Coaching Tools to help Coaches Get More Coaching Clients. Suzan Schmitt: The Coach Marketer

Marketing with Social Media

April 29, 2009

It all
started with MySpace and teenagers but now social media is huge and an amazing
way to market your coaching business. Many of us think about social media as a
way to stay in touch with friends of waste a few minutes “people watching”.

In the past
this may have been true but now social media is a productive, effective and
free. Social media is the biggest marketing secret out there today! Obviously
when you first start out on the internet you do not have a list of people who
are in your target coaching niche.  Yet
the key to internet marketing is a large and responsive contact list. The
question becomes what can a coach do to increase the number of potential
coaching clients on

their contact list?

Just a couple
of years ago the only answer to that question was to run ads and cross your
fingers. Today we are very fortunate to have social media available as a
marketing tool.  Note that we call it “social
media” and there is a reason for that name. Sites like Facebook and Twitter are
designed to support social interaction among members as their primary purpose
and as a marketer, you must respect that.

Add to the conversation

You can
promote yourself and your business using social media but you must be
considerate of other users and you must add to the conversation. It is
perfectly acceptable to make a relevant and helpful comment to someone on
Twitter or Facebook if you comments add value to the conversation. For example,
if I come across a conversation about teleseminars and I have a product or a
course that answers the question someone is asking about teleseminars then it
is fine for me to include my product and ideas in the conversation.

Give away your stuff

Social media
is a great way to let the world know what you do and how you do it. You can
offer free items to the people you are involved with on the internet and you
will build connection, trust, and revenue for your coaching business.

 

Offer an invitation

Social media
sites are a great way to invite people to check out your articles,  blog posts, teleclasses and other FREE
information. I don’t like to promote paid products on social media but I really
see nothing wrong with offering an invitation to take part in something for
free.

I would give
a word of caution on this issue because some social media people do not like
promotion of any type and they may be offended by promotion they consider advertising.
If people complain about your promotion this could get you banned from some sites
so be very careful to get to know people and be social as well.

Facebook

Face book
has many opportunities to find people in your target coaching niche. Facebook
has groups of all types that you can join to meet people who are interested in
your niche. There is a search groups function on Facebook that will list all
the groups involve a given topic.

You can join
those groups and ask other members to be your friend on Facebook. You can post
helpful comments and contribute to the conversation in a group. Soon by sharing
your information and expert knowledge to help others they will check out your
site.

You can also
create your own group on Facebook and invite your friends to join it. The
advantage of having your own Facebook group is that you can do whatever
marketing you wish to do to your own group. Obviously, people don’t want to
participate in a group that is only marketing material so you must also provide
a great deal of value to your group members.

You can also
create an event on Facebook and invite friends to attend your event. I usually
kick off all my new products with a free preview event and I invite friends to
attend the free preview.

Twitter

Twitter is
what is known as a microblog. Twitter allows you to post tweets that are 140
words or less. This is a great way to hone your copywriting skills and build
your list.

People
connect with each other by becoming followers on Twitter. Once you get an
account on Twitter, you will be amazed at how fast people begin to follow you!
I like to pick out people to follow who are in my target coaching niche. When I
follow someone in my target coaching niche I know they will be interested in
what I have to say and I will be interested in what they have to say.

To find
people in my target coaching niche I look through the follower of other people
in my target coaching niche who are well known. By holding the curser over the
names of their followers, I can read what each person has written in their
profile and I can choose to follow them or not.

Profiles

You will
have the best results when you write a great profile for your social media
accounts. This is what people will look at to find out that you are and what
you are about so you want to put some time and effort into your profile. Make sure that you tell potential clients in your target coaching niche who you are, how you help them, and how your coaching benefits them. If you are not able to clearly state this then you should purchase "Coaching Business Blast Off" home study program because it will walk you through this process and much more.

Tell people
who you are, what you do and how you help others. When you include this
information you will attract people who are interested in what you have to
offer and those that are not interested with be able to determine that they are
not your target niche.

Caution

Remember
that social media is just that. It is mean to be social and Facebook in
particular takes that very seriously. I make sure that I post comments that are
social five times before I post a comment that is more marketing oriented.
Facebook will kick you off if people complain about how you are using it to
promote yourself and it is very difficult to get back on once you have been
banned. So remember make friends and give to others on social media.

If you liked this article then you will like "Marketing & Public Speaking".

Related posts:

1. Coaching Tools: How to Make a Positive Impression in Social Media
2. Coaching Tools: Attract the Right People to Your Coahing Business with Social Media Marketing
3. Coaching Tools: How to Use Social Media to Get Coaching Clients
4. Coaching Tools: Social Media Marketing Too Much & Too Little
5. Coaching Tools and Tactics for Social Media Marketing

Filed under: Client Attraction

Tags: get coaching clients, get new coaching clients, life coaching, life coaching business, marketing coachig, suzan schmitt