Platform: Instagram

This strategy helps you to build your network of creators & gain engagement on your posts that never falls. 

• You need to find 10 established creators in your community.
• You need to find 10 fast-growing creators in your niche. 
• You need to find 10 creators at your level.

And engage with all these different groups of creators (or businesses). Why? First, you will build your creator network and can steal their audiences. 

As The biggest creators have their followers spending time in comments & you sharing your insights first can leave an impression on their followers + you may get follow back. 

The fast-growing creators are an inspiration for you to know what works & what doesn’t in terms of content & strategy.

And creators at your level are trying to grow like you. When you engage with them, they engage too. Making it easier for both parties to grow!

Platform: Pinterest

Use Lightroom presets: For your product photos, Fashion photography try to use adobe lightroom presets. With this, you can match the aesthetic to similar viral Pinterest pins. And do marketing for Pinterest very aesthetically. 

My Design Strategy: I simply audit the business client and look at their current business design. Visit Coloors, to generate different palettes to find the most relevant alternative color that is working on Pinterest. And advise them to create content in that design color, by doing that they won’t lose the appeal to other customers. While created mainly for Pinterest.

Callout: A huge difference between trying to create industry-specific design versus copycat design from tools like Canva. You need to understand the trend, not copy it. Find the common point in the design you need to target and design around that not the whole trend.

Platform: YouTube, TikTok, Instagram

A content series launched on a specific day like an Apple TV episode release. Gives the audience time to talk about it and builds the anticipation to watch the video on the day of launch. 

More than anything, this strategy leads to a better conversion rate for Viewers to subscribers’ conversations. 

• Pick a topic that you want to talk about and can talk about for a long period of time. 
• Build a framework around it and at the end always have an ending message for the viewer. 
• The message will be a reminder of more similar content and advice existing on the channel. Or leave them at an unwanted ending. 
• Do it for a series of videos at least 2-3 videos should be part of it. 

Why an unwanted ending? A Hero Ending makes the viewer happy. And happiness doesn't last forever, curiosity does. With this strategy during the first few parts of your content series have that unwanted ending. Then overdeliver at the Hero-styled happy Ending. 

Examples: Airrack’s Logan Paul series & Ryan Trahan’s Penny Series.

Platform: Instagram, TikTok

First, You do social listening to learn what type of content is making a spark in your industry. Try to make a list of competitors and pieces of relevant content. 

Second, Try to find the common structure or frameworks being utilized in those selective posts. For Example, It could be an Instagram aesthetic, Twitter Thread Hook, or LinkedIn Topic. 

Pick that one element and add it to your original piece of content. Why you do that is simple, A similar concept is already validated and working on the platform. You take the working element of that content and add your value to the original post.

But why not? Add everything from that viral content with a small change. Mainly because that takes the spark from your content away. You will be like all the other creators & businesses, jumping on a trend. 

And this is not a trend. This is a strategy to integrate working elements of another piece of content. To increase the possibilities of your content discovery on social media.

Platform: Google & Pinterest

This strategy stands for Copy, Copy, Action & Write. It is very simple and even though I didn’t write this guide to rank on Google. I used this strategy to do keyword & competitor research. 

Copy - Go to Pinterest or Google keyword planner, and search your industry topic. Copy the top-ranking keywords. And come back to the Pinterest In-app search box.

Copy - Search the Pinterest keyword and copy URLs of the first 10-15 ranking pins. And go to a website traffic checker. 

Action - The website traffic checker will give you insights on what keywords that blog or product ranking is on. And from my experience, most Pinterest blogs don’t rank high on Google. By doing this you have a chance to take action. 

Write - The action is to write a blog or product page copy targeting that specific keyword. By doing that, you will be able to rank on both Pinterest and Google searches.

Extra suggestion: If New to Pinterest & Web marketing, Educate yourself about long-tail keywords because in the starting you need to use them.

During the pandemic in the NBA bubble, Jimmy  Butler took the benefit and started a coffee business. And charged heavy prices for the same $4 coffee. Because the players did not have any changes. Only Big bills to hand over to Jimmy. But that was a one-time opportunity. 

A similar opportunity you get when you start your LinkedIn, Instagram, or Twitter account. The network plays a huge role in kick-starting your growth on social media.

During the 'The growth" social media algorithm breakdown, we learned that your network can make or break your account. That is why from the start try to build relationships with industry businesses and creators. 

Get that targeted engagement from the start to reach the most valuable audience faster. I know this is hard to implement because you might have an old social media handle. 

It is a little late, but not too late. Try to refine your network and create a new bubble to revive your organic growth.

I know there are well-known theories on Tiktok and Instagram that calling out “link in my bio” is social media sin. The social media algorithm will never forgive you if you say that! 

No, it is not the social media algorithm. Most of the time it is Human Psychology. 

First, many types of research suggest that people treat each other differently on social media. And this also differs from platform to platform. The more anonymous people can be on social media, the more different they treat each other. 

Second, We all don’t like to take orders from anyone. Using a simple CTA like buy my stuff “link in the bio” sounds harsh to many followers. They don’t express that feeling but ignore the content. 

That is why always have Indirect Call-to-actions and be creative with how you represent what you sell or want them to do. 

Coming back to the bigger point! 

The strategy is to utilize CTAs to the fullest, trying to connect with your audience in DMs or outside social media apps is possible with them. 

You can use templatized CTAs, they are only one Google search away. But the best ones will be crafted by you with practice & understanding of your audience. This is all you need to implement this strategy and own your social media audience.

Because CTAs like “Share Your Story” or “Like to Support”. These sound more like an order, rather than Callouts to socialize and connect. So, you need to be more aligned with the topic to craft the right CTAs. Especially with both LinkedIn & Twitter announcing that replies are the most rewarding organic reach factors. Your CTAs should be top-notch.

Starting, I recommend not using the “promote” button within the IG app to run Ads. You need to use Facebook Ads Manager to create Ads & target your potential followers. The first thing you need to know about using Ads is that running Optimized & converting campaigns for your business is something you learn with time. 

That’s why first I will recommend you either have a budget for testing different Ad sets or hire an Ad Expert.  And in my experience, 50% of businesses & marketers end up doing these things. But what they don’t do is secure their growth for hard times.

Instagram Ads easily become an asset for marketers in their mind but most of the time Ads are a liability because they never focused on community & brand building. I see a variety of brands with $1000 per day budget for Ads but their follower count remains the same. Yes, you are getting the order but why the buyers don’t become part of your brand & community? 

Because the buyer clicks on the Instagram  Ad and visits your website. Forgets to join the brand part of your company, only remains a random customer. For that reason, I always tell marketers to have more social-media-friendly copy on Instagram Ads. Plus, In the caption always have your brand tag mentioned. That helps, many times users visit your profile through only caption tags. Because that’s where their focus exists. 

Strategy: Have Clear Brand Tags in Instagram Ad Captions & Copy that encourage users to follow. Because even if they don’t buy, leaving a follow on your profile is a great starting point. Compared to them visiting your website & never coming back. 

Your IG content is there to win them as customers after the following. Isn’t it?

Platform: Reddit & X (Twitter) 

The way Reddit works and survives without creators is a “community lifestyle”. Think of Reddit as Old Age living, people living together. Everyone knows everyone and they trust each other. On Reddit, no one knows each other but they know each other as Redditors. And believe me, you have to build that image as a Reddit user because, like Old Age People, Redditors can smell promoters & spam threats. But overall you get how Reddit works. 

To explain the strategy, it simply means you have to put forward a question in the form of a Reddit post. In that post, you share a review of a product and that would be your offering. Then, you will tell them that you tried this product & looking to know what alternatives are in the market. 

People will share competitors with you. But at the same time, they will check out what you shared. But make sure you check the history of that subreddit. If they have strict users, Add another competitor you tried in the original post decreasing the chances of getting caught as a promoter. 

Other ways to execute: A more simple way is “ask a friend”. Post the original question with no product of yours. And then get your friend as a disguised Redditor to share your product as an option.

Extra Points: You can benefit a lot from Reddit if you do the SEO research first. I have a few posts like this one that didn’t go viral on Reddit. But those posts get traffic from Google search causing people to come back & ask new questions. ( I have 11 moderated comments on that post from people pitching affiliated links)

Go to a tool like Ahrefs or Google keyword planner to find Top performing keywords with “Reddit” at the end. Ask questions about those keywords on different subreddits and win new users for your business or Startup.

For Twitter: It’s simple you ask a highly engaging question and follow up with your answers in a reply to that post. And you can include your own product. 

There are two creators I know executing this strategy very successfully: Amanda Natividad & Matthew Kobach (scroll deep as he’s been inactive lately). Or check out brands like Mcdonald’s & Calvin Klein on X (Twitter). 

The center of a great social media strategy focused on building a personal brand should always be “sustainability”. The way I pursue Personal Brand Building for Clients & Myself is “don’t build a funnel or a Data tracking practice”. You should build a joyful practice of executing strategy. 

Most strategies are hard work and personal brand building is a work in progress forever. For that reason, you have to make sure that at least 5-10% of the time you enjoy the process of brand building. 

How do you do that? First, Creating Content about your strong points & true behavior. One of the biggest mistakes most make is being untrue and then they stress out. Causing them to quit. Don’t try to seem perfect to everyone, Your online brand is personal to you. It’s more about showing up on LinkedIn comments, Instagram Lives & Twitter replies and helping without an ask. Not about cutting off your skin trying to look perfect. 

Not to be political but Personal Brands like Donald Trump have a more loyal audience because he looks more truthful not trying to correct his personality to different audiences. He remains true to one audience and that trust from one fan base moves to more people. And Trump can use that strategy for an infinite amount of time because he isn’t stressing out. 

And I know he doesn’t enjoy his strategy all the time. Neither do most people. Find a sweet spot of 5-10% of the time being happy about executing your strategy. And continue on that road, because the process never ends. You will change, the strategy will change. But you will always hold onto a consistent social media presence because you didn’t chase growth instead chose sustainability to build a community.

Scenario 1:

Have you ever got out of an event? Feeling blank. Maybe it was Gary Vee telling you “Storytelling on social media is the key”. And then you go home to your family, everyone is scrolling through TikTok or IG. You ask if anyone can tell me a story they saw on TikTok from a brand or viral creator. They all go silent, now you feel blank again. I thought Gary told me “Best content has stories” but My family sees no stories on their feed. You also feel the same, Social media is just random people telling random shit or showing outfits. Before you felt the sadness of losing money on the event. You asked yourself, even without stories, you spent hours on Tiktok. Why? 

Scenario 2: 

You live in New York or London, and saw this new coffee shop on the block called “The Blank Street”. And it was the best coffee you ever had even though they don’t use the best coffee. The Barista was talking to you the whole time. What’s the secret? You are blank again. 

The Strategy/Secret: 

The secret is “You stop doing things that don’t matter”. Social Media is like a famous street. How awkward it is to stop someone and share a story with them. For me, too awkward. I assume the same for you. 

You tell the story after the connection is there. Right? Until then, On social media or in real life, The Audience builds the story in their mind based on the context you shared within a video or conversation. You don’t literally tell the story. 

What happens when you tell the story? You stop the audience without any context, they listen. And leave talking how crazy you were, what a crazy guy looks like he has nothing to do in his life. That’s how we talk about random strangers approaching us on the street. The feeling is the same on social media, without an ask, no story is needed. You f*ck the situation up, or should I say it never crosses a few hundred views. 

Storytelling on social media happens in the mind of a viewer. Your job is to only provide the right context about your business, and cut the random bullshit & unwanted information. 

Storytelling on social media requires the skill to control the narrative.

• It is telling who you are while using as few words as possible. 
• It is about why you speak, giving the validation point. 
• It is NYC girls building an image in your mind, by not speaking in videos. Only showing outfits to tell a story. 
• It is about where you are in your life to talk about the issue. 
• It is about using visuals that represent your brand, instead of showing the whole company building. 
• It is about changing the tone of your words from warm words to powerful words. Moving from showing empathy to expertise.

Overall it is about not stretching the context as a brand or creator, It is about limiting it. And let the people pick the pieces to build a narrative about you. You keep them blank about what your business fully does, and that’s what all big brands also do. Big Firms control the PR about them, you control the content you create on social media. 

Social media is the new PR model for building the narrative about your business. And it is all about what gets out of your business, not what you tell.