How To Set Up Your Business on Social Media: A Step-By-Step Guide
I got a phone call a few weeks ago from a lovely lady who was starting a new business and wanted to use social media to market it. She’s been using social media personally for years, but suddenly, when it came to her business she felt lost! If you are in this place keep reading!
Setting up your business on social media is so exciting!! It can also be tricky because there are so many decisions to make and so many things to set up. But don’t be overwhelmed. With the right steps, you can do it!
When I started my very first account on Instagram, I thought that all I needed to do was open an account, pick a cute user name, slap up my product, and the sales would come rolling in. Well, I quickly learned that wasn’t going to cut it. Sure I got posting and experience on the platform, but it did nothing to help me create awareness about my business, and most importantly…sales.
So, I dug in and spent many years learning how to market my business on social media. I hate to admit it, but I had to take a step back and re-do some things. There were important steps that I had missed and I had to change some things that weren’t serving me properly. Over time, and lots of trial and error, I developed a simple step-by-step system that worked! I’ve since repeated that system with several other of my own businesses and other local businesses as well! I may have started as a complete beginner and had to learn by trial and error…but you don’t have to. If I were to start over with a brand new business today, these are the steps I would take again. Follow them in order and get started with confidence!
Remember, you don’t have to learn everything at once. Progress is progress, no matter how small—focus on one step at a time, and soon the path will become clearer.
1. Determine Your Goals & Expectations
The very first thing you have to do is to understand why you are on social media and what your goals are, or you’ll get frustrated and burned out.
Many solopreneurs get onto social media just because they think they are supposed to. It’s the thing to do, right? I find this particularly common in the direct sales and network marketing industries. But stop and ask yourself, why are you there and what are you trying to accomplish? It’s easy to get distracted with vanity metrics and chasing validation, so it’s crucial to remember that you are a business owner first and foremost and understand exactly why you are there.
Social media is only the first step in your overall marketing strategy. Its main purpose is to create awareness for your business and to help you build relationships with potential customers. It’s possible to make sales directly from social media posts, but most of the time you’ll find that your potential customer need to get to know you, like you, and trust you before they’ll buy from you.
So at the very beginning, your main goal will be to create awareness and build relationships.
Your next goal is to show up consistently. I remember sitting in a sales meeting once and we were all asked what our monthly goal was. Most of the other people in the meeting said they wanted X amount of new sales, or they wanted to reach a certain new rank in their business, or they wanted to earn X amount of money that month.
I never understood how this was helpful. There is no way you can control exactly how many sales you can make! I’d like to suggest a better goal: set a specific amount of posts you will create instead. This is a tangible goal instead of hoping for X amount of new followers, or sales, which you can’t control. Years ago, I learned from a very wise businesswoman to make your goal to do the work, and the money will follow.
You also need to think about your expectations. Going viral and making a ton of sales is possible, but it’s NOT the norm. Social media is very crowded and it takes time to build influence. Don’t get discouraged if you don’t go viral overnight. And honestly, going viral isn’t even a good goal. My advice is to prioritize being consistent with your daily tasks and make it your goal to provide value to the followers that you do have.
2. Define Your Niche and Your Ideal Customer
Next, figure out what your niche is, and who your ideal customer is.
Your niche is the AREA that you specialize in, like wellness, family, wealth, beauty, photography, fitness, etc.
Your ideal customer is the PERSON who needs solutions to their problems. Your ideal customer can be hard to define, so a good rule of thumb is to start with a past version of yourself as your ideal client. Think about who you were before you discovered your product or service, and what pain points you had that your product or service solved.
This step is crucial as it will affect everything else you do, from branding to content creation.
3. Define Your Brand
Your brand is like your business’s personality. It involves everything from the way you present yourself visually, to the way you speak to your potential clients.
This is where a lot of people get bogged down and stuck. It’s easy to get overwhelmed making these decisions, and there are a LOT of decisions to make, so my advice is to just make a decision. Don’t spend a month designing a logo or spending big bucks hiring a branding expert. I’ll be sharing more tips on these steps down the road, but for now, just make a decision and keep it simple.
There are a lot of resources to gather in this step, but don’t worry. You can always go back later and change things.
Some of the branding assets you’ll need right away are a business name, a great headshot or a logo, brand colours, and a tagline or mission statement.
4. Develop a Funnel Strategy & Build an Email List
This is probably one of the most important steps you are going to take, and one that a lot of businesses overlook at the beginning. If you are going to spend your time on social media, you need to have a solid strategy. Throwing spaghetti against a wall hoping something will stick, will only leave you burned out and discouraged.
Most successful businesses on social media use the time-tested strategy of funnels and email lists. This strategy has been around a long time and there’s a reason for it. It works! A funnel guides people from first hearing about your business to building a relationship with them, to becoming loyal customers. An email list is a crucial asset for your business. Remember that social media platforms are only rented space and you can lose access to your account in the blink of an eye. You need to own and have control of your email list so you can build relationships with your potential customers.
5. Set Up Your Social Platforms
It is only at THIS point that you finally head over to your platform of choice and set up your account. To start, I strongly advise choosing only ONE platform so you can master it and not get burnt out.
Here are two main things to consider when choosing a platform:
Choose the social media platform where your ideal customer hangs out and is the most active. This is why it’s so important to know who your ideal customer is. If your ideal customer is hanging out on Facebook, you might not want to start on TikTok.
You’ll also want to think about what type of content you feel comfortable creating. Do you like posting written content, long-form videos, short-form reels, or graphics? Each platform favours a different type of content, and you’ll be much more consistent and effective if you work with your strengths.
6. Create a Content Plan
Let’s face it. Creating social media content can eat up a lot of time. Marketing is only one part of your business, so you need to be strategic with how you use your time.
A time-tested method is to choose 3 - 5 content pillars to help you narrow down the content that you will create. The most common ones are: educate, connect, share results, make offers, entertain, or inspire.
Next, set aside a block of time to create content. Some people set aside one day a week to create content, while others do it daily. It may take trial and error to figure out what works best for you and your schedule. The important thing is to set aside the time.
7. Create a Content Calendar—and Post
A content calendar helps you organize and schedule your posts. Trust me…if you don’t have a schedule, life will get in the way and you won’t post. Remember, consistency is important on social media.
Your first step is to choose how often you will post. Don’t feel pressured to keep up a frantic pace. An example of this is Instagram. The amount of content creation they suggest is unreasonable for most people. So, keep it realistic so that you can do this long-term and not get burned out. Ask yourself, if you can keep up the pace for ten years. If you can’t, then scale back. Posting three times a week is a good pace to start. It’s better to consistently post three times a week rather than trying to post daily and burning out.
Once you get consistent with content creation, you can investigate automated ways to automatically schedule and post.
8. Measure and Optimize
Thinking back to Step 1, decide how to measure your success. Follower count and post likes are not great metrics to get hung up on. Instead, I’d recommend tracking how many email subscribers and customers you have instead. It’s still a good idea to keep track of how your posts are doing. This helps you see what works and what doesn’t so you can improve the quality of your content.
“It’s okay to feel overwhelmed; growth happens when you step outside your comfort zone. Every challenge you face today will become a skill you master tomorrow.”
Setting up and marketing your business on social media is an exciting learning process, but it can feel overwhelming! Taking it step-by-step and having these basics in place will help you build a strong online presence, connect with your audience, and grow your brand.
If you still feel overwhelmed and need more in-depth instruction then I highly recommend the Roadmap Exclusive course. This business development online course is a self-paced learning course that allows you to study specific business topics in depth. Expand your business knowledge while applying it to your dream business. If I had to start over today, I’d start with the Roadmap Exclusive!
