually work for me at one point. It occasionally will work. I will throw ads on social media. I don't do a lot of ads on social media and I know a lot of people that do, so I would implore you to learn more about social media ads if it's going to work for your business. It doesn't happen to really work for my business again, unless we are in a catastrophic event Excuse me For me, in a catastrophic event. That is an opportunity where I know that a lot of people in my community could be dealing with this service now because we just had it. So that's when we up our ads on social media and things like that our town halls, our engagement, that X that's when we're really going after our community with our service hard.
Speaker 1:I want to position myself front and center, but back when I did carpet cleaning, for example, I did a lot of Instagram, not so much Instagram Facebook. I did a lot of Facebook with a little bit of Instagram, a lot of Facebook ads, and I had great engagement and made a ton of money off of Facebook at the time. And I know a lot of people utilize it HVAC companies, plumbing companies so many different people still utilize Facebook and these different ads. I would implore you to do the same For me. Right now, I decide, maybe once a quarter I will go ahead and take one of my better videos that is maybe an informational video and I will boost that to my community and I will let it run for a month. I will put a couple hundred dollar budget behind it and essentially it's just a commercial brand awareness. Now there could be an argument that I could do that all the time. That all the time. I truly don't see a massive engagement off of that. I think long-term for me, where I want to allocate my budget every single month towards it, so I don't do it.
Speaker 1:I used to do Spotify ads. Spotify ads back in the day for carpet cleaning worked out, never worked for water damage or mold. So you really have to play with what's going to work best for your business. But you need a killer call to action. So you are spending money on somebody clicking your ad or viewing your ad. You need to be able to retain them. And remember, if you're building a social media platform and you're getting all of this free engagement organically by clients checking into your business or coming in, you're sharing all of this free engagement organically by clients checking into your business or coming in. You're sharing all of the content. You're doing those contests, you're building essentially a free, organic audience in your area. When you mix paid advertising on top of that, now that's where obviously you're spending money on getting those impressions and views and clicks and calls and all that good stuff. So having that organic presence also helps that.
Speaker 1:What's the word I'm looking for? It's on the tip of my tongue, but it's cost per acquisition. So if your cost per acquisition was $30 because you're running ads. I like to sum it up when I have an organic strategy, if I have my organic on top of my paid ads and I can reasonably, let's say, hey, my cost per acquisition is now $15. I can reasonably calculate that. Well then, I've drive that cost down as well. Well then, I've drive that cost down as well. So, definitely, using a paid advertising platform or ads on your content is a totally good strategy. Just make sure you're making money back on it immediately.
Speaker 1:I definitely for me, I would argue for myself and my business that I'm not willing to proactively put out my content for my business over and, over and over again and spend hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and thousands and thousands of dollars on having my content go out to an audience that is deaf ears. Now, it is a long-term strategy. I could be building brand awareness. There is an argument there, but I feel like the branded, the brand awareness that I'm building right now, is free, and then I fire up the ads as needed. Now for you, you might be able to specifically and again, we're going to we're just going to go with a bakery on this episode. Right, I've been using a bakery, a small business bakery as an example. We'll continue that on this episode. But you might be able to go out and pick a specific demographic that you might find is going to be getting married or maybe is going to have an event, maybe a corporate event, something there and you can specifically dial in your target audience to match the customers that you need, audience to match the customers that you need.
Speaker 1:So you've really got to play around with these different budgets and different techniques. There is not a one size fits all. I think that what is so frustrating, what is so frustrating as being a small business owner is everybody has their handout. You can literally spend millions of dollars without people delivering. They will take a plumbing business and a gardening business and they will say, hey, you go to a media agency and they will say or wherever you go, and they'll say, hey, this works really good for the gardeners, this really works good for plumbers and this really works good for bakeries. And they're not understanding that it is three separate businesses and each one of those are unique.
Speaker 1:Now, generally, ads will work, social media will work, websites will work, but every business is its own niche market. So you, as a business owner, need to play with your budget and need to play with what works. The stuff that works for my business may not work for your business. Matter of fact, it's probably not going to work for your business. Every single business is different and I think when you start realizing that you want to stand out from that crowd and be unique because you are your own business and you are unique you will find your own target audience that engages with you and you will figure out the niche and the content that you need to put out. But you have to start and you have to start immediately. Stop putting it off. There are so many people out there right now that are capturing your leads because they're doing social media. You just need to do it, and just do it a little bit better.
Speaker 1:Going on to a story that is not necessarily a social media strategy. As far as paid ads or a social media strategy, that is me putting out content, it's a social media ad or strategy on just being a part of a community and not being afraid of competition. Here's what I mean by that. I always say I say that the older generation, when they started a business, let's say they were very a competitor is a competitor and I don't want anything to do with that competitor. And now, by all means, I definitely have competitors out there that still believe that. But a lot of competitors that I work with I am a resource, believe that. But a lot of competitors that I work with I am a resource and I found that very, very early on in business that I can actually help out other businesses locally and it actually makes me money. Now I unintentionally took that to social media.
Speaker 1:So, whatever your niche is, if you're a plumber, join a plumber Facebook group, join a discussion forum. If you're a gardener, join a gardener discussion forum or Facebook group. Multiple. Figure out what your industry has. Facebook is a huge resource for this and there are so many. I mean, in my field I probably have 10 or 15 pages that I belong to. Now I go on and I engage those. I happen to like to answer questions, I share photos. Maybe I'll ask a question, but I consistently engage with the competition. Slowly, as you're engaging with the competition, I mean, and they're no threat to me, I'm in one area, they're across the nation. We become friends, we start talking back and forth and I have made some very good friends through that Facebook group. Matter of fact, I'm thinking of one that I decided to go to.
Speaker 1:I actually went to a different state for a huge, catastrophic event that we had had and one of the competitors that I had been engaging with for a couple of years at this point, and again, there's no strategy here other than just being a nice guy and answering questions and slowly you build friendships. So I went to this state, that particular guy, once he knew I was in that state and his state started referring me a ton of work because he knew I was there and it made me hundreds of thousands of dollars. I literally spent no money on that, answered some questions that I knew the answer to, became a friend and it ultimately put money in my pocket. And that story didn't just happen once. It's happened a few times where people know hey, I live in Mississippi, but I have a family member that lives in your area and they're experiencing this and I need somebody quality oh cool, here's a couple thousand dollars there, just having a good rapport with my competition on social media. So that could be a great social media strategy for you as well. Depending on your niche and you know what you offer, that could be a great strategy. It has worked very, very, very nicely for me.
Speaker 1:Don't get complacent on your social media. Don't give up. It is hard, it is not fun, right? Us business owners? We wear a thousand different hats. Have somebody in your office help you. I know that I have people in my office that have downtime. I have so many people doing different things that I have people that are paid to sit in front of a computer and answer phones and do clerical work. Social media can be their clerical work. You need to teach it to them the right way. But there are a lot of people that like going on social media and putting stuff out. So you'd be surprised at how many people would jump up at the opportunity to help your business out.
Speaker 1:But don't get complacent. You have to continuously push it. Remember long-term game on organic growth, brand awareness and just having your social media game on point versus your ads. That is something completely different. But assign it to somebody, don't get burned out. Different, but assign it to somebody. Don't get burned out. And when you start getting burned out because I'll speak to you as the business owner that knows of I can handle this. I can post on every platform when you really start getting your content game down and you're frustrated that you have to create a post and you're frustrated that you have to post it at a certain time and then you have to go through and do it through all the different social medias. Yeah, you don't want to burn yourself out, so start asking for help, start saying, hey, office manager, if you see client testimonials or whatever it is, grab me a couple pictures and screenshots of that. Post that to the social media. This is what I want it to look like. Now, going over to the example of my before and after pictures For me, I have estimators that see those pictures often, so I have told them hey, when you see really good photos that are taken, go ahead and get those over to me for social media posting. They don't have access to our social media. This is now creating more of an automation to me. They're writing descriptions, they're doing the legwork, so don't get burned out.
Speaker 1:I don't want you to spend the first couple months engaging everybody and getting burnt out on social media and then completely walking away and you have a blank social media. I don't want that to happen. This is huge for your business walking away and you have a blank social media. I don't want that to happen. This is huge for your business. So some final thoughts. Social media is a powerful tool. Understanding your audience is key and not being burned out as a business owner is huge. So leverage what you do and how you do it right so you can be successful.
Speaker 1:Guys, I don't know what I'm doing here. I have experienced business. I've experienced the ups, the downs and I've helped a lot of people out by just giving them answers to what I already know. And I don't know a lot. I'm still learning, just like you. We all are consistently learning, and I never want to stop learning.
Speaker 1:But I know what's important is to put this show on to more listeners. So I beg you, please drop me a comment in the comment section. What do you want to hear moving forward on these episodes? What stands out to you about this episode? Make sure you follow us. Please subscribe to us on whatever platform you're on.
Speaker 1:I really appreciate the engagement and it does show me, hey, this is working and there are people that are finding this valuable, because, at the end of the day, that's what I'm trying to do. I'm so sick and tired of everybody trying to sell us something when, at the end of the day, we just want real answers on how to grow our business. And I will go over as much as I can. If I don't know an answer to your question, I will find somebody that does, or I will do a ton of research and bring it to you and say, hey, this is what people have done and I'd love to have people on my show as well. So thank you for being here, thank you for listening this far. As mentioned, I am Jonathan Wagner, and this was another episode of the Business Guide. We'll see you on the next one.
