This is part 2 of our Fact or Fiction (you can read part 1 here).
Today’s question is:
Fact or fiction – you don’t need a huge social media following to be successful at social selling?
This is a fact.
When I started my career in this industry, I did not have a big social media following. I don’t even know if I had an Instagram account. Now, even though my account is a decent size today, I’m not an “influencer” in the way that they are defined by the social media universe.
But here are three things that I do have and that you need in order to have a successful business.
Three Things You Need on Social Media
1) Trust within your community. There needs to be a level of trust between you and the people you’re talking to. Only you can establish and build that trust over time. There are a couple of reasons why trust gets eroded, both on social media, but also in real life:
- The first thing that erodes trust is when you are incongruent with your words and your actions; when you say one thing and you do another. When people expect one thing from you and they get another, you have broken an unwritten trust.
- Inconsistency is next. If you show up sporadically, and then disappear, both online and in real life, people don’t know if they can depend on you, because you haven’t shown them that they can. Do you show up every day on social media? No. But if you go away for two weeks and then show back up and go away for two weeks and show back up, it will affect your trust? Yes. There’s got to be a level of consistency in your business and consistency means regularity over time.
2) Have a level of influence. I believe influence comes from consistency and trust. You don’t need to be an influencer, to have influence. The way that you establish influence is by showing up consistently and congruently, by looking for ways to serve and add value to other people consistently over time. I want you to think about the people who are most influential in your life; it’s because they added some serious value to your life by teaching you something, by being a role model, by showing up in a way that you admire and respect that is service to others.
Having a level of influence is key. If you’re saying: “I don’t have a social media following. I don’t have influence.” That’s okay because you can start building it now. It’s never too late to become who you want to be. Just start to be deliberate about how you’re showing up and do it like you mean it. It all goes back to how you want to show up and the way that you want to add value.
That’s really the key to having fun in the social selling business and if you are really struggling with this personal brand stuff you are welcome to join me in our Magnetic Marketing Academy. I also have a free personal branding workshop that will help you brainstorm who you are, what matters to you, what’s exciting to you, who you want to help, and what’s important to them. We all have the ability to influence a lot of people in our lives and the only people we really need to help are the people that are behind us who could benefit from what we’ve learned and what we know. And there are a lot of them that are waiting to hear what you’ve learned and what you know, and that’s all you need to do. Just get out there and do that consistently.
3) The willingness to be a student, to learn, to put your ego aside, and decide you want to get better at these skills. Sometimes it’s hard to say: “I don’t know”, “I’m open to learning”, “I’m open to feedback”, and/or “I’m open to coaching”. As we continue to evolve as humans, there’s always something else to learn. There’s always some other place where we can grow. We are never done. We are expanding humans. Our job is to keep learning, growing, trying new things, and expanding until we’re not here anymore. So, if you really want to get better at this, you can. You can grow that following, you can grow that influence, you can grow that trust if you’re willing to do the things that need to be done to get there.
It’s an if-then equation. If you want this, then what are the things that need to happen in order for you to get that? So, do you need a huge social media following? No. You need trust, influence, and willingness to learn.
Hopefully, this has sparked some curiosity in you and if you have any questions, please feel free to get in touch with me.
In the meantime, remember, you are magnetic and people are waiting to hear what you have to say.
Love,
Tracey.
