Kassaundra 0:00

We all know about the Lincoln bio when it comes to Instagram. But how do we actually get our community members to our resources so that our social media content can start converting for us? That's what we're diving into today.

So teacher author's go ahead and reheat that cup of coffee, because I'm your host, Cassandra Foster.

And we're about to get schooled in socials. Welcome back to school and socials. If you haven't already figured it out. This month, we are really focusing on conversion. How do we get our social media community to our resources, so they can actually hit the Add to Cart button. we've chatted calls to action and effective links and bio so far, but getting our community members to our resources is so much more nuanced than that. So today, we're going to explore potential journeys that your community members take on the way to your resources from your social media accounts, and which strategies for getting community members on those paths to your resources, make the most sense for where you are in your business. Okay, storytime, one of my superpowers as a teacher was being able to break down a task or concept into tiny bite sized steps in order to make content more accessible for my students. Remember, I was a special educator, so most of my students need to be taught in a different way. And nothing more lit me up than breaking down a concept and figuring out where a student was getting lost, and then making a plan to move them along with those bite sized steps. In fact, I would drop everything when a colleague came to me with a conundrum of how to teach a concept to one of their kiddos and go into problem solving mode. Now, how does that background connect to the work I do now with social media? Well, just like I was able to break down concepts into tiny bite sized pieces to pinpoint a breakdown, I now look at how someone navigate social media in the same way. There are all these tiny bite sized steps that people need to take in order for them to join our community, learn the value of what we can offer them, and most importantly, navigate to our paid offers. That's why we can't chat about how to get community members to your resources without really breaking down your community members journey to those resources. Now to simplify it, a community members journey could be see post, read call to action, go to Lincoln bio, see resource purchase. But there is so much more at play there. Here's how it breaks down in my mind. graphic or image stops, the community members scroll, they click on the caption. The hook holds their attention, they continue to read, the body of the caption gives them value and holds their attention again, they continue to read, they read the call to action. They go to your Lincoln bio, they click on your name beside the hook or above the post. Then they scan your bio, click on the link in your bio, scan your link options, find the one that matches what they're looking for. And then they click on the link to get to your resource. That's 13 steps just to get off social media. Don't even get me started about the steps it takes to actually go through with the purchasing of your resource. I know what you're thinking, Cassandra, that's kind of intense. Yes. And now you see why conversion isn't as easy as tell people to go to your resource and the money starts pouring in. There are 13 opportunities in that chain of behavior to lose someone. So to get community members to our resources, we need to make it easy, we need that journey to be seamless for them. Now the journey I described isn't the only potential journey your community members can take on the way to your resources. In fact, there are several strategies you can employ to get people to that link. So let's chat about the options and when they make the most sense. The most traditional route is the one I just described above, you create a promotional post for one of your resources. And your call to action invites people to head to the link in your bio to gain access to that resource. Another way is to have people engage in a specific way to gain access to that link for the resource. Some examples would be dropping an emoji in the comments, commenting with a simple phrase having them DM you, and then you sending them the link. And finally, another way is to utilize the link sticker in your stories. Now all of these options have their pros and their cons for the traditional CTA in your caption, the pros would be less work for you It's kind of like a set it and forget it strategy, the invitation is there, the link is clearly labeled in your link to bio, they can navigate to it if they want. Also, people who don't love to engage don't have to say anything in order to get access to your resource, they can just fly under that radar and grab what they want. Now, the cons of this strategy is that there are a lot of steps to actually get someone to your Lincoln bio, so the potential for losing them and that journey is higher. Also, it's a little less personalized, because there's no engagement with the person who may be purchasing from you. Now, when it comes to using an engagement call to action, and then sending your community member the link, some pros there are that it's less steps than having to navigate to the link in your bio, they do a simple action, you pop a link in their DMS, they click on it and immediately see the resource. Again, that's a simplified version. But I'm not going to take you through all of the steps again. And this allows you to open up a conversation with a community member to help build that trust before the sale. Some cons here, it takes more effort, you need time to respond to everyone and to send the link and those people who don't like to engage might skip it. Now when it comes to using the link sticker in your story, some pros here are it's easy to implement, just copy and paste the link and add it to your story that makes it easy for people to navigate to they just click on the link in your story. And they get to your resource, again, less steps to lose them along the way. Some cons, it's a very clear promotion, people know right from the get go that you're asking them to purchase something from you. By the way, that isn't always such a bad thing. But when overdone, it can be a con. And they again, don't get as much interaction with you before the sale and you miss out on some of those nurturing opportunities. There, there's so much pressure this time of the year to buy more stuff from Black Friday sales to Christmas ads. But I don't want you to buy more stuff, I want you to get the right things you need to uplevel your business in this season. So that's why I've opened up my mini social media consults scheduled for the next three months. So that we can make resources that are going to get stuck in your downloads and courses that are going to go immediately to your desktop graveyard like thing of the past. Instead, you're going to get my brain and your business for a focus 30 minutes, so that you can make sure you have a solid plan moving forward. And you know, your social media will help you reach your business goals. This is not a one size fits all solution. Instead, you're going to get targeted advice that is focused on you and your business. And for Black Friday. And until these spots sell out, you're going to be able to get it for $47, which is the lowest price point these mini consults have ever been. We're talking transformational advice that will make your social media work harder for you. For less than a night out. This isn't stuff. It's the thing you need to get clarity and move forward with your social media marketing. You can grab your discounted spot right now in the show notes. But hurry, because once these spots that I've opened up for the next few months are gone, this price point will be gone too. I can't wait to make 2020 for the year that your social media marketing helps you reach all of your big business goals. So which strategy do you use? Which journey do you put your community members on? In a perfect world, a great social media strategy would employ all three of these journeys in some way. But we don't live in a perfect world. So here's my take. It all depends on your goals, where you are with your account and your own capacity. If you are someone who is pressed for time and you don't have the capacity to always be answering comments and sending DMS the Lincoln bio call to action might be your best bet for now. But you want to make sure that that journey is tight for your community members. So you want to focus your energy on providing scroll, stopping content, engaging and informative captions and pristinely organized and easy to navigate Lincoln bio page. And when you do have a little more time out in some journeys that include more interaction from you.

Now if you're looking to get more engagement on your account, to connect with your community and build that trust, and even gain more reach to bring more people into your community. Try out the engagement journey. I have people comment, a simple phrase, drop an emoji and then start a conversation with them in the DMS and provide them that link. The more engagement that's happening on your post alerts the algorithm that your content is interesting and should be seen by others. So this strategy can really help your reach and bring more people into your community. And then those conversations that you're having in the DMS will help you build a loyal community member base, who know like and trust you, and you're really helping to prep them for that purchase. If you have a lot of tried and true resources that you've promoted to across your feed, or if you've really cultivated an engaged community on your account, like people are liking commenting, showing up in your DMS, try using the story link stickers. When you're at this stage, your community members are more primed to purchase from you and seeing that link might be the only convincing that they need to check out that resource because you've already done the legwork. You have engaged and created authentic connections with your community members, and probably a lot of community members have already used your resources and know the value of your resources. Now as you get better at including social media into your schedule and have more capacity for it, try using a few different different options across the month. Your community members journey to your resources is so important. That journey, though it seems small is such a big factor in your conversion on social media. So be cognizant of those paths that your community members might end up on once seeing your post or story to get to your resource. tightening up the steps and each of those journeys can help make a world of difference. Okay, here's what I need you to do. In your next post or story. Send your community members on a journey to a resource that you haven't tried before. Maybe that's employing the link sticker in your story, or having them drop an emoji in the comments. Or maybe you've been doing a ton of like work and haven't yet tried out the Lincoln bio CTA or maybe you're even a little afraid of feeling salesy. No judgement here. Either way, give something new a try. I know it can be scary to experiment. But until we try all the options and have data, we will never know what truly works the best for us, our business, and most importantly, our community members. All right, cool coffee friends. Thanks so much for listening. If you're loving getting schooled in socials, make sure to subscribe so you don't miss an episode. Also, I would love it if you left a review so that other teacher authors like you can start getting schooled in socials too. All right, I'll see you in the next episode.