Build Your Online Audience

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[375] How to get your first 1k email subscribers 0

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Oct 17, 2019

Would you love to know how to grow your email subscribers list from zero to 1k? That's what Catherine Gladwyn Author and Virtual Assistant did in just eighteen months.

In my latest podcast she explains why she needed to quickly create an email list and how she grew it from standing start. She shares practical tips and tactics about how she grew her list about what worked and what didn't and how you can grow your email newsletter list.

She explains how understanding your client or customers emotions and pain points can help you when planning what lead magnets and content to create. Plus why it's important to create content for each of your different audiences and why having engaging conversations will keep them on your email list.

{Click on the player above to listen to the podcast episode and/or read on for a detailed overview. Scroll down to the bottom to read the show notes including all the links mentioned in this episode.}

Podcast shownotes

About Catherine Gladwyn's and why she set up her business (2:26)
Why Catherine had to quickly create an email newsletter list rather than rely on on social media (4:53)
How Catherine got people to sign up to her email newsletter list (7:03 )
How Catherine used lead magnets to get people to sign up to her email newsletter list (09:23)
How to use Mailchimp to segment and tag your email newsletter list (10:53)
How Catherine created her lead magnets and why sometimes it’s trial and error (13:00)
Catherine’s tips for creating a simple landing page and lead magnet (17:19)
How to create a sign up form in Mailchimp to use on your website (23:06)
Different strategies Catherine has used to get people to sign up to her email newsletter list (26:14)
How to create a successful lead magnet by tapping into the pain points of your clients or customers (31:31)
Dealing with people unsubscribing from your email list (and why you shouldn’t take it personally) (35:00)

Resources

Catherine's website Delegate VA

Catherines Book How to be a VA

Connect with Catherine on LinkedIn Facebook

Follow Catherine on YouTube

Mailchimp

[333] 39 Surprisingly easy ways to increase your email subscribers (podcast)
[335] How to create a high converting lead magnet (podcast)
[343] The three audiences you must build to create a profitable online business (podcast)
[359] How to create an email newsletter people look forward to opening (podcast)
[360] How to get people to open your emails (podcast)
[372] How to build an engaged online audience (podcast)
[373] How to get more followers on any social media platform (podcast)
[374] How to create a year's worth of content in one morning (podcast)

How to get the most out of your Social Media Diary & Planner (blog)

How to create a high-converting lead magnet course

Join the Media Diary Owners Club

Buy my book Your press release is breaking my heart

[374] How to create a year's worth of content in a morning 0

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Oct 11, 2019

Would you love to know how to plan a year's worth of content for your business in just a few hours?

In this podcast episode, I explain how to create a year long content plan for your business.

I show you how to breaking your planning down into manageable steps: annual, quarterly, monthly, weekly and daily. PLUS how you can use awareness days and key dates to generate content ideas for your business. And how to make time for content planning - all year round.

{Click on the player above to listen to the podcast episode and/or read on for a detailed overview. Scroll down to the bottom to read the show notes including all the links mentioned in this episode.}

Step 1: Schedule time for content planning

Set aside some dedicated time to create your content plan. If you can, take yourself away from your usual place of work. Find a cafe you like to work in – a quiet hotel lobby - anywhere where you can focus on this task, uninterrupted. You’ll be much more productive and creative this way.

Step 2: Create your annual content plan

It can be helpful to approach your content like a videographer. Start with ‘wide shot’ of your business i.e. what’s happening across the year. Then gradually zoom closer, until you’re focusing on quarterly, weekly and daily content.

So let’s start with that ‘wide shot’ of your year. Think about the key things that are happening in your business in each quarter of the year. When will you be launching new products/services? Are you doing any speaking? Will you be attending any industry events? List at least three key things for each quarter.

Next, write down a few key dates/awareness days that are relevant to your business. For example, if you have a pet business, you might want to create some timely content around Crufts dog show in March. If you design clothes or accessories, you could create some content around London Fashion Week in January. And if you run a food business, you might plan some content around National Doughnut day in June.

My 2020 Social Media Diary & Planner has tons to help you get started.

If you struggle with this task because you don’t know what you’ll be doing at each stage of the year, you don’t have a content problem, you have a business problem. Which means you may need to take a few steps back and do some business planning first.

You may also find yourself thinking ‘but what if my plans change during the year?’

Just because you write something down doesn’t mean you have to do it. Things may change in your business during the year and that’s fine. But it’s much less time consuming to tweak a plan you’ve already worked on than to start from scratch. So just apply your best thinking right now.

Step 3: Create your quarterly content plan

Once you've created your annual content plan, you can zoom in a little closer and start your quarterly content planning.

I ‘d suggest you create one key piece of content a week, whether it’s a blog/vlog, podcast, Facebook Live or infographic and repurpose it into multiple pieces of content.

This means you only need to come up with a list of 12 ideas for each quarter - ideas that complement the key business activities and dates you’ve already identified in your annual content plan. Simple when you put it like that, right?

If you need some inspiration, make two lists. On the first list, write down the ten most common questions you get asked by your ideal customers/clients. On the second list, write down ten common questions people ask about your product/service.

That’s a list of content ideas right there.

For example, my prospective customers often ask me questions like this about content planning.

Why do I need a content plan?
How often should I be publishing new content?
What kind of content should I be creating for my business?
What are the biggest mistakes people make with content planning?
How far ahead should I be planning my content?
How flexible should I be with my content planning? Is there any room for spontaneity?

There’s six content ideas right there.

They also ask me quite specific questions about the 2020 Social Media Diary & Planner:

What are the benefits of buying the 2020 Social Media Diary & Planner?
What’s the difference between the 2020 Social Media Diary & Planner and the Media Diary Owners’ Club?
Can I see inside the 2020 Social Media Diary & Planner?
Will the media diary help me if I have a product-based business?
Is the 2020 Media Diary suitable for business owners based outside the UK?
I bought last year’s Social Media Diary & Planner but I didn’t use it. Should I buy it again?

There’s another six content ideas - some of which I’ve already turned into blog posts.

If it feels daunting to plan out a whole year’s worth of content in one go, I’d recommend planning one quarter at a time. To make sure this actually happens, block out time in your diary for three further quarterly planning sessions across the year.

Step 4: Create your weekly content plan

With your quarterly plan complete, you can zoom in a little closer and create a weekly content plan for your business.

If you’re creating one key piece of content a week (which is what I recommend), think about how you might repurpose that content to create smaller pieces of content that can be published across the week.

For example, you could record a video, strip out the audio and turn it into a podcast. You could use a resource like rev.com to generate a transcript and turn that into a blog post. Then you could pull out some soundbites from the transcript and turn them into infographics for social media (using a graphic design tool like Canva), audio trailers (using a resource like Headliner)and video trailer (using a tool like Kapwing). If you focus on making that cornerstone piece of content work as hard for you as possible (by repurposing it in different ways), you’ll soon have enough content for every day of the week.

And don’t be afraid to post your content more than once. People are busy and may not see it the first time round (or even the third, fourth or fifth).

Step 5: Create your daily plan

Next map out what you’re going to publish on which platform on what day.

I’d suggest doing this a week or two ahead and scheduling a regular - and non-negotiable - time for weekly planning on your diary. That way, you’re far less likely to skip a week.

Don’t be afraid to repeat the same content on different platforms. Not everyone will see what you post. You may just need to tweak it slightly to suit.

Podcast shownotes

How to focus on planning your content and why you should find a different workspace to do it (3:30)
How to create a quarterly overview and plan your content based on your key business activities (4:56)
Why you might need to rethink your business if you don’t know what your key services or products will be this time next year (8:15)
How to map out key activities and awareness days for each quarter for the year ahead (10:01)
How to plan your quarterly content and why you should put dates in your diary for future quarterly planning (12:25)
How to plan and create the content that you are going to write about based on the questions that your customers ask you (13:25)
Why you should produce one key piece of content that adds value every week (and how to repurpose it) (17:36)
How to create content if you are a product based business (20:16)
How to map out your weekly content plan from your quarterly content plan (22:56)
How to create your daily content plan and tie in your key dates and awareness dates (23:37)
How to make your content planning a habit (25:48)
How to be creative with awareness days and make them relate to your business (26:47)

Resources

[372] How to build an engaged online audience (podcast)
[373] How to get more followers on any social media platform (podcast)
How to create an editorial calendar for your marketing strategy (blog)
Create 52 weeks of content with the 2020 Social Media Diary & Planner (blog)
How to get the most out of your Social Media Diary & Planner (blog)

Join the Media Diary Owners Club

Buy my book Your press release is breaking my heart

[373] How to get more followers on any social media platform 0

Connect with me on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn

Download this Episode

Oct 3, 2019

Want to sell more of your products or services online? Getting more of your ideal customers/clients to follow you on social media can help - a lot.

But how do you increase your social media followers? Do you need to use different strategies for different social media platforms e.g. Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter or Instagram? And how long does it take to grow your following on a particular platform?

That’s exactly what I cover in this podcast episode.

{Click on the player above to listen to the podcast episode and/or read on for a detailed overview. Scroll down to the bottom to read the show notes including all the links mentioned in this episode.}

1.Share compelling content

Think about the people you follow on social media. The people whose posts always seem to pop up in your Facebook or Instagram feed. The accounts you actively check out to see what they've been posting lately.

You don’t follow them because they post boring updates about their products/services. You follow them because they inspire, entertain or even challenge your thinking. In other words, they make you FEEL something.

Now think about your own account. Are you posting compelling content that makes people feel something? Or are you putting out posts so you can tick social media off your to-do list. If you’re posting dull updates about your products/services, whimsical reflections about what you did at the weekend and/or 'must do' tips no one ever comments on, why would anyone want to follow you?

If you’re not getting much engagement on your content - amongst the followers you already have - that’s a sign you need to change something.

After all, if you can’t get the people who already know, like and trust you to comment on your content, why would anyone new want to follow you?

For an example of someone who is publishing excellent social media content that inspires people to follow her, check out copywriter Jo Watson on LinkedIn.

Want to get more engagement on your social media posts? Check out my social media engagement playbook.

2. Don’t follow the rules

If you’re trying to build your following on a particular platform, don’t feel like you have to do what everyone else is doing. In fact, sharing content that challenges the ‘norm’ can be a great way to stand out.

For example, Baggage Reclaim founder Natalie Lue’s following on Instagram only really took off when she stopped worrying about ‘posting pretty pictures’ and starting posting hard-hitting quotes from her blog and podcast. As Instagram is a visual platform, this was a brave move on Natalie’s part - but doing the opposite of what everyone else was doing - and doing it consistently - is what helped her reach her first 10k followers.

3. Spend more time on other peoples’ accounts than on your own

What’s the first thing you do when someone new comments on one of your posts - a name you don’t recognise? You go and check out their profile of course. And that’s exactly what other people do when you comment on their content. They just can’t help but check you out.

This is why something as simple as making a list of your ideal customers/clients and committing to spending half an hour a day commenting on their content can be so effective.

Alternatively (or additionally) you can use the Gary Vee $1.80 strategy.

Step one. Find the 10 most relevant hashtags in your niche and follow those hashtags
Step two. Reach out and comment on the top nine posts in each of the 10 hashtags
Step three. Continue to like and comment on posts each day

The $1.80 strategy gets its name because you’re giving your two cents on nine posts for 10 hashtags every day. If you add that up, it equals $1.80 per day.

4. Use hashtags on all your posts

As Chris Taylor explains in how to grow your Instagram following to 27k - fast, hashtags are like the index in the back of a non-fiction book. People search hashtags to find content on the most relevant topics to them - just like they would if they were looking something up in a non-fiction book.

While expert opinion varies, current advice commonly suggests that using up to 30 hashtags on Instagram (which is the maximum), three on LinkedIn, two on Facebook and two on Twitter is the optimum number.

You could even create your own hashtag and awareness day like dog photographer Kerry Jordan did. This helped her go viral on Twitter.

5. Cross-promotion

Running joint competitions can be a great way to get more followers. For example, dog photographer Kerry Jordan hosted a joint competition with Quirky Campers founder Lyndsey Berresford and added 1.5.k new email subscribers, along with tons of new social media followers, to her audience.

6. Collaboration

Creating content for or collaborating with other business owners e.g. guest blogging, podcast interviews, Facebook Lives, Instagram takeoevers can be a great way of getting in front of other peoples’ audiences. This will help you grow your social media following.

Be smart about who you collaborate with though. It’s best to target people with a similar or slightly larger audience than your own - ideally those who have a similar audience to you, but serve them in a different way. That way, there won’t be a conflict of interest.

If you do want to target the big hitters in your niche, think carefully about how you can add value to them. If they’ve already built a large online audience, they probably don’t need to get in front of your audience, so why would they want to collaborate with you? So before you ask, think carefully about what’s in it for them. If your ‘pitch’ is all about you - and what you hope to gain from the collaboration - they’re far less likely to say ‘yes.

7.Secure press coverage

Getting press coverage can be a great way to increase your online following. For example, Baggage Reclaim founder Natalie Lue gained 2k followers after she was featured in Cosmopolitan magazine recently.

However, stories like this tend to be the exception rather than the rule. While it’s rare to get thousands of followers from a single magazine article or radio/TV appearance, over time, regular press coverage will help you grow your following.

Find out: how to get press coverage for your business.

8.Work with bloggers/influencers

Asking bloggers/influencers to promote your products/services can be a great way to grow your following. Ideally they need to have a larger audience than your own. But they don't need to have a massive audience for this to be effective. This can either be done on a paid basis or in exchange for free products/services.

Find out more about working with bloggers/influencers.

9. Speak at live events

Every time you stand up and speak in a room of your ideal customers/clients, you will attract new social media followers. So if you don't mind public speaking, why not give it a go?

Find out how to land more speaking opportunities.

10. Post the links to your social media channels everywhere

The more places you post the link to your social media profiles, the easier it will be for people to follow you. So make sure they’re on your email signature, website, any landing pages you create...and basically anywhere you show up online.

Podcast shownotes

Why you need to post engaging content that makes people feel something (2:48)
How to get followers by posting memorable, inspiring content (7:08)
Why your social media bio needs to be compelling and understandable (10:44)
Why you should break the ‘rules’ of the platform and post your own original content (11:35)
Why you should spend time on other peoples’ social media accounts (19:59)
Hashtag strategies you can use to increase engagement and followers (25:05)
How to grow your followers by collaborating with other social media accounts (28:50)
How to use press coverage to get more followers (but it needs to be consistent coverage) (33:30)
How to work with influencers that have a bigger audience to reach new followers (37:34)
How speaking opportunities can help grow your social media following (40:11)
Where to put your social media platform links so that people can find you (40:29)
Why follower numbers are a vanity metric and sales and engagement are more important (40:54)
Why you need to build an engaged audience before using Facebook ads (44:08)

Resources

John Espiran LinkedIn
Jo Watson LinkedIn
Natalie Lue Instagram
Simon Bourne LinkedIn
Cath Janes Facebook
Kate Lister LinkedIn
Neon Marl
Arii
Journo request
Five easy ways to get press coverage (blog)

[161] How to work with bloggers and influencers with Kat Molesworth (podcast)
[309] How to go viral on Twitter with Kerry Jordan (podcast)
[329] What’s working on Facebook right now with Liz Melville (podcast)
[348] How to write social media posts that sell (podcast)
[358] 13 ideas for engaging social media posts (podcast)
[362] How to grow your Instagram to 27K- fast (podcast)
[363] Five ways to bust through an audience growth plateau (podcast)
[369] Why opinionated content works well for your Facebook page (and how to do it well) (podcast)
[370] How sharing personal experiences can boost engagement on your Facebook page (podcast)
[372] How to build an engaged online audience (podcast)

Buy my book Your press release is breaking my heart