PROMOTE YOUR MESSAGE TO THE MASSES
Start MAKING content instead of just consuming it.
Write a book. Write articles. Do public speaking. Talk online, on audios (podcasts, webinars), and on videos (YouTube, Facebook Live, Instagram, TikTok). Did I just say TikTok? Yes! Why wouldn’t you educate younger generations? Don’t leave them with nothing but useless crap to consume on there. Give them some material that will add value to their lives.
You must communicate your VISION to everybody at every occasion: your clients, your prospects, your employees, your marketplace. The visionary is above the expert.
The most important person in the room is the one who can paint a clear picture of the future, or at least the future they’re fighting for.
Be assured of one thing: it’s never too much … As long as your message isn’t annoying or boring, they’ll be eager to listen to you every day.
The notion of too much isn’t in relation to the frequency of your message but in relation to the core of your message itself. Visionaries who share their valuable insights are NEVER boring. Whether it’s offline or online, there are two things to give to your audience in order to leave an impression: entertainment and education—ideally both at the same time. That maximizes your chances of seeing people return, as they come in search of more of your content.
But don’t say selfish things with no value, like 90% of people do. Don’t think of it as a promotional tool (although it is). The promotion will take care of itself if you do a great job, that is, if you provide VALUE. In addition, if your content is engaging, the algorithms within those platforms will notice that your audience like you, and they’ll continue to prioritize your content in their feeds.
Keep in mind that usually what most people say is guided by their own financial interest in what they’re selling. As a result, their message is obvious and annoying. Don’t fall into that trap, otherwise your content will likely fall into a black hole and gain little traction. People can smell your interest from afar, and that automatically cancels out whatever you’re trying to say.
The best method to convey your truthfulness is to tell your prospective customers how to AVOID using your services. If it’s good for your customer, it’s good for you. That’s how you build trust and relationships. Generally, they don’t want to deal with the matter and they’ll end up calling you anyway, because they want to hire a competent and trustworthy professional, which you’ll have just proven yourself to be.
When you promote your message, you’re in the game of BRANDING, not selling! BRANDING is your content. It’s about having many people who know, love, and trust you—people who you don’t have to market to anymore. Oprah doesn’t sell. Trump doesn’t sell. Prospects are either already sold on you or dislike you.
This is not to be confused with MARKETING, which is the science of infiltrating consumers’ perception. It’s all about how to trigger people’s attention to your brand and content. Marketing is a combination of psychology and mathematics.
There are three stages in your relationship with your target audience:
But remember, all relationships are like bank accounts: you can’t withdraw anything from anyone without first making a deposit. See, you don’t want to be overdrawn at such an early stage, but you don’t want to deposit huge reserves for no gain, either. Those relationships where revenue and expenditure are equal, where the ledgers are balanced, tend to be the ones which compound and accumulate interest. Those pay the best dividends.
A couple of years ago, it was difficult to attract public speaking gigs or get invited on TV and radio shows for interviews. Today it matters less because you can be your own media company. Actually, that’s exactly the right approach: you must think as a media company; bringing value to people without selling them anything. Don’t be a TV commercial, be a TV show. Don’t be an ad on the Wall Street Journal, BECOME the Wall Street Journal.
There’s a lot of noise out there, and you must differentiate yourself. This is how to do it:
That’s also the fastest way to turn people off, but that’s the other side of the coin. You don’t get anything if you don’t sacrifice something. Remember, a great message is NOT when they understand you but when they feel understood by you. People like people who are like them (or who they want to be like). And to feel understood, you must show what your business stands for, that is, what you the founder stand for.
Your content should be INSIGHTFUL, not just informative. If they can get it from elsewhere, it’s maybe not great content. If your business stands for something they value, that’s the Holy Grail. Beware, though, about the ideas you share, particularly those which come across as contentious. Social media’s tolerance is at its lowest level, and it’s getting worse.
SOCIAL MEDIA
Your business needs to be a brand that’s visible online, especially on social media. And YOU are the voice of your brand. The AMBASSADOR. You’re most likely the one in front of the camera delivering the speech. Find someone to do the technical work such as editing, converting format, entering captions, adding the logo and sound effects. Those are low-value tasks. You’re the hero of your world, and every hero has a tech guy. For inspiration, look no further than Mission Impossible, Fast & Furious, and Back to the Future.
Just give clear guidelines (subtitles, colors, progress bar), and supervise the process—especially in the beginning—to make sure the final result is appealing. Find somebody on Fiverr or Freelancer to do it for you, or you’ll end up working on it for the rest of your life. Don’t be a busy fool. Instead, spend some time working on great content and delivering it. Great online content is whatever hits your audience’s emotional center so hard that they have to engage with it (share, comment, or like). It can be a video, an article, a quote, an image, an idea. Whatever makes your audience tick, be sure to tap into that.
… OR MAYBE NOT SOCIAL MEDIA?
Depending on your industry, you may have the luxury of staying away from social media. Having worked in industries such as M&A or Medical Devices, I’ve had this privilege for a long time. People in these kinds of fields don’t spend as much time on social media platforms as others. Think about it: do you see a lot of people from industries such as healthcare, finance, automobile, energy, or aerospace on Instagram or TikTok? Most likely not.
There are a lot of entrepreneurs who make huge money in these areas, and yet have never put a single post or hit the “Like” button on social media. On the other hand, you may consider that if there’s a lack of key players from certain industries with a social media presence, then that could be a great opportunity, one which you might want to exploit.
Personally, I’ve never put myself on social media for any of my businesses. I’ve only used public speaking as a platform. Most successful business owners I’ve met during my career didn’t either, but again, some industries are specific. The reason why I’ve refrained from utilizing social media is because I don’t like to show off. Since my businesses perform well, I don’t bother. Would my businesses have had more success WITH promoting myself on social media? Most certainly. I just didn’t want to go down that path. The price to pay was above what I was ready to give, compared to the potential gain.
Besides, I’ve had great results with public speaking. I have two speeches of forty-five minutes that I’ve rehearsed and revised and refined over the years, and almost each time I give them, I get fresh leads and new contacts. I haven’t needed social media to make money, but I guess the story would have been different if I were born twenty years later.
Now, if you go down the social media path, and if the potential rewards are greater than the price to pay (especially in terms of time and privacy), the most time-effective and profitable method is to start with one long-form piece of content and to create multiple pieces of content from it for all your social media channels.
For example, you make a valuable fifteen minute video, and you put it on YouTube, Facebook, and a podcast. Then you cut out some fifteen seconds and one-minute excerpts and you post it on FB, IG, IG Stories, LinkedIn, TikTok, Twitter, and Snapchat (or whatever is the latest trend at the time of reading this). Then you put some graphic quotes of yourself on IG, LinkedIn, Twitter, IG Carousel, and FB Slideshow. Then you get the transcript of the best parts of your video and transform it into an article that you’ll use for LinkedIn, FB, your blog, and your direct emails.
Your work is to make the video. You should delegate all the remaining activities. In the beginning, you might give your freelancers the timestamps of the fifteen-second and one-minute videos. When you find somebody reliable, they should sort out the best moments by themselves.
Working on your business’s message and execution is valuable; carrying out all the tech work is not.
Having said that, regarding your business’s presence (as opposed to your own personal brand), social media is a MUST HAVE for 90% of industries out there, and a good way to make a difference for the other 10% who don’t really need it. As the owner, you just have to find the right angle, to design the guidelines, to delegate the work, to supervise it.
Social networks never interested me all that much (as is typical with most people working in Mergers and Acquisitions, private equity, and hedge funds). I delegated all that to the subject matter experts within my businesses.
Remember, social media is a long-term game. Over 80% of people are looking for information and will likely buy at a later date, sometimes between twelve and eighteen months; roughly 17–18% are ready to buy in the next three months; and 2–3% are ready to buy RIGHT NOW.