In a business, continuously growing means making room for the new. As you grow, you add on and adapt. This also means you will start to market on multiple platforms, and how you build your audience and gain leads can be measured in SEO (Search Engine Optimization). How searchable are you? Are you using keywords? Are you using those words correctly? In marketing, what you say and how you say it matters. Whether you reach your target audience or not can be determined by what words you use to describe yourself/your business. Let’s look at an example, if you describe yourself as a mental health professional, you may reach a small part of your audience, but when you use key descriptive words you will reach your ideal audience. So, instead you would say “I am a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist who helps couples and families achieve secure attachments and adapt assertive communication styles”. The more descriptive the words, the better.
I have often run into this issue in my social media marketing as I tend to lean towards broader terms to be inclusive. Again, that is why you’re here; to learn from my mistakes so you can skip a chunk of the trial and error. Of course, finding keywords that work for you can take some time. So, do your research, and don’t hesitate to try new things! It took me longer to recognize keywords because I wasn’t sure who my target audience was. I knew I wanted to work with therapists, but how could I have known who specifically I wanted to work with until I started working with different therapists? I also needed to understand my market strategy. I needed those trial and errors to see what content did well, who responded to it more, and what caught my audience’s attention. I had to learn how to fraise something to catch the reader of guard and think, “Oh I have to see where this is going”.
I killed my business doing this
Did you know a person can make a snap judgment in less than 3 seconds of the first impression? The infamous psychologist Alex Todorov says you can make this snap judgement within 1 second of seeing someone’s face. Those odds rocked me to my core before I even knew the statistics. I have always been the one to consume myself in how I am presented, especially first impressions. This has led me to be more reserved upon initially meeting as I need a chance to observe the situation and my environment first. In social media, you don’t have the opportunity to do this. Your words are all you have. So, that first sentence better be good. We call this first sentence a “Hook.” You have to hook your reader in order to reel them in. It could be as simple as a flashy emoji or something with razzle-dazzle like, “I killed my business doing this” just like I used as the excerpt in the heading of this section. If you are reading up until this point, it worked. Do you see where I am going with this? You have an important message and an audience for it. That message means nothing unless it reaches its audience, and by using keywords and properly researching SEO you will be placed right in front of them. Not only that, but you will receive increasingly better engagement because your hook kept them reading to reach your point.
Once you learn to write a message directly to your ideal viewer, the rest will fall into place. You will connect with like-minded people, build your own community, and turn them into resourceful leads. The power of words is rooted more profound than those words alone. For instance, saying brown, dull, and tasteless to your significant other means nothing, but when you put those words next to them, asking, “How was dinner last night” I guarantee you, you will be on the couch or silently glared at for the rest of the evening. In conclusion, it’s not what you say… it’s how you say it. Providing context and clarity through a description can ultimately be the difference between gaining and losing a client.
How will you utilize this new skill?
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