social media

Networking on Social Media 101

12 February 2016 in Guest Post tagged clients / coaching / connecting / Dr. Rhonda Anderson / marketing / networking / social media

In today’s guest post Dr. Rhonda Anderson shares some of her experience and knowledge with some practical advice:

Networking on Social Media 101

By Dr. Rhonda Anderson

"Networking on Social Media 101" Written By Dr. Rhonda Anderson

Social media has become a way of life and it impacts our personal and professional lives in a major way. There are millions of people each day sharing information about their lives, businesses, news, sports, and the list goes on. It is evident that in order for your coaching business to thrive, you must also utilize social media. If you are not using social media and you are successful as a life coach, then kudos to you. On the other hand, you are leaving a lot of money on the table by choosing not to be active on the world-wide web (www).

The one big advantage of using social media is that it is FREE! It adds tons of value to your bottom line when you market your services and products on these platforms. It is the first place people look to find you when you tell them you are in business. I am not a master at social media, but there are a few things I have learned that can help you with building your network full of potential clients to market your services to and to build a tribe who will respect you as a life coach. Below are a few tips to help you build your network without leaving your home. Especially, if at times you do not have time to do face-to-face networking. Below are a couple of things you can do to make yourself visible on social media and begin growing your network of potential customers and collaborators.

Get social! Choose social media platforms that are right for your coaching practice.
Establish yourself as a subject matter expert in your coaching niche(s).
Start and/or join groups and discussions on your social media platforms where your target audience is.
Don’t be afraid to connect with people you do not know. Add them to your network and establish a relationship before selling to them. Don’t be afraid to ask for a conference call or a face-to-face meeting if the person is local.

About Dr. Rhonda Anderson

Dr. Rhonda Anderson is a Life Transition Strategist and the President/CEO of A Scholars Touch, LLC. She specializes in Life, Education, and Business coaching. Dr. Rhonda serves youth (ages 12-21), adults, and entrepreneurs with obtaining success both personally and professionally. She has coached clients both nationally and internationally in group settings and individually. In addition, she is the co-founder of iNSPIRE Entrepreneurs and is the co-host of a web series called Changing Lives 365.

Web: www.ascholarstouch.com Social Media: @ascholarstouch

5 Google+ Features That Are Useful For Coaches

7 February 2014 in Guest Post tagged Chris Chaves / clients / coaches / connection / features / google+ / marketing / network / social media / technology

In today’s guest post Chris Chaves shares practical information and advice for coaches on using one of the fastest growing social media platforms:

5 Google+ Features That Are Useful For Coaches

By Chris Chaves

There are dozens of social media sites you can use to market yourself as a coach but few have as many features as Google+.

I’ve recently been spending quite a bit of time familiarizing myself with Google + and while I don’t claim to be an expert just yet, I did want to share with you an overview of it’s tools and features.

Here are some reasons why you should add Google + to your coach marketing plan:

Google + is one of the fastest growing social media sites out there. It surpassed LinkedIn and has more active users than any other social media site except Facebook.
Google + is integrated in Google’s search engine system so having a high number of followers in Google+ can greatly increase your search engine rankings.
Google + is also integrated into YouTube (which is also owned by Google). This makes it really easy to create and share videos (more on that in a minute)

Before I get into the various features within Google+, lets start with a quick lesson on how to access the menu bar (which is where you’ll find all these features)

Google and the Google logo are registered trademarks of Google Inc., used with permission.

Just hover over the home icon in the upper left side of the screen to open the navigation bar.

Google and the Google logo are registered trademarks of Google Inc., used with permission.

Here are 5 great features within Google + that you can use as a coach to market and deliver your coaching services.

1. Circles – A Great Way To Listen To Your Potential Coaching Clients

Google + is a great tool for listening to your ideal customers and you can use a feature called “Circles” to categorize people that you want to follow. Unlike Facebook, you don’t need to send a request to someone in order to add him/her to your circles. You can create as many circles as you like and you can add people to one, or many circles.

Once you add someone to your circles, you’ll be able to see the things they post publicly.

Here are some examples of Circles you may want to create:

Potential Partners
Other Coaches In Your Niche
Influential people in your niche that you want to keep an eye on
People who are in groups or communities within your niche (potential coaching clients)
Existing Clients
People you meet
Hangouts (anyone who’s attended your hangouts) – more on this later

People can’t see what circle you’ve added them to so if you add someone to a circle you labeled as “Potential Clients” or “Competition”, they won’t see the circle name. They will just get a notification that says you have added them to your circles.

2. Communities – Great For Listening, and Positioning Yourself As An Expert

Communities in Google+ are a lot like groups you find in LinkedIn or Facebook. They’re groups of people who are all interested in a particular topic. Joining communities that are focused on topics in your coaching niche can be a great way of listening to the needs of your ideal clients.

Communities also provide you with a great way to engage with other people in your niche whether they be potential clients, potential partners and/or other people who serve your ideal clients.

One way to engage with people in circles is to comment on their posts. You can also +1 their posts (which is similar to a Facebook “like”) or you can share their post with your audience. Of course, you can also create your own posts.

Much like LinkedIn and Facebook Groups, you can post tips, quotes, ask a question, and even post a link to your blog post every once in a while.

3. Video Hangouts

Google+ allows you to setup a video chat, or “Hangout” with up to 10 people. This can be great for having an online coaching session with a client, or for staring an interactive webinar that you can broadcast on your YouTube channel or on your website.

With hangouts, you can choose how public or private they are and you can set them up so they post directly to your YouTube channel so you can use the recordings anyway you like (i.e. you can post them on your website or send them to your list).

Just be careful with this though… I’ve seen coaches accidentally post private coaching sessions to their YouTube channel so you’ll want to practice a few times and familiarize yourself with these features before scheduling a coaching session or big event.

4. Events

Events are a lot like hangouts except with events, you can schedule them and invite people in advance. You can invite the public, certain communities, circles or individuals and like hangouts, you can also link these to your YouTube account so you can get a recording of the event after.

Events allow you to track RSVP’s and also integrate with Google calendars, which also make Events a great option for online group coaching sessions, periodic webinars, and presentations. Events also allow you to have a forum where people can ask questions while you’re presenting (like many of the popular premium webinar platforms)

5. Google+ Pages

You can create a page specifically for your business or coaching profile (very much like having a Facebook company page). Most coaches probably won’t need a page because they can just use their profile, but if you wanted to have a completely separate page for your business, having a Google + page may be the perfect solution for you.

While this has just been a brief overview of each of the features, my hope is that you’ll be able to take this

Here are a Few Final Tips…

Post frequently. This is one of the best ways to increase your following.
Add pictures and videos to your posts.
Add hashtags to your posts to help make them more visible.
Share and comment on other peoples’ posts.
Thank other people when they comment/share/+1 your posts.
PRACTICE these features with a friend (especially events and hangouts) before using them with your audience.

While I’ve only scratched the surface of Google+, my hope is that this post will give you enough of an overview to get started using this rapidly growing social media tool.

About Chris Chaves

Chris Chaves is the former Director of Sales for the Tony Robbins Coach certification program and is currently focused on helping new coaches get over the obstacles associated with becoming a successful coach through his Coach’s First Year blog.

He recently started The Coaching Success Podcast, in which he interviews other successful coaches to talk about their secrets to success. PLEASE hop on over to iTunes and give the show a rating.

Connect with Chris via:

Facebook: www.facebook.com/coachbiztips

Twitter: twitter.com/CoachBizTips

Google+: plus.google.com/+ChrisChavesCPC/posts

Google and the Google logo are registered trademarks of Google Inc., used with permission.

Using Coaching Questions to develop your Social Media Strategy

7 October 2011 in Guest Post tagged awareness / business coach / business coaching / charging / client / clients / coach / coaches / coaching / coaching courses / coaching qualifications / coaching skills / coaching techniques / coaching training / executive coach / Facebook / leadership coaching / life coach / life coaches / life coaching / LinkedIn / loyalty / measurement / Nicky Kriel / nlp coach / performance coaching / personal coach / personal development / questions / sales / social media / social media strategy / Twitter

In this weeks guest post, communications coach and social networking expert, Nicky Kriel shares how you can use your coaching skills when developing your social media strategy.

Using Coaching Questions to develop your Social Media Strategy

by Nicky Kriel

Are you using Social Media to help grow your Coaching Business? It is very easy to say you do Social Media as a business because you have a Twitter, LinkedIn or Facebook account, but do you have a Social Media strategy? So many businesses rush into setting up accounts without looking at the bigger picture.

Have you thought what you want to achieve through Social Media and how you will know when you’ve achieved it? It is so important to start with the end in mind; otherwise, you could get caught up in the chat, or find it to be an endless, mindless, unmeasured chore.

As a coach, have you ever asked your clients the following questions?

“What do you want?”
“And what will that do for you?”
“How will you know when you have achieved it?”

Have you thought of asking those questions to yourself about using Social Media for your business?

Here are some questions that will help you focus on what you want to get out of Social Media:

What’s the point?

Awareness?
Sales?
Loyalty?

Pick one! Your focus will be very different according to which one you choose. For most small businesses the point of doing Social Media will be to build Awareness. More awareness tends to drive sales.

Where do your customers hangout?

To answer this question you will need to have a clear idea of who your customers are. Which Social Media platform are they most likely to use? Just because you might be comfortable using Facebook doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be using LinkedIn if your business is predominantly business to business.

What’s your business about?

Forget having a few minutes to explain your business. Can you clearly state what your business is about in one sentence? The clearer you are about your business, the more customers you will attract. It is wonderful being warm and fuzzy as a coach, but if you can’t get your message across concisely, you will struggle to get new clients. On Social Media you have 120 characters on LinkedIn (The Headline) and 160 characters on Twitter (your Bio). People will make a decision whether or not to follow you or connect with you based on what you have written.

Do you have a list of keywords? It is worth spending a few minutes jotting down at least 10 words as your keywords. When you post updates or tweet are you using your keywords?

What’s your one Thing?

What makes you special? What is the one word that you would like to be associated with you? Disney has the word “Magic” and Volvo has “Safety”: So what word is yours? Are you consistently getting that message across on your website, in your bio and in your updates?

How will you know?

How will you know if you have been successful using Social Media?

What will you see? – (Will it be more visits to your website or more email enquiries?)

Hear? (Is it the phone ringing more often?)

Or feel? (Will it be the satisfaction of working with someone new?)

If you don’t know what success means to you, how will you know if you are wasting your time? If what you are currently doing on social media is not helping your business, you need to do something different. Start with the end in mind.

It is worth thinking about because Social Media can grow your business if you are focussed about using it.

About the author

Nicky Kriel, Guildford’s Social Media Queen, is passionate about empowering small business owners to use Social Media to grow their business. Her background is in Marketing and Sales and she is a Master NLP Practitioner.

As a Communication Coach, she helps people remember the “Social” aspect of Social Networking: It is not all about tools and technology, but about people and human relations.

Aside from her private coaching clients, she runs Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook workshops for business owners and bespoke courses for SMEs. Nicky really enjoys helping business owners to level the playing field by harnessing the power of social media.

You are welcome to follow Nicky on Twitter or like her “social media for newbies” Facebook page

Using social media to speak to your clients

30 September 2011 in Guest Post tagged blog articles / business coach / business coaching / charging / client / clients / coach / coaches / coaching / coaching courses / coaching qualifications / coaching skills / coaching techniques / coaching training / content / Delicious bookmarks / executive coach / Facebook / forum postings / Hubworking / leadership coaching / life coach / life coaches / life coaching / Mei Qi Tan / nlp coach / online communications / performance coaching / personal coach / personal development / repostings / social media / status updates / Twitter

In today’s guest post Mei Qi Tan shares her expertise about how you can use social media to benefit your coaching business.

Using social media to speak to your clients

by Mei Qi Tan from Hubworking

‘I don’t get this Twitter thing. Why on EARTH would anyone want to know what I’m doing, if I’m sitting on a toilet or picking my nose?”.

Sound familiar? I’m sure we’ve all heard this exclamation before.

Well, that person is right. No one is interested in you, and no one is interested in what you say. Unless of course, you’re saying something of interest to them. Using social media at its basest level is providing an unfiltered, running commentary of your day in thoughts, experiences and happenings. People who know you personally will probably find this more interesting than people who do not. For your followers, it’s the lure of inner-circle access and the empowerment of being in-the-know.

In a business sense, followers are customers, or potential ones at that. If someone is following you, then they’re interested in what you have to say. Creating a link between a potential customer and your business is easy – just make sure the ‘submit’ button on your website enquiry form is clear enough. Maintaining and growing that initial contact into a long-standing relationship between client and company however, is a different story.

Historically speaking, only large companies could afford to make their voices heard in the marketplace. Large budgets = More marketing. The rise of social media has allowed small businesses to be more competitive, foster a community online, and be able to attend to their needs personally. Using social media to speak to your customers creates opportunities for creative expression, and is an ongoing exercise in genuine customer service and new discoveries.

But social media is not the ‘new’ marketing. Rather, its rising use across generations and demographics represents a new tactic of marketing, particularly for building your personal brand.

Using social media for small business is like building a house, then maintaining it. The bricks-and-mortar of any small business or freelancer is your relationships with clients. The overarching structure holding it all together, is you. The furniture and objects you place in your House include your tweets, status updates, blog articles, Delicious bookmarks, forum postings, repostings of interesting content that relates to the business; in a nutshell, it’s anything and everything you say online. You are responsible for what you place in your House – if it doesn’t look right or more importantly, feel right, then it shouldn’t be there in the first place. If your clients like what they see, they’ll move in. But it doesn’t stop there – you’ll need to keep maintaining your property, and performing upgrades where necessary to keep your tenants happy and from moving out.

Maintaining these relationships requires a plan that is structured and strategic. It involves having to create a brand persona that’s consistent – constructed from the tone of your interactions with others (followers and dissidents alike), and enriched from related content you’ve discovered online that applies to your business and its customers. Using social media for your small business isn’t just about telling others what you think, it’s about listening, responding and anticipating what your customers might want. And if they want to hear about you sitting on a toilet or picking your nose, best to stick to a description under 140 characters.

Using Social Media for small business at a snapshot

Adopt a consistent and positive tone for all online communication eg. When responding to a complaint made in a public space like Twitter, always address the feedback publicly “I’m sorry for your bad experience, we would like to offer you a complimentary meal to make up for it”
Post content that is relevant – Not only should you post interesting articles or videos that relate to your business and industry, but you should also make sure your content is optimised with metadata tags and key words, which make it relevant to the search engines
Make sure your website is user-friendly – This is the base that all the content you post online should direct your followers to. If it’s not up-to-scratch, the only figures that will be soaring will be your bounce rates
Measure, measure, measure! Use free tools like Google Analytics to find out how many incoming links to your website are generated through social media. Have a look at Facebook Insights to see demographic profiles of who’s viewing your business’ Facebook page, and sign up for a bit.ly account to track the number of clicks and re-tweets of your links on Twitter.

About the Author/Further Resources

Mei has recently arrived in London from Sydney and is embarking on a Masters Degree in Electronic Publishing. She is also working part time for Hubworking, contributing to their social media activity.

Note from Jen; the owner of Coaching Confidence, this coaching blog: For those who don’t already know Hubworking provides Ad hoc, pay as you go meeting space for businesses in central London. If you are looking for a coaching or meeting room in this area it’s a great resource.

The Perks and Pitfalls of Social Media for Coaches 6

11 March 2011 in Guest Post tagged business coach / business coaching / charging / client / clients / coach / coaches / coaching / coaching courses / coaching qualifications / coaching skills / coaching techniques / coaching training / executive coach / Facebook / leadership coaching / life coach / life coaches / life coaching / LinkedIn / marketing / Nicky Kriel / nlp coach / performance coaching / personal coach / personal development / sales / social media / Twitter

This week, communications coach, Nicky Kriel shares her thoughts and expertise on the use of social media for coaches.

The Perks and Pitfalls of Social Media for Coaches

By Nicky Kriel

Are you using social media for your coaching business yet? If you are, how is it working for you? And if you are not, what’s stopping you? Social Media offers you a great opportunity to get more clients and build up relations with existing ones. Social Media is not about the Tools and the Technology; it is about people and relationships. And as a coach you are already good at that! If you have enough clients and are making enough money from your coaching business, you can stop reading now, but if you want to grow your business, I have listed five perks and pitfalls for you to consider.

Perks

1. Connect with a far greater audience than you could by networking or asking for referrals. Networking is fun and can be buzzy if you are extroverted, but exactly how many people can you meet at each meeting and how much time is it taking up? Networking online can allow you to make real connections with real people. I am writing this guest blog because I met Jen Waller through Twitter, I have never physically met her although I plan to have coffee with her when I am in her neck of the woods. Within two weeks of being active on Twitter I had my first coaching enquiry. I have never met anyone yet that I haven’t liked in real life after gelling with them through Social Media first.

2. Raise your profile both online and offline – Have you Googled yourself recently? Who does Google think you are? Have you had strangers walk up to you and say “You are……… you are a coach, I love your blog/tweets/Facebook page/website”? Have you been invited to do podcasts about your business? Or radio interviews? Or been quoted by someone else as an expert? All these things are possible without spending a penny on public relations. I know because they have all happened to me last year and they could be happening to you too!

3. Potential clients can get a taste of what you are like before they commit – Your personality comes through even in 140 characters and potential customers can sample bite-size pieces of what you offer. You build rapport before even meeting or talking to people. People feel connected to you if they can read your thoughts and opinions, see pictures of you, hear your voice or watch a video of you.

4. Meet like-minded people – I have met so many supportive wonderful people who are willing me on to succeed. Like attracts like. There are many people out there who will like what you are doing if your intentions are good.

5. Learn – Twitter has provided me with a wealth of information. There is so much information about how to do almost anything and most of it is freely available. YouTube is brilliant for learning how to do things too.

Pitfalls

1. It’s a marathon not a sprint – Things don’t tend to happen instantly. For Social Media to work for you, you need to be part of the community, which means you need to show up consistently. You don’t need to spend hours each day on Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn, but you do need to be there.

2. You can’t hide behind a corporate image – People do business with people they know like and trust and you will get further revealing your personality than using stiff marketing language. More people will connect with people than businesses.

3. There is no simple formula – If someone suggests you automate everything, please don’t pay attention to them. There is no substitute for personality. You need to build up your own quality network, engage with your audience as a person and not a robot. Anyone who thinks that simply feeding inspirational quotes into your feed is going to bring you business, needs to consider this: there is only one you. Why use the words of someone else when you can say it yourself?

4. Need to be conscious of what you make public – What you broadcast online becomes public and visible to a large number of people. Don’t put posts you wouldn’t want your family to read or to see as a headline in a newspaper. If you are a coach, telling people you are depressed is probably not a good idea. You always need to be conscious of how you market yourself.

5. Easy to get overwhelmed by Social Media – It is very easy to be overpowered by all the possibilities. It is good to start with a big picture of where you would like to be and have a clear intention in mind of what you want to get out of using Social Media. But remember this; you start all journeys with a single step. It is better to get to know one tool well before moving onto the next rather than trying to do everything at once and giving up.

If you would like to know more about Social Media, I write about Social Media regularly on my blog http://www.nickykriel.com/blog and I have started up a page on Facebook called Social Media for Newbies.

About the Author/Further Resources

Nicky Kriel came from a Marketing and Sales background before she retrained as a Master NLP Practitioner. As a Communication Coach, her passion is empowering people to reach their true potential. Aside from her private coaching clients, she runs personal development and social media courses for business owners. www.nickykriel.com

This is the second guest post from Nicky Kriel. To read her first one, 5 ways to make your coaching business successful, click here