Social Media Marketing: 10 Killer Strategies For Success

Want to build a social media following?

Today we are going to share ten killer social media marketing strategies that can help you do that!

Table of Contents:

There are several factors that determine how well you are going to do on social media but the single most important one is consistency.

We would argue that when it comes to building a social media following, the most common pattern looks like this:

Someone gets excited about the opportunities that social media provides
They create a social media profile and start frantically posting at a pace that is unsustainable in the long run
As time goes on, their enthusiasm starts waning and their posting frequency starts decreasing until it tapers off completely.

This process can last a few weeks, a few months, maybe even a year in some cases, but the end result is always the same: yet another abandoned social media profile that hasn’t been updated in ages.

Needless to say, this means that all the time, energy, and money that person put into it ended up being wasted. So what was even the point of creating that profile in the first place?

That’s why if you want to build a social media following, you need to go into it with a clear strategy, a sustainable content schedule, and a serious long-term commitment. Otherwise, you’ll get distracted and give up, like so many have before you.

Here are some good news, though:

If you commit to posting high-quality content on a regular schedule for at least five years and actually keep that commitment, you will probably succeed at building a social media following!

Here are the three things that you should do before you start building a social media following:

Protect Your Personal Information

One of the problems with social media is that we can all see the upside of having a massive following but the downside often remains hidden from the public.

Entrepreneur, investor, and best-selling author Tim Ferriss discusses this in his article “11 Reasons Not to Become Famous”.

He argues that the more your audience grows, the more likely you are to encounter mentally unstable and potentially dangerous individuals. Why?

Because that’s simply how statistics work: at a population level, people like that are extremely rare, but the larger the sample size, the more likely they are to be found in that sample. And once you reach a certain sample size it becomes inevitable.

The problems he discusses in the article include receiving death threats, dealing with stalkers, harassment of family members and friends and even a kidnapping attempt!

It’s tempting to think that you’ll never have to deal with scary stuff like this, but you almost certainly will if your following becomes large enough.

In fact, it doesn’t even have to be that large…

As Tim puts it:

That’s why we strongly advise taking measures to protect your privacy before you start building a social media following.

You want to make it as hard as possible for random strangers to find out where you live, what places you frequent, and your current location.

Moreover, you need to think carefully about how much of your personal life you want to share with your followers because mentioning family and friends can make them a target as well.

Check out Michael Bazell’s books:

“OSINT Techniques: Resources for Uncovering Online Information” – This book can help you learn the basics of gathering information about someone using only publicly available sources. You can then use these techniques on yourself to see what’s already out there.
“Extreme Privacy: What It Takes to Disappear” – This book can help you learn how to hide the information that you don’t want to be publicly available.

Of course, not everything in Bazell’s books will apply to someone who wants to build a social media following since you can’t just disappear off the Internet in that case.

But you need to get proactive about protecting your privacy now. Don’t wait until some psychotic individual starts banging on your door!

Clean Up Your Online Presence

Once you have taken measures to protect yourself from violent threats, the next step is to clean up your online presence so that you can minimize reputational and brand damage risks.

It’s probably safe to say that everyone who has been actively using social media for an extended period of time has posted something that they are not proud of at some point.

Dumb arguments with strangers, drunken “woe is me” ramblings, passive-aggressive jibes at your ex, controversial political opinions that you have since moved on from, insane conspiracy theories that made sense at the time…

Whatever is out there, you need to go and clean it all up before you start building a social media following. Why?

Because as your social media following grows, you will inevitably upset some amateur sleuths with stalkerish tendencies and too much time on their hands who will then start looking for compromising material.

If they find something, depending on how compromising it is, they will use it to either publicly mock you or to send the social media outrage mob after you.

This can lead to reputational and brand damage, even if the “compromising material” in question is something completely innocuous, like an unflattering photo from a high school party.

So make sure that there’s nothing to find!

Build a Sales Funnel for Your Business

Okay, now that we are done with risk management, let’s talk about business.

You’d be surprised by how many social media influencers with substantial social media followings are flat-out broke and struggle to pay the bills. How is that possible?

Because the number of followers you have is a vanity metric. What matters is whether you can reliably convert those followers into leads and then into customers.

This is where sales funnels come in…

What is a Sales Funnel?

A sales funnel is a system designed to convert visitors into leads, leads into customers and customers into repeat customers.

What is the Squeeze Page Funnel?

The squeeze page funnel has three pages:

A squeeze page where you pitch your lead magnet and ask the potential customer for their email address in exchange for it
A thank you page where you thank the potential customer for subscribing to your email list, explain how they can access your lead magnet, and tell them what they can expect from you in the future
A sales page where you pitch your product or service and encourage the potential customer to buy it.

You want to set up a squeeze page funnel for your business before you start building a social media following so that you can start monetizing your audience right from the get-go.

How to Set Up a Squeeze Page Funnel for Your Business

Step #1: Create a Lead Magnet

A lead magnet is a freebie that you offer to the potential customer in exchange for their email address.

Here are the three most popular types of lead magnets:

Service lead magnets
Info product lead magnets
Physical product lead magnets

In general, if you are just starting out, especially if you are selling a service, using a service-based lead magnet probably makes the most sense.

Consider offering a free consultation. This will give you an opportunity to talk to potential customers, learn more about their needs, and pitch them your services.

Alternatively, you can offer one of your services for free and then pitch them a more expensive service or a service package.

Of course, at some point, this approach will become unfeasible due to time constraints.

This is why you want to eventually progress to offering an info product lead magnet such as an ebook, a video class, or a webinar.

As for the physical lead magnets, there’s the “FREE + Shipping” approach where you offer a free physical product but ask the potential customer to cover the shipping.

For example, our co-founder Russell Brunson has written three best-selling books collectively known as “The Secrets Trilogy” that we use as physical lead magnets:

Physical lead magnets can work well but they are the riskiest type of lead magnet because they are the most expensive.

We don’t recommend this approach for beginners because of the financial risk involved!

Step #2: Build a Squeeze Page Funnel

You can use ClickFunnels to build your squeeze page funnel.

Our template library includes a squeeze page funnel template that has been optimized for conversions.

All you need to do is customize it with our visual drag-and-drop page editor!

Step #3: Set Up an Automated Welcome Sequence

So how do you pitch your product or service to the potential customer once you get their email address?

If your lead magnet is a free service then that gives you an opportunity to pitch them directly after you provide that service.

But if you are using an info product or a physical product lead magnet, you will need to pitch them via email.

In that case, we recommend setting up this automated email sequence and sending it to every new subscriber:

Send one email per day so that the entire sequence would take six days to complete. This will give you time to build more trust, which should make it easier to close the sale!

Ultimately, social media marketing is not about building a social media following, it’s about generating organic traffic. But where should you drive that traffic?

The answer is simple: you should drive it to your squeeze page funnel so that you could convert your followers into leads and then into customers!

We recommend focusing on one social media platform, building a following there and then gradually expanding to other platforms. But which platform should you start with?

There’s no one-size-fits-all answer here because it all depends on what you are naturally good at, what skills you have, and what resources you have access to.

Generally speaking:

Instagram is the best place for people who are photogenic, lead an appealing lifestyle and have photography and modeling skills that they can use to showcase that lifestyle and inspire their target audience.
Twitter is the best platform for people who are intellectually inclined, have a knack for writing, and possess knowledge that can help their target audience.
LinkedIn is the best platform for people who are professionally accomplished, good at networking, and have career insights that can help their target audience.
TikTok is the best platform for people who are natural in front of a camera, possess video scripting, filming, and editing skills, have access to the necessary equipment, and are good at creating short, snappy videos with viral potential.
YouTube is the best platform for people who are naturals in front of a camera, possess video scripting, filming, and editing skills, have access to the necessary equipment, and are good at creating longer videos that provide a comprehensive overview of the subject.

Of course, these are just the general guidelines, you don’t necessarily need to have the aforementioned personal attributes, skills, and resources to succeed on a particular platform.

In fact, a lot of what seems like a natural talent at first glance may be the result of years and years of practice at a particular set of skills.

If you look at the early content of popular influencers, you’ll often see boring tweets, awkward photos, and rambling videos.

They likely weren’t that much better at it than you when they started, they simply kept doing it so their skills kept improving.

That being said, it’s probably best to start building your social media following on a platform that allows you to capitalize on your strengths, whatever those strengths may be!

Once you have decided on a platform, don’t start posting on it immediately, do some competitive research first.

You want to look at your direct competitors and analyze their content to find a gap in the market. What’s missing?

Here are some ideas:

Everyone is posting low-effort hot takes? Consider sharing thoughtful analysis instead
Everyone is posting their unsubstantiated personal opinions? Consider sharing scientific research instead
Everyone is rehashing old strategies and tactics from a decade ago that simply don’t work anymore? Consider discussing what has changed since then and sharing what works now instead.

…etc.

It may be tempting to look at what others are doing, assume that it’s the only way to do it, and then blindly follow the crowd.

But the problem with this strategy is that you will end up being just another dime-a-dozen influencer posting the same stuff as everyone else.

And sure, you can build a following that way, but it’s going to be difficult because doing what everyone else is doing makes you forgettable.

That’s why you want to find a way to differentiate yourself from your competition and develop your unique selling proposition.

What are you bringing to the table that people can’t easily get elsewhere?

Okay, so now that you have your unique selling proposition, it’s time to create a content strategy.

Here’s what it should include:

Your core message – What are the values that you want to promote?
Your hobbies and interests – What are the hobbies and interests you have that either make you relatable because they are common or help you stand out because they are unusual?
Throwing rocks at the competition – What are the widely accepted dogmas in your niche that you reject? You can challenge these dogmas without naming names. Don’t go after individuals, go after bad ideas.

Again, you don’t want to blindly follow the crowd because the more authentic you are and the more you lean into what makes you unique, the easier it will be for you to differentiate yourself from the competition!

We recommend starting with just one post per day, seven days per week and making those daily posts really good.

This may seem like an absurdly low posting frequency, but as we explained earlier, the most important factor when it comes to social media success is consistency.

So it’s better to start with just one daily post and then start increasing your posting frequency gradually to reduce the chances of you burning out and giving up.

Here’s the most straightforward way to make sure that you stay on track and don’t get distracted:

Set aside time for creating content every week – Ideally, this should be a regular time slot that you automatically block out in your calendar
Write the posts for the next week in one batch – Focus on creating high-quality content
Schedule them using a social media scheduling app – You can use MeetEdgar or Buffer for this.

If you post once a day for an entire year without skipping a single day and keep the content quality high, that’s 365 high-quality posts. Make that your goal.

Once that first year is over, you can increase the posting frequency to two posts per day the next year and then to three posts per day the year after that.

Just remember that it’s important to maintain the same content quality as you increase your posting frequency!

Engagement is presumed to be the primary metric that social media algorithms are optimizing for. So how can you increase it?

Obviously, the most important thing is to consistently post high-quality content that people want to discuss and share.

But you should also proactively encourage discussions in the comments under your posts.

You can do so by ending your posts with a question and asking your followers to let you know what they think!

You want to reply to every comment that you get unless that person is acting in an uncivilized manner.

Consider it from the behavioral psychology perspective of using reward and punishment to influence behavior:

When people comment on your social media posts, they do so because they hope to get attention that way.

If you give them attention by replying to their comments, they get what they want and feel good. That makes them more likely to comment in the future.

Meanwhile, if you deny them attention by ignoring them, they don’t get what they want and feel bad. That makes them less likely to comment in the future.

That’s also why the best strategy when it comes to dealing with social media trolls is to completely ignore them.

Remember, what they want is attention, regardless of whether it’s good or bad.

So if they insult you and you insult them back, you give them what they want and they will come back for more.

Meanwhile, if you completely ignore them, they will eventually give up and go seek attention elsewhere!

You want to gather social proof and post it on social media.

That can mean:

Sharing unsolicited social media posts from happy customers – You can use social media listening tools to keep an eye on what people are saying about your brand.
Asking happy customers for testimonials and sharing those testimonials on social media – Feature a link to the customer’s profile on that same platform whenever possible. That will reassure your followers that these happy customers are real people!
Writing case studies about happy customers, publishing them on your website, and then sharing links to those case studies on social media.

…etc.

The goal here is to use social proof to demonstrate that you can deliver the results that your dream customers want!

We already explained that you should use social media marketing to drive traffic from social media to your sales funnel. But how exactly can you do that?

You want to promote your lead magnet in your bio with a short description that conveys its value, a call to action encouraging your followers to get it, and a link to its landing page.

You also want to promote it in your posts but it’s important to be careful and not overdo it. Otherwise, you might end up coming across as obnoxious and alienating your followers.

If you decide to follow our recommended one post per day for a year schedule, consider promoting your lead magnet once a week.

So your weekly content would be six regular posts designed to provide value to your dream customers and then one post designed to promote your lead magnet.

Ideally, these promotional posts should also provide value in and of themselves, so that followers who have already given you their email addresses in exchange for your lead magnet would still benefit from seeing them.

You want to share something interesting that somehow relates to the problem that your lead magnet addresses and then transition into the lead magnet pitch and finally into the call to action.

We would advise against using copy-paste promotional posts because your followers will quickly grow tired of seeing them every week.

Keep in mind that if someone follows you on social media and likes your content, they will probably check out your lead magnet eventually. You don’t need to badger them about it!

Social media is a high-conflict environment where conversations about controversial topics such as current events, politics, and religion can quickly get out of hand.

That’s why we recommend steering clear of all that unless discussing these topics is a part of your brand strategy and makes sense in the context of your niche.

Otherwise, keep your hot takes to yourself!

It’s going to take a while until you accumulate enough data to start identifying patterns.

But once you get to that point, you want to begin gradually optimizing your social media strategy based on those patterns.

Just be mindful of the phenomenon known as “audience capture”. It’s when content creators start optimizing for likes at the expense of everything else and end up drifting further and further away from their original message.

That can be a really dangerous path to go down so make sure that you stay true to your values as your social media following grows!

Want to Learn How to Drive TARGETED TRAFFIC to Your Website and Sales Funnels?

Our co-founder Russell Brunson used sales funnels to take ClickFunnels from zero to $100M+ in annual revenue in less than a decade.

Needless to say, he had to drive a TON of targeted traffic to those sales funnels in order to achieve that.

In his best-selling book “Traffic Secrets”, he shares proven marketing strategies that YOU can use to drive targeted traffic to YOUR website and sales funnels.

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“Traffic Secrets” is available on Amazon where it has over 2,500 global ratings and a 4.7-star overall rating.

But you can also get it directly from us for free…

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John Parkes

John Parkes is a Master at driving web traffic. For more than five years now John has been a coach and stage presenter to tens of thousands of marketers looking to up their Facebook ads game. As Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) at ClickFunnels he runs the entire organic and paid traffic teams and dominates the markets he jumps into. Having spent millions in ads and generated tens of millions he knows his way around ad campaigns like the back of his hand. John has been featured on several podcasts: FunnelHacker Radio, Just The Tips, Next Level Facebook Ads Podcast, Trent Talks, and The Big Shift to name a few. Whether it’s optimizing things on the campaign, audience, or ad creative level, John is the man with the skills, strategy, and experience to create world class results.