Leverage Social Media | For Print On Demand
Using Social Media To Grow Your POD Business
This is a must in today's market place. whether you are in POD, Affiliate Marketing, Etsy anything, corporations and small business turn to social media.
The amount of followers and interaction you receive helps with Search Engine rank and gives social proof to what you're doing as a business.
Be careful as always positives can quickly turn negative, I am in no way an expert in this area, but understand some of the basics.
There are even some businesses that do not have websites, simply running on social media platforms.
Here we will show a super simplified look into social Media and let you draw your conclusions to POD applications.
Here we will show a super simplified look into social Media and let you draw your conclusions to POD applications.
A Few Basics
Today people are quite rightly so annoyed to no return with ads being shoved down their throats.
Just look at the platforms in Q4, especially in November/December. There isn't a post that happens without a few PPC ad campaigns running in between.
A lot of ads do convert on platforms for sure, but it's not always a great idea to just attack and try to sell stuff to everyone without being useful.
What's The Answer
You must offer value as well, not just sales. Like this blog, I have absolutely zero affiliate links (except Etsy) and I am ultra transparent. Some would say its foolish, maybe so, but I tried that and didn't like it much, this is more fun.
I don't pay for this and who knows who it can help, I remember starting out, going in some bad directions being ripped off etc, till someone helped me a little (they never realized how much)
I would like those free listings in Etsy, and I would love it if someone bought a t-shirt from me, but if not its still good, if I get traffic to some listings, even if they don't sell it builds credibility.
Start a page, an interest page, like-minded people page whatever page. Offer free advice.
Share ideas, get an experienced person to partner with you on the page. Don`t hard sell, it will work.
Get a few friends to join, start to get mentioned from other groups, that you should join, and be active and helpful in.
As you build, slowly put out the ideas of paid subscriptions or coaching or... your product etc.
The idea is to build an audience of not only like-minded people, be they would be entrepreneurs, but a group of people that buy things, ;) But its a totally targetted user base, and they find you.
Don't underestimate the power of social media, that's how I got ripped, more than once, though I do hope you ate not one of those I Con men.
Pinterest
Another of the big five Pinterest is a different one . There as many ways to build or use this platform as there are platforms, it's hard to keep up with what people say to do or not to do.
The idea is the same don`t hard sell, offer some content and repin a lot.
Start boards that appeal to you and fit your niche. Find pins to fill those.
There is a formula for how many pins you should make to how many you repin, personally, I don't follow that I do what makes me feel good.
Probably not the most successful way but its fun for me too. I grew a huge audience and tons of daily views just repinning for a while then let it slide and have started to rebuild this year the way I want to.
I find this to be a very perplexing platform, there is definitely a way to build your brand or business up using it.
It`s not super complicated, and I am not sure why I find it hard.
There are quite a few great interviews with very successful people that do super well there on YEP youtube...
Using pictures if it hasn't changed ( certain colors etc change in their popularity yearly)
bright white backgrounds and really white pictures are the in thing.
From all the feedback I have ever heard Instagram is the best platform to build that brand/ business on.
Watch who you follow and who you accept as a follower, just to make sure they fall into line with what you are all about.
I would be remiss if I didn't mention Twitter.
This is a pretty good way to sort of connecting with people but is so fast-moving that you as mentioned in another post almost have to spam.
I know it could work, I did get a couple of sales there but I spammed the crap out of them, posting nothing but sale items in Q4 by the dozens.
All in all it may be better used to steer people to other areas.
Youtube
If you like doing video go. This is a huge and sophisticated platform that serves the second most searches on the internet every day, only Google is bigger
If you can build an audience there man you have it made.
You can earn a ton, we all know about the child who killed it doing reviews :) smart parents!
I'm not a good personality for that unfortunately, I wish I was.
There is a ton of different ways to market and make money on your own youtube channel.
Hashtags
All of these platforms (FB is doing something, but I'm not sure on this)
Instagram, Pinterest and of course Twitter all rely on hashtags to shoot your keywords or content out there.
Though Pinterest s now less on the hashtag and moving more toward organic search results. But the tags still are important, just don't over do them.
Follow Or Be Followed
Again this is an area of contention, most say it's better to be followed and not follow as many, your following should far outweigh who you follow.
If you get that, I do and I sort of think it is correct, but I also think to build a bigger more organic following, you still have to follow, but be choosy.
I started following this past month bigger people,, with many followers and daily views, let's see how that works out for me.
As mentioned there are Social Media Content creators and Pros that know and understand all of this better than I ever will, follow them and watch them on youtube, they are there for sure.
Be Yourself
This is probably a well-overdone statement, but a really true one. You are not out to set yourself above people here.
Don't be some faceless corporation or a heartless money grubber, show that your a human being, be a human being.
Let your personality guide you, we all have one, even though mine is hard to find sometimes, um introvert, definitely :)
Don't be afraid of that be as honest as you can and be true to what you are doing, your passion will show and this is what can really take you where you want to go.
I have experience in this area, in my other job I have become an authority and it is a passion that helped me get good, and completely understand the field I am in.
Though this is a very minor scrape at the surface I hope you have at least started to think about the possibilities of POD and social media.
Take action get your accounts set up or reordered to focus more towards your business with a few things focusing on interests.
If you have anything to add here or a comment or question leave that below and I will answer or as soon as I can
Best luck and Have fun moving your POD business forward
EJ
In Closing
Though this is a very minor scrape at the surface I hope you have at least started to think about the possibilities of POD and social media.
Take action get your accounts set up or reordered to focus more towards your business with a few things focusing on interests.
If you have anything to add here or a comment or question leave that below and I will answer or as soon as I can
Best luck and Have fun moving your POD business forward
EJ
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