How to use social media as a course creator
One question I get often is how should I show up on social media for my audience. The cool thing about social media is you can show up online and reach people all over the world. But you need to be intentional about what you’re doing online. Here are the best strategies to use the online space to be most effective at reaching and impacting your audience.Set yourself a publishing scheduleThe first thing you want to do is to decide how often you are going to produce and share content . You will also want to determine which social media accounts you will want to use. I always say create an account in every social site but determine which you will be most active in. Start with 2-3. Once you determine this you can determine what platforms you’re on you can create a more strategic approach.Understand your audienceIt’s important to understand your audience inside and out. What are they looking for? What kind of content are the interested in? Determine and see what time of day are they most active online? Are there are big named people in your market they follow? Look into that and you will gain a lot of insight.Set goals for your contentIdentify what you hope to do with your content : are you hoping to share your course so that people will purchase? Are you hoping to share your expertise? Are you wanting to show the behind the scenes ? Are you hoping to connect with your audience ? If you want to most connect with your audience it’s best to do a blend of all three. So take some time to work out your key messages and goals. Come up with ideas that both fit your short term and long term goals and bring value to your audience .Get CreatingYou can save time by batching your creation process, film several YouTube videos at a time, if you’re in a writing mood batch out your blogs for the month or record multiple podcasts in the same sitting. I record my videos for two weeks out all together and just change up my outfit. I write my blogs out for the month. And doing my podcasts in one sitting is always great because I don’t have to worry about recording set up once I get it all together.Schedule your postsIdeally it’s best to plan out your content at least a week in advance. I plan out my entire week on Sunday. Some days I come up with new and creative ideas and I’ll add those, but even if I have a crazy day I know I have content I can always pull from. The goal is to have a steady flow of content when you’re launching and when you’re not.Repurpose contentEach piece of content (a blog post, a video, an audio recording) can be posted on more than one social media platform and it can be repurposed. Meaning you can take a blog post and use it on a podcast or video. You can can take a video and turn it into a blog post. I do this all the time . I will take one piece of content and create an email, expand on that and make a blog post and then after that I will use it to create a video or podcast. The possibilities for repurposing your content are endless.At the end of the day, a content calendar is only as useful as you make it. Use the calendar as a guide to share your marketing ideas and your book.
