How NOT to Use Social Media to Build Your Coaching Business (VIDEO)

If you’ve been using social media to try to build your coaching business – or really any other personal service-related business for that matter – and you’re coming up frustrated and clientless, you may be committing one of 4 major no-no’s and not even realizing it.

This week, I was invited to write a guest article for the Certified Coaches Federation on “Building Your Coaching Business Through Social Media,” so I made a little video for you covering the 4 big No-No’s.

After you watch it, I’d love to hear in the Comments any other No-No’s you’d like to add, or any stories you have of what has worked and not worked for you.  See you in the Comments!

xx,

Stacy

Social media is critical to building your life coaching practice, BUT – it will never truly work for you if effectively if you’re committing one of these four major No-No’s.

Especially if you’re committing all of them, which many people unfortunately are.

1.  Spray and Pray

Recently I heard Eli Davidson on stage at the Women’s Success Summit talk about the “Spray and Pray” method, and I was cracking up.  What she means is when you take your blog post, your video, or other content and literally just plaster it all over social media in the hopes that something sticks.

Nobody feels like they’re specifically being spoken to when you “Spray and Pray” and there’s nothing ENGAGING or INTERACTIVE about just posting your stuff and then disappearing.

2.  Failure to Nichify

There’s a reason why everybody is talking about niche these days.  It’s critically important.  Think about it:  If you need surgery, are you going to go to a general surgeon, or are you going to go to the surgeon that is most well-known for specializing in the particular type of surgery that you need.

Of course, you’re going to choose the latter.

The same is true when it comes to coaching.  If you just call yourself a general life coach, you’re not really speaking to or about anybody’s needs in particular, and therefore no one is actually going to feel that they are understood by you, or that you are touching on their point of pain.

You can nichify either in terms of WHO you work with, or the types of SOLUTIONS you provide and types of RESULTS people get with you.

3.  Playing Copycat

If you are trying to build your business through social media or in any other way, for that matter, the most important thing you can do for yourself and for your business is to truly be authentic about who you are, what you can do, how you can serve people, and really speak about your own life experiences in a way that will help them identify and connect with you.

There are times when I even recommend – and I do this myself – that you take a break from reading, watching, and listening to coaching mentors that you admire so you can reconnect with your own voice.

We do have a tendency as human beings to start adopting behaviors, manners of speaking, idioms – just by virtue of being around other people that we enjoy and like.  So sometimes you can accidentally copy somebody without even being aware of it.

If you feel like that might be happening to you, just turn that stuff off, reconnect with your own voice, and do you best to be the most authentic version of YOU.

4.  Hiding Behind the Computer

We can have a tendency to get carried away with social media that we spend so much time behind the computer and not out there meeting people, talking to people face to face, and doing high value quality networking.

Sometimes the best way to really be effective on social media is to get off of it for a little bit.