EXPAND YOUR NETWORK WITH SOCIAL MEDIA As a Coach, you want to tell the whole world how drinking Shakeology daily has changed your wellbeing and share the benefits of Coaching. The more people who hear your story, the more your business can grow. To get more people to join you on your journey, consistently focusing on expanding your reach on social media is vital. It will take skill, strategy and time but use this guide to help you put some simple tips into practice and see better results. What Does it Mean to Expand Your Network? The term expanding your network refers to the process of using shared interests to identify, find, and connect with more and more people every day. Expanding your network is how you: Build Your Tribe a community of Customers and Coaches that help each other Create a platform for sustained business success Experience the greatest joys in Coaching from helping more and more people Understand the Basics of Social Media If you re new to social media, or would just like a quick refresher on some best practices, make sure to check out our Social Media Best Practices guide. As a general rule, you ll want to focus your efforts on 1-2 social media platforms. The two most common platforms for Coaches are Instagram and Facebook because they re the largest in the world and they re well suited for connecting and building relationships with people.
The 3 Guiding Principles of Expanding Your Network: 1. CONNECTION IS CRITICAL Know Your People to Find Your People In today s social media world, the people who build connections are the people who have influence. Posts alone don t grow your business, it s the conversations that come from posts that have resonated with people that will result in success as a Coach. Creating connections comes when you focus on the person before the product and when you spend more time promoting who you are than what you want people to buy. If you try to invite someone to join a Challenge Group before you ve made any type of a connection with them, your chances of success are small. 2. YOU ARE YOUR BUSINESS. YOU ARE YOUR BRAND Let Your People Get to Know You Make sure your social media profiles are a clear reflection of who you are and what you want your business to represent. People buy you before they will buy anything from you. Limit using words and phrases like Beachbody Coach to describe yourself. Coaching is something you do, it isn t who you are. People will connect with who you are and then are interested in what you do. 3. BEAT THE DRUM: CONSISTENCY OVER INTENSITY Repetition develops skills consistency builds followers followers create your tribe Be consistent in how you engage with your network. Consistency matters not just in how often you post, but the consistency about the topics you post about. Every post is either helping to build the brand you re creating and the tribe you re attracting or its eroding it. Being purposeful with your posts doesn t mean they have to be long and overly-complex; it means they need to strategically align to what you re building in your Coach business. Expanding Your Network Getting Started (for newer Coaches) Every Coach starts their business with a warm market, or a group of family, friends and acquaintances they re connected to, but, even if you re a newer Coach, you ll want to start expanding your network beyond that group immediately. There are some simple ways that anyone can do this: Look for friends of friends on Facebook. Look at their page and if they seem to have interests similar to yours, send them a friend request. Use the Memory Jogger to identify people you know but that you aren t connected to on social media and then send them a friend request on Facebook or follow them on Instagram In-person connections are invaluable, so don t forget to look at your life outside of social media! Give someone a quick call or setup a time to chat over coffee and share your story and what you re doing. 2
3 Steps to Growing Your Warm Market Expanding your network is really just working to expand your warm market to include more people every month. There are some simple, proven steps to doing this on social media. Step 1: Have a Clear and Consistent Identity Create clarity and focus for what you want to represent on social media. Don t try to create an artificial persona; instead, focus on a few key interests and values you have to be more memorable and to foster connections. Be yourself! What are your top 5 interests? What are your top 5 descriptors? 1. 1. 1. 2. 2. 2. 3. 3. 3. 4. 4. 4. 5. 5. 5. What are your top 5 core values? Step 2: Know Who You Want to Attract Connecting with people on social media happens when your posts speak to them. Create an effective avatar by putting yourself in that ideal Customer/Coach s shoes. Go deep into the psychology of the ideal Customer/Coach to really get to know them. Start by making a list of the characteristics that represent the person you d most enjoy working with: Demographics Age, marital status, kids, education, social or cultural interests Interests, Hobbies, or Occupation What do they spend time doing? What do they do for fun / work? Personality Type What is their personality like? Words that describe that person How would their friends and family describe them? In-depth Understanding What are their top priorities right now? What excites them? What worries them? What do they hope others see / don t see in them? How can I Help them as a Coach? What would be their interests as a Customer / Coach? What hesitations would they have? 3 After you ve described your avatar, take the time to create an image of what he/she looks like, give him/her a name and write a description of him or her next to the image. Print
this image out and keep it somewhere you can see it often. Make sure every post speaks to this person. Gather Your Tribe Gathering your tribe will be a combination of you finding them and them finding you (attraction marketing). To do this, look at the words, descriptions and insights you gained in Steps 1 & 2. Use what you identified in Step 1 to help you focus on what things to share on social media and the key words to use that reflect you. Use what you identified in Step 2 to help you create posts that connect with people you want in your tribe. It is important that a portion of the time set aside for your business each day should be dedicated to proactively gathering your tribe on social media. Create Conversational Content If you create content with a conversational style, not just in the video, but in the captions and Instagram Stories, you are starting multiple conversations with one piece of content. Here are a few tips to make content more conversational: Get into a closer distance of the camera, be the distance that you would be if you were having a conversation with a friend. Hold a cup of coffee, sit on your couch, create a more intimate setting as if you were inviting friends to join you in a conversation Loosen up! Talk as if you were meeting a friend and use language you would always use Take the Conversation Offline No matter the social media platform, once someone shows interest with a post, it s time to take the conversation offline. Send them a private message and engage in a conversation. Review the following best practices for gathering your tribe both Facebook and Instagram. 4
INSTAGRAM: THE VISUAL CONNECTION Make Your Description count: You only have so many characters to tell people who you are and what interests you. Use the universal language of emojis and put together a description based on your interests and make use of your one link (unless you use Linktr.ee). Make your Pictures count: your grid of images on your profile has to look like a collage. Make sure to take the time to create good images, use filters and practice good photography skills. Make Your Hashtags Count: be mindful of the hashtags you choose, are they relevant to what you want to promote and who you want to attract? Make sure the hashtags you use are bringing you quality, so do your research on them. Use Hashtags to Target Your Avatar: Create a list of 11-25 hashtags that you ll use with every posts Search for hashtags related to your 5 interests/descriptors/values exercise (Step 1 above) Only use hashtags with more than 5k but less than 70k people using them so your posts don t get lost. You may have to modify your hashtag slightly to do this. The hashtags will help direct your post to your avatar by identifying it as something they might be interested in. As people comment/like your post, send them a direct message to start a conversation Use Hashtags to Find Your Avatar: Look at the results found when you search for the hashtags you re using in your posts and if you see someone you think you d connect with, comment on a few of their posts and see if you can get a conversation started. Search the hashtag of brands/companies/products you like and see who else is commenting on those posts. If you see someone you think you d connect with, reply to their comment, like a few of their photos, start following them and see if you can get a conversation started. Instagram Stories: Make your followers feel like insiders throughout your day with quick videos that engage them. Plus, your followers don t have to scroll through their feed to see your story post, it s at the top of their home page. Keep these posts to things that are small and basic, but the best use of Instagram Stories are the Call to Action posts: Your Call to Action stories must be SUSPENSEFUL and INTERACTIVE Announce a Coach Sneak Peek or the start of a new Challenge Group Recognize a new Coach or Challenger and tag them in your story 5
FACEBOOK: DEEPER CONNECTIONS & CONTENT Be Consistent and Engaging: Facebook uses an algorithm to try and help surface the posts it thinks will be of greatest interest to a user at the top of their Newsfeed. The higher your post appears in someone s newsfeed, the more likely they ll see it. To help your posts be seen by more people, think of two words: consistency and engagement. Consistency: o Facebook likes people who are consistently engaging with the platform and posting o Look at your interests and values identified in Step 1 above and post about those things consistently to establish a better brand identity for your business. Engagement: o Posts that get Reactions are rated by Facebook to be more valuable than posts that get Likes (or no interaction at all). Posts that are vulnerable, funny or emotional will get more reactions than posts that just inform. o Facebook likes videos, especially LIVE videos on the platform. While videos do get preference, Facebook looks at the completion percentage of people watching the video to decide to push it up or down on the newsfeed. Keep your videos engaging, use statements in the video post that create curiosity about the video itself, and try to keep the videos short to improve the completion percentage of people who watch it. Join Common Interest Groups: Using the interests and descriptors you ve identified for yourself and your ideal Coach/Customer (Steps 1&2), search for related groups on Facebook. Try to join 2-3 groups for every interest you identified with the goal of starting 5 new conversations from these groups each day. Don t try and sell in these common interest groups, these are just places for you to meet new people. Jump into the conversations that are happening, add-value to the group, give sincere comments and compliments. As you do this, you ll find that more and more people are joining your network on Facebook that have common ground with you. Use Facebook Events to Run Free Groups Facebook is a great platform to introduce people to the benefits of having you as a Coach. Running short and simple free groups where you bring people together for a specific objective is a great way to add value to your network, to find your next Challengers or Coaches, and to expand your network. A couple of quick tips to use free groups to expand your network: Make sure the privacy setting of your event and posts promoting it are set to public Ask people to tag a few friends as part of the requirements to join the free group Take advantage of scarcity. You only have room for so many people in the group and communicate that the group is filling up as people join. Your Group should have something that has a slight transformation for the person joining. What will they learn? How will it help them? Promote the benefits of the group. 6
CREATE CURIOSITY TO STAND OUT There is a lot of noise on social media today. More and more people are using it as a platform to promote their business and products. As a result, people on social media are tuning out those messages. To stand out, your posts shouldn t try to sell. They need to help build connections and create curiosity. You want to hint at what you re excited about, about what s happening in your life, without giving all the details. Example: DOESN T CREATE CURIOSITY I m soooo excited to start this Core de Force workout program from Beachbody! It s a month-long MMA-style program can do it in my living room and it comes with a meal plan so I ll keep my nutrition on point! I m so excited for the results, you ll see a new me in 30 days! CREATES CURIOSITY I m soooo excited to finally get started with this new workout program! I m done with the excuses and ready to lose at least 10lbs! I can do it from home, which is going to make it a lot easier to stick to Ideas to Create Curiosity The Set Up: Ever wonder why TV shows show a two minute clip before the theme song? It s called the teaser and it s simply designed to capture attention and create curiosity. Highlight a struggle without going into all the details and that you re working to overcome it. Hint at a subtle truth that you may or may not agree with and ask for their take on it Dispel myths: use video headlines like what will I try next or what I really think 7 Leave Gaps: Share your stories in moments instead of the entire journey. Think of the little moments that are the point of conflict in your head that you worked through during a transformational period in your life. People will try to fill in the gaps and engage more with the post! The Close: As a content creator, you have a story that doesn t end. So when you want someone to come back the next day for your videos or for your Challenge Groups, you have to create suspense through a technique called the Cliffhanger. Your viewer has to finish your video thinking, what happens next? Breadcrumbing: A great way to create curiosity is to hint at, or speak in general terms, about your story and the benefits of Coaching / Beachbody. If you re new to breadcrumbing, try this: Look at your 5 interests / values / descriptors from Step 1 above and then identify five ways that Beachbody has positively impacted those things. When you post, mention at least one of those ways you identified
Don t try to sell, focus on sharing the feelings/emotions and let people be curious about the details behind them. Example using Interest/Descriptor/Value from Step 1 above to create a post: Interest: Being a great mom Descriptor: Caring Value: Freedom DOESN T CREATE CURIOSITY This morning I made this healthy breakfast for my kids and they loved it! I m so grateful for the freedom I have, thanks to my Coaching business, to spend mornings like this with my family. I focus on helping people each month to reach their health and fitness goals and the income it generates has allowed me to stay home so I can have mornings like this! CREATES CURIOSITY I used to never have time to fix a healthy breakfast for my kids. I d run out the door to work, feeling a little guilty that we re starting the day on cereal. I made a decision a year ago that changed that...a decision anyone can make. Today, I m not rushing out the door my kids get all of me every morning and I m so incredibly grateful for that. 8