You need to capture the attention of your followers before you can sell to them.
The best way to get the attention of your followers is to engage in conversation around your area of expertise. The world is looking for experts. It is becoming difficult to identify the experts because we all want to talk about everything.
At the end of the day we confuse people because we’re random. When the name Michael Jordan is mentioned you think of basketball. That’s a brand.
When your name is mentioned, what should people think about? If people have questions about physics, do they come to me? My friend had a question on how to a product on social media and he came to me.
That should tell me something. I’m becoming an authority in how to use social media platforms in a productive way. That’s because I always talk about it.
People buy from people they know and trust. To become known and trusted, you need to talk to people and help them understand your product.
I’m preparing physics courses for high school students so I need to about physics. I need to be a trusted authority on all things physics.
So I need to engage students with physics problems so that if they decide to do a course they do one of my courses. If they know someone who wants to do the course, they recommend me.
Social media is word of mouth on steroids. The people you engage are your brand ambassadors. They spread your brand through word of mouth. When they share your content, it’s word of mouth. When they comment, it means they’re engaged.
When you respond to their comments, you’re giving them attention and showing that there’s a real person behind the account.
The person I was helping is into health and fitness. There’re pictures of appetising food on the Instagram account. There are an avarage 100 likes but less than 5 comments. Two of the comments is the owner of the account posting a string of hashtags. I think the hashtags should be in the post, not the comments. Talk to people in the comments.
So there is information missing here. There’s pictures of food, but does the person sell food? What is the name of the shop? There’s no talk or discussion around the food. Is food the product? There’s advice on what to prepare in a lunchbox for the kids for school. Is that the product?
Is exercise the product? When you read the bio, it’s different to what is being posted. There’s no variety of content. It’s only pictures. On Instagram you can now livestream. You can post short videos that you have prepared in another app.
If you prepare healthy food, show us videos of you preparing the food. Show us 10 second videos of you buying the food. Teach about calorie content. Instagram is no longer just a photo sharing app. It’s a media platform for engagement around your product.
So instead of talking about how to use Instagram like I’ve done here, I’ve decided to show people how it’s done through my own Instagram account.
I’ve stateed making content around my product: physics courses.
Once I have the attention, I can sell my courses, hopefully using a blockchain application. I’m following the launch of academycoin with keen interest as an educator.
When you go on social media platforms, don’t forget to talk about what you do.