you know you need to be on social media
youtube facebook twitter instagram some
of the most popular sites out there on
the web even snapchat even though
instagram's crushing it it's still doing
really well they have over 100 million
active users daily
but as a beginner all of this is
overwhelming and complicated so how do
you start
hey everyone i'm neil patel and today
i'm going to share with you
how to get started with social media as
a beginner
the first thing you need to do is pick
the right social network yes there's a
lot of them whether it's facebook
whether it's linkedin whether it's
twitter it's up to you on which network
you want to be on
you could be on all of them but if
you're on all of them you're not going
to spend enough time
to make these profiles amazing you don't
want to half-ass them in other words you
don't want to be on linkedin and do a
mediocre job you don't want to be on
facebook and do a mediocre job it's
better to not be on them than it is to
do a mediocre job because doing a
mediocre job will get you no reach i kid
you not
social media five six years ago was way
easier to leverage to get traffic from
nowadays their algorithms are so strict
because there's so much competition
they're looking for the cream of the
crop in other words if you're not the
best of the best you're not going to do
well so you need to pick the right
social network and what's right for me
may not be right for you
so the way you pick the social network
is look at what space you're in if
you're in b2b the chances are linkedin
is going to be the best social network
for you
twitter is also another good social
network for b2b but linkedin typically
is better if you're in b2c
facebook does really well instagram does
really well youtube does really well
funny enough youtube works for both b2b
and b2c
now here's the thing you also have to
look at what content type do you like
creating are you someone who's really
good with videos if so you probably want
to start with
youtube or linkedin
facebook's much more competitive youtube
you can get the longevity even if you
don't have an audience you don't have a
subscriber pool you can get more traffic
over time because facebook
people don't really search on there
youtube
people perform searches all day long for
videos and your videos can continually
get views if you rank higher
if you're going after an older
demographic facebook is amazing if
you're going after a younger demographic
instagram and snapchat are amazing
so now that you have a rough idea of
which social network to go after and if
you're still unsure just leave a comment
below tell me your business and i'll
help answer the question for you so that
way you're using the right social
network from day one but now that you
have a right one
the second thing you need to do is start
creating content yes you're like hey i
have no friends i have no following it
doesn't matter no one's going to follow
if you don't have any content so start
creating content that starts off with
completing your profile facebook twitter
instagram all of them they have profiles
you need to complete everything from a
username to your email address to a
really proper nice image to a
description of who you are or your
company if you don't complete your
profile you're not giving people a
reason to follow
and when you're completing your profile
talk about the benefits that people are
going to experience from following you
or subscribing to your page
but as i mentioned it's all about
creating content so it starts with the
profile and then it gets the content if
you're not sure what content to create
you need to check out your competition
you all have competitors even if you're
in a new space like let's say you're
uber and you're revolutionizing the taxi
industry well your competition would be
the taxi industry so you look at what is
my competition doing on social media now
i know uber's already around they're a
multi-billion dollar company but i'm
giving example on if i was creating uber
from day one that would be my
competition you look at your closest
competitors it could be indirect
competition but still your closest
competitors you want to see what content
is doing for well for them and what
content's not
that'll give you idea of what you should
do more of and what you shouldn't do as
much of
if you don't know how to create content
it could be as simple as status updates
you pulling out your phone recording a
video of you
sharing some links
and if you're not sure what links to
share you can go to buzzsumo.com
type in any keywords from your industry
it'll show you all the popular articles
that shows you what people like on
facebook twitter all the social sites
which will then give you an idea of what
kind of content will resonate with that
social network and what doesn't now that
you're creating content the next thing
you need to do is build a connection
and you need to build a connection with
people it's a social network just
because you're on a computer doesn't
mean you're not connecting with humans
so make sure you're friending all the
people that you know following them
you're engaging right you're building
connections so if it's your friend
already like someone that you know in
person you can just invite them to
friend you on facebook or follow you on
twitter if it's someone you don't know
you're gonna have to work more to build
that connection and here's how you do
this
you go and look for all the people in
your space who are putting status
updates posts
if they have questions respond to them
help them out if they have articles feel
free and share them if you think they're
valuable right you can repost re-share
whatever it may be
if there's other people on these
channels fan pages that are related to
your industry even if it's your
competitors and they're asking questions
you can respond to them help them out
that's how you build a connection even
when you're posting on your own page
when someone responds with a question or
a comment you should acknowledge that
they're there thank them for leaving a
comment respond when they have a
question
that's how you engage and what i found
is over time as you engage
what you'll see is a lot of people come
back over to your site they'll follow
you you'll engage deeply with them and
they'll become a loyal die hard follower
it's not just about growing your number
and having a thousand followers or ten
thousand followers which then gets me
into my last tip
and the last tip is don't go for
follower account
it's all about having valuable
connections personal ones because if
your first
hundred fans or followers aren't that
engaged with you
all these social networks have it in
their algorithms but they're looking at
a percentage so if you have a million
fans but only a thousand engaged they're
like whoa this is a terrible engagement
rate we shouldn't show your content to
anyone because no one likes it but if
you had a hundred followers and every
single one liked it shared it and
commented they did all three of those
things
social networks like facebook are gonna
be like this content is amazing
it needs to go viral because everyone
loves it
so it's not about having the most amount
of fans it's about having the most
amount of engaged fans if someone's not
going to engage you don't want them
don't just pay models to talk about you
so you can get more followers it's about
having the most relevant die-hard fans
and i know as i said that was going to
be the last tip but here's one more
bonus tip for you
don't push people to your business from
day one
within three months or six months by all
means you can start talking about your
business slowly mentioning it try to get
people over to your site and as
customers you can do simple things like
just sharing a link
but you don't want to do that from day
one
why would you want to promote your
business when no one's following you
they're not engaged
if you went to a random stranger on the
street and you said hey my name is john
i know that you buy toilet paper because
everyone uses toilet paper would you
like to buy my toilet paper they're
going to be like you're crazy
who are you we don't want to buy
anything for you you need to build a
connection no one's going to buy from
you until you build that relationship
so don't promote your business until
three to six months i'm to the extreme
in which i like waiting
nine months to a year
but again you can do it within three to
six months if you're doing advertising
from day one you can promote your
business instantly but if you're trying
to build up everything organically you
can't promote your business from day one
so that's it if you're still confused on
how to get started with social media
leave a comment below i'll answer it
i'll help you out if there's anything i
can do to help you just let me know i
truly am here to help you succeed thank
you for watching please comment share
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