What to post if all your followers are friends and family

You're frustrated. You feel like posting is screaming into the void, and quite frankly you're feeling a bit embarrassed. I get it. But friend, even if your followers are friends and family you gotta keep posting about your business!

And before you ask; starting a new account isn't the answer - you're just making more work for yourself.

In this episode, I'll give you an actionable strategy to use on Instagram specifically for your position. 

You know those followers of yours? (That guy you met in an improv class, your cousin and the Bumbl date who ghosted you but still secretly watches your IG Stories?)

You're gonna turn those people into super lucrative referral generators, using this strategy. LET'S GO!

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Music by Jordan Wood

Hosted by Jenna Harding (Warriner), Creator of Magic Marketing Machine

Transcript

What to do if all your followers are friends and family (and you run a business)

Hey, chin up buttercup. You can still totally get clients from social media, even if all of your followers are friends and family, actually, you kind of have a secret weapon on your hand.  

I might be the only marketing coach on the planet. Who's going to tell you that having friends and family following you is an awesome position to be in. And right now it feels like you don't believe me. I feel like you clicked on this episode because you were like, oh no, Jenna's going to tell me I suck and how to change it. 

No, I'm not. I would never tell you that don't let anybody talk to you that way. 

Here's the thing you have to start somewhere. When I started my account, it was only friends and family and connections that I had met from a completely different career. And if you find yourself in that position, you have two options. You can pivot the account and say, I am now a business, and this is my personal brand. And this is my business account and carry on your Merry way. Or you can start a new account. 

And if you start a new account, you don't have those friends and family following you. You're at zero. And I bet you're going to get tired and you're going to feel like your account is stagnant. And you're going to think that you suck because you only. I have a hundred followers and that's not any mood that we want to be in. 

 

Now I can't give you a hundred percent solid, do this advice without actually knowing your unique scenario, but I want you to consider something.  Is it possible that some of your friends and family are actually your ideal client? Is it possible? That some of your friends and family are friends and family of your ideal client. 

If that is at all possible, I have such a simple strategy that I want you to start using ASAP to start getting clients from your social media. Are you ready? You need to make it super duper clear what it is that you do and who it is that you serve. And you're not going to be trying to speak to those people. You are speaking to your friends and family, you were saying, Hey, friends and family, I serve this type of ideal customer. Do you know anyone who is that? And who fits that bill? You can be explicit. Like I just said, or you can just start mentioning it over and over and over again. 

I used to work. I talk about this sometimes, but I used to work with these like old grizzly PR guys, and I learned so much from them. And one of the things that he told me, we were working on this campaign and the campaign had a lot of haters. There are a lot of people that were on our side. It was like citywide across Toronto. So there was a lot of people that were on our side, but there was a lot of people who weren't so much on our side. 

And I was on social media duties and we would get some negative feedback and negative comments on social media. And I asked them, how do you guys want me to approach this? Do you want me, like, how do you want me to engage with your haters? Everybody has sort of a different rule of how they want to do that. 

And what they told me was our job here. Isn't to change the minds of the people who aren't on our side. Our job is to give the people who are on our sides. Biting points for the dinner table so that when they are sitting across from these people who aren't on our side, they can fight our fight for us. So I know that that's not like we're not fighting here. You're just, you know, you want to get more. 

Clients for your hairstyling business. That's what we're talking about. But the concept still stands. If your idle clients aren't following you, then give your friends and family the tools that they need to sell your business for you because no one wants you to succeed more than your friends and family. 

And if you're like, Jenna, you don't know my friends and family. They don't want me to succeed. Oh my gosh. Get rid of those people. Mute those people. Don't look at those accounts because that's not serving you,  if you're right about it. If you're wrong about it, try and just get them out of your sphere. If you mute someone, you stop seeing all their content on Instagram. 

But, um, they don't know that you did it. So that's, if, if there are people out there and thinking about them, seeing your content stresses you out, trying to eliminate them as best you can, you can even sneakily remove them as followers. They might eventually notice that one. Or you can restrict them. There's so many features so that you don't have those people in your way. Anyway, the point is your quick and dirty strategy is to give your friends and family the tools they need and the information they need in order to get you clients. 

What that information looks like is talking about who you serve in words that people who aren't in your industry are going to understand, okay. Stay with me. I need you to use the words that your friends and family who know nothing about your industry. Are going to be able to repeat. You want to be super crystal clear. 

Even when I say. I'm in social media marketing. A lot of my aunts and uncles are like, oh, and what is that like, words that seem so clear to me and seems so clear to you. Social media marketing, because we live this life every day. They still don't know what that means. Okay. So you want to choose really casual language, no jargon, nothing fancy. 

Make sure that it's crystal clear and simplified,   

also let the world know you are open for business. I want you posting. I am taking on three new clients this month. If you know anyone who might be interested, send them my way. And I want you to just start showing up, sharing your knowledge, educating, pretending that your ideal clients are following you because that is going to attract them. 

And a year from now, you'll be like, oh, we're why we're at all. These scored all these clients come from. 

Some else to think about is if you have a low following number right now, this is the perfect time to experiment with low stakes. 

Right now, the amount of people who see your content is the lowest number it's ever going to be, because you're going to commit to growing. You're going to commit to thriving. You're going to commit to posting, right. And more and more eyeballs are going to be on you. But right now, who cares? It's low stakes. 

This is the perfect time to experiment. If you're, you know, high school friends and all of your second cousins are following you, those people want you to succeed. They're not thinking negative things about you. So if you start posting about your business, you're going to have people say, people say this to me all the time. It always feels good. 

Wow. Looks like you're doing amazing things over there. Wow. It looks like that business is really growing because you're showing up online with confidence. It's crazy. It's crazy how it works. 

One more thing. This is a short and sweet episode because I've actually given you a massive to-do list in just a few minutes. But unless you're driving, I want you to close your eyes. You're driving, please. Don't close your eyes. But close your eyes. And picture this. Okay. 

You look down. At your phone and you open your email. And you've made a sale, whether that means someone has booked in with you or they've bought something off your website. Like you have made a sale and you scroll down. To the person's name. And you have no  clue who they are. It is not your second cousin. It is not someone who you've seen commenting on your Instagram. It's not a last name that you recognize because maybe they're a family of your family. No, you have no idea who this person is because they found you when you weren't even looking. 

That is the most awesome feeling. I still get that feeling. I'm still like, what? Who is this? Someone was paying attention to me and I didn't even know they were there. Oh, it's  📍 so awesome. And that's going to feel so good when that continues to happen to you. And then when it eventually becomes a regular occurrence, 

Oh, I'm so excited for us. Okay. Go make content. Okay. 3, 2, 1. We're all going to turn off our phones and go make content. 

Unless you're driving. Again, don't text and drive. Don't content and drive. 

That's all from me. I'll see you in the next one.