A few days ago I wrote an email ranting about the current state of social media and the boring, unfulfilling, and downright soul-wrenching game you have to play if you want to achieve any kind of ‘success’ according to most “social media gurus” out there.
That message seemed to have struck a chord somewhere because I received quite some responses.
One of those responses was from a long-time reader (whose name I won’t share for obvious reasons) who felt exactly what I was talking about.
He mentioned how he felt like he “had to” play this social media game to build social proof and authority to get started as a beginner in his market.
Obviously, that didn’t please him. So he asked me, yours truly, what I would do if I were in his shoes instead and wanted to build my business from the ground up when nobody knows my name.
So here goes:
First, realize that social media is a new thing.
Marketing and sales aren’t.
There have been plenty of ultra-successful marketers selling all sorts of products, services, and even experiences for far longer than social media has been around.
Don’t get trapped in this mindset that social media is the end-all-be-all. The only people who want you to believe that are the ones who want to sell you their social media course.
I’m not saying social media doesn’t work—it clearly does.
But it’s not for everyone and it definitely isn’t your only option.
Second caveat:
Realize that social proof, while definitely being powerful and useful, is far lower on the ladder of necessity than you might think.
90% of all the ads you see (if not more) don’t use any kind of social proof. They simply make you aware of a problem you might be having, and then offer you a potential solution to said problem.
If the advertiser did his homework, aka he knows what keeps his market up at night, then the problem will be so close to home you can’t help but pay attention to whatever solution the ad might be offering. And if the solution is positioned correctly then you, the customer seeing the ad, will end up buying it.
Regardless of whether you’ve heard of the product before or your next-door neighbor Nancy also happened to have used that same product.
Once your realize this, that’s when countless doors will open for you.
You’ll realize all you have to do is get your product, service, or better yet, yourself (and a plug to your email list—the most valuable asset you’ll ever build and which allows you to create repeat buyers and die-hard fans instead of having to survive on one-time sales) in front of your target audience while talking about their problems or their interests—regardless of what market you’re in (every single product in the entertainment industry solves the “problem” of boredom—which just so happens to be at an all-time high right now; making it the best time ever to grow your entertainment business if you know what you’re doing).
Some possibilities:
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Run ads on Google, Facebook, Amazon, popular forums, or wherever your target audience hangs out (simple yet effective)
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Get on podcasts as a guest speaker: start small and build your way up. You won’t get on Joe Rogan’s podcast as a no-name but there are thousands of people with dreams of building a big-name podcasts who just so happen to always have a need for guests to interview. Mention what you’re working on and how that could interest their audience and chances are most, if not everyone, would like to talk to you.
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Write blog posts, articles, or press releases for online newspapers, other people’s blogs and email lists, internet magazines, or any of the tens of thousands of media outlets all scattered around the internet (most of which are owned by people who dislike writing articles but want to publish as much content as possible so they can make a living off the ad revenue)
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Message local newspapers, radio shows, or television channels: Most people lead boring lives. So just by building a business or doing something artsy or creative, you instantly become so much more interesting—which is more than entertaining enough for every local media outlet to want to interview you (what’s a better story than the “local celebrity”?)
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Meet new people and keep an eye out for potential joint-ventures: You’re not alone in your market. Use this to your advantage. Work together with other creatives or entrepreneurs. Ask if they’d be interested in recommending you or your products to their audience if you’d do the same for them (or simply pay them to recommend you).
There’s a lot more where that came from, but this should be more than enough to keep anyone busy for quite a while already.
After all, no amount of information will save you if you never get to implementing things.
So get to it.
Start implementing at least one or two of these and build yourself a big email list.
At that point, you might want to master how to write engaging, entertaining, and persuasive emails that’ll help sell your products while keeping your readers reading day after day as well.
For that, consider checking out Email Valhalla here: https://alexvandromme.com/valhalla