Social Media Tips Every Coach Should Know

In this episode, we tackle a pressing question for many coaches: How do you use social media to attract and secure coaching clients? 

Whether you're new to social media or have been relying mostly on referrals, this episode is packed with practical tips to help you build a strong online presence and create meaningful connections with potential clients.

We'll cover three key steps: 

1. optimizing your social media profiles to clearly showcase your coaching services 
2. Treating social media as a networking platform to build long-term relationships, and engaging effectively in groups where your ideal clients hang out. 

By the end of this episode, you'll have actionable strategies to enhance your social media game and start attracting more coaching clients.

Tune in to learn how to leverage social media for your coaching business, build trust and credibility, and turn online interactions into real coaching opportunities. 

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--------------------- Who Is Michelle Kuei ---------------------
Hey There! I’m Michelle! Your Visibility Marketing Coach, content and Email Marketing Strategist, Motivational Speaker, Author (…And soon to be your new business bestie!)

I help female coaches to simplify marketing so they can get seen, get heard, and get paying clients (..even if you work a full-time job!)

My job as your coach is to:

• Help you build a one-of-a-kind personal coaching brand with you so your business stands out and position you to be the authority within your coaching niche.

• Teach you how to develop marketing strategies that is aligned with your vision and value with the RIGHT brand messaging to attract your dream paying clients.

• Develop a simple and easy way to market your coaching business without being overwhelmed and burnout.

• Help you develop a course and membership...

Chapters

• 0:03 Leveraging Social Media for Coaching Clients
• 9:04 Building Trust and Credibility With Clients
• 15:47 Attracting Clients Through Sharing Expertise

Transcript

Michelle: 0:03

Hey, you're listening to Make it Visible Podcast. I'm your host, Michelle Kui. I am a visibility marketing coach and soon to be your business bestie in the coaching business world.

Michelle: 0:13

Not knowing how to connect with your audience, grab people's attention and get them excited to buy from you should never be the reason you give up on your dream to become a full-time coach. I'm all about making marketing the easiest part of your coaching business, so that you can turn a passion for coaching into a visible and profitable reality. So buckle up, ladies, let's get started. Today we are going to talk about how do you use social media to actually get your coaching client. I know this question had came up from a lot of coaches, including my clients. So I'm very active on Facebook, or some of you might not even be active at all. You're trying to use social media to get your coaching client. Now, let's say you've been relying primarily on referral. Then you'll probably realize that at some point you're going to cut off your referral because there's only so many clients who can refer you. Let's say you're working with someone for an extended period of time and then that relationship comes to a term. Then you're relying on that person to send you more referral and that referral takes time to actually build and for them to trust you and to actually want to hire. You Think back to your own journey, right, when someone say, oh, that coach is great and you should work with that person. What do you do? You go and observe that person for a while before you actually consider booking a call with that person. So same thing with your referral system. If you're relying solely just the referral system, at some point you're going to run in a place where you have a big gap between the next client and your following clients, right, this client versus the following client. So this is another reason why we leverage social media a lot, because you need to create that online presence so that there's more people finding you or discovering you and actually building that relationship with them in the long term. So you would be able to invite them to a discovery call. And if you have not been using social media, chances are you don't even know where to begin. So how do you leverage your social media to attract and get coaching clients?

Michelle: 2:22

Now, one of the very first thing that I teach and show all my clients to do is, first of all, let's say you're using Facebook as your primary one, or you're using LinkedIn, whichever one that you want to use, right, when I go to your profile, can I tell right away that you are a coach and this is what you do, even if you don't have enough content to show that you are a coach. Yet there's a few very basic elements that you need to have on your profile. Right when I go to your profile, have you optimized your banner? Does your banner tell me a little bit about what you do? Because you want to treat your social media profile as if someone who landed on your profile they can tell immediately who you are, what you do and whether or not this is for me. Right? Because people have a very short attention span, so you don't want to spend a whole lot of time asking them to browse through and read your posts. If I were to share my screen right now when you go to my profile, you're not going to see all my posts and the thing that you see is actually just the top of my profile. So, without even scrolling at all, can you show and demonstrate your visitor that this is who you are, this is what you do, and that visitor would do just two things, right? They're either going to bounce because this is who you are, this is what you do, and that visitor would do just two things, right? They're either going to bounce because this is not for me, or they're going to stay because you have something that they want, a topic that they're interested, or maybe you have an identity that's related to them and so it makes them wanting to stay. But that's only taking the three seconds, right. Three seconds, that's all it takes for someone to decide whether or not this is for them. So that's your step number one.

Michelle: 4:09

You want to make sure your profile is optimized, or you have the banner optimized. It doesn't have to be a fancy tagline. It could just say that I am a certified professional coach and I can help you on stock and reach your full potential. That's where I started. But at least give people some type of context as to why they should start paying attention right who you are and why should they pay attention. And there's a lot of segment. And even if you go to LinkedIn, right LinkedIn profile also has similar format. So, no matter which platform that you are on, you always want to make sure you have your front door put together, cleaned up already, so that people can land and they can decide whether or not this is for me.

Michelle: 4:54

All the elements that you see on Facebook or on LinkedIn. You want to make sure they are optimized. And what are some of the elements that I'm talking about on LinkedIn? You want to make sure they are optimized, and what are some of the elements that I'm talking about? Does it have a to your website or to book a call with you? What do you want your visitor to do when they land on this page? Do you want them to book a call? If so, then send them to book a call. And you also want to use your banner as a call to action. Hey, I know you landed here and this is something that interests you here. Book a call and grab a spot on my calendar. So it's clear that people don't have to go like this, right? Because when people start scrolling, you're actually asking them to do more work, and when people have to do more work, they'll just tend to bounce and they don't want ever to come back. So that's your first step in optimizing your profile, and then the next step is you want to start considering that social media as a big networking place where you get to meet a lot of different people, different personality, and there's all people coming from all over the world and people share struggles and celebration and there's all these life stories. That's on this big giant network place. Once you recognize the fact that it's a networking place.

Michelle: 6:03

Okay, when you go to network, there's a couple of things that you look for. You're not there to just looking for a client. You're there to, first of all, you want to meet new people. You want to connect with maybe it's like-minded individual, someone who's also like you, who's also a coach. Or perhaps you're more intentional, you say I'm just going to be here and I want to get clients out of this. I get it. That's the bottom line, that's the end goal to all of this.

Michelle: 6:35

But how you start that relationship is by getting to know that person. And how do you get to know that person? If you think about your everyday conversation or everyday activity or interaction with people, you don't just go up to someone and say, hey, I'm a coach, would you like to hire me? No, you don't right. So you start with a small talk, things like tell me about your life, tell me about your kids. Your kids play soccer, my kids play soccer too. Let's talk about soccer. Or maybe you enjoy watching movie and someone else also enjoy watching movies. So you start with the very everyday conversational things, start inviting your audience to have conversation with you. So initially it might not have anything to do with coaching, promoting yourself or selling your service. Initially, it may just be a conversation that you're having with people. And so take that idea of I'm here, I'm very intentional, I want to get a client out of it. If you have that mindset, if you have that intention of I just want to be a client, then you are not going to be very successful.

Michelle: 7:41

Because the way that these social media works, it works by creating and building relationship. And how do you build relationship? You want to be more conversational. You want to start engaging. Right, it's not always a post, promotional post. Here's me, here's this is what we call, here's what I have to offer you, here's my lead magnet, here's this. So take that away and just go in and with the mindset of I am here to learn more about that person, I'm here to see what I can do and help, or see what I can start with a conversation, or see what I can participate in a conversation. Conversation will see what I can participate in a conversation. So that's step.

Michelle: 8:20

Number two is you want to treat this as a big, giant networking place where you are building relationship and having engagement. Now how do you actually engage with someone? Let's say, you found a Facebook group that your avatar, your ideal client, is hanging out. So the way that you engage first of all, I talked about building relationships so you want to just start very casual, small talk. Tell me about your interests, right? So you start with the interest. You start with the things that you have in common or things that you like, and find out if there's anybody out there who's also sharing the same interests. Start from there and I promise you you're going to get a lot more engagement and more conversation as you build this out.

Michelle: 9:04

And I'm not saying that by tomorrow you're going to have a whole lot of audience, right? But I'm saying that if you use and follow these strategies, you're going to start building that audience and people are more willing to talk to you and they're more willing to pay attention to what you have to offer in the future. So think about it in the long haul, I'm going to build this up so that I can leverage this current audience to help me to spread the word. So the word of mouth. It's really powerful. And how do you do that? You start with the immediate audience and you build that out. So what I'm teaching you is a long-term strategies. Do you do that? You start with the immediate audience and you build that out. So what I'm teaching you is a long-term strategies where you build that relationship, you earn that trust and you earn that credibility, you earn that engagement and then, every once in a while, when you throw out an offer, people are more willing to help you and spread the word or, if it's right for them, they're going to want to book a call.

Michelle: 10:01

Okay, so that was step number two. Step number three is, once you found one of those Facebook groups where your ideal client is hanging out, how you engage them is basically you go in there and you look for and pay attention to what people are sharing. What are some of the things and frustration that people are sharing, and how can you help as a coach, to provide feedback, to provide advice. Maybe you're hesitating, you're holding back and giving advice because you're thinking I'm a coach, I cannot give advice. Yeah, that's true, only if you have clients. But if you have no clients, then you wouldn't have to worry about giving advice, right, because they're not your clients. So giving advice is totally okay and if, as a coach, you can get advice, as long as that's not your client. So that's a mindset you wanted to share.

Michelle: 10:56

Yes, you cannot give advice as a coach, but that person is not your client. They're not paying you yet, right? So it's totally okay to share your opinion, share your advice, as long as you help someone. And once that person see the value of how you, as a professional coach, can offer, then that relationship change, because now you are not supposed to give advice and you are supposed to help that person discover their own answers. So there's a shift in the role that you play. So initially, when you're inside these group, it's okay to share your opinion, it's okay to share your advice, and then that's where your interaction starts and that's how people see the value of what you bring to the table.

Michelle: 11:35

And I'm not talking about, just like, the value you provide as a service provider. I'm also talking about your personal value. When I hire a coach, I want to make sure that that person's personal value is aligned with mine. If authenticity is important to me, I wanted to make sure that I work with the coach who also value authenticity and transparency, right? So how do we discover each other's values? And personal value is through these everyday interaction and sometimes, when I have an opinion, I'm going to share my opinion, and so that's something that you also wanted to keep in the back of your mind as you're going there to engage in these groups, knowing that this is someone that you don't know and a resource that you can help, then by all means share that resource with that person. And so there's a lot of coaches who also come to me and say, michelle, but wouldn't that be like giving away too much?

Michelle: 12:30

So the thing is, you always want to walk in and you want to over deliver. So someone asked you a question over deliver it. Right, don't hold back and don't say that if you want to have more of this, let me know, pop into my DM. That just to me, it just sounds spammy, right? So, in order to avoid that, what you want to do is you want to go in there, go into the group and if you're going to provide resource, go and provide resource for that person so that person can find you helpful. If you're just going to hold back and like information, oh, if you want more, I'm a coach and just pop into my DM. That is going to send off a really poor signal for the person who's receiving it right. Are you going to be helpful? If you are be helpful. So that's my two cents in terms of how you engage with your ideal clients inside those groups that you found you want to be there with the intention of I'm going to be here and be helpful. And how do you be helpful? When someone asks a question and you have the answer or you have the advice, show them, give it to them without holding it back, without saying that, hey, if you want more, pop it into my DM. Or hey, here's a link, go and sign up. No, be helpful, and the people are going to see that. You'll be surprised how many people actually are lurkers. Right, they are not commenting on any of the posts, but when they see a question or questions that they also have, what they're going to do is they're going to linger around and reading the comment, and you'll be surprised how many people will reach out to you because they have read the comments inside the group that you are in.

Michelle: 14:03

How you show up doing one thing is how you show up doing everything. So, when you show up inside these groups and if you want to attract the coaching client, number one is you want to make sure your profile is up to date. It's clear. People know, without scrawling, who you are, what you do and who you're trying to help. It needs to be clear. That's step number one.

Michelle: 14:25

Step number two is you want to build this as a long-term relationship, so it's not just going to be promote and hopefully someone will sign up. What you want to do is you want to invite people to come and have a conversation, and sometimes it starts with a small talk with hey, I'm going to be doing this on the weekend. What are you going to do? And you start to learn that people are willing to participate in the conversation with you. It helps your algorithm, it helps for your next post, when you have something that you wanted to promote, because now you have earned your trust, because you're building that relationship right without selling them anything, without promoting anything to them, people are more willing to help you to share that post if you ask them. So that's step number two. You want to invite people to have that conversation with you, and that is a long-term strategy.

Michelle: 15:18

It doesn't happen overnight. You have to be committed, you have to be willing to put up the time to commit your daily as part of your daily thing and it doesn't take. It doesn't have to take long. It takes 5-10 minutes out of your busy day and you can. You'll be able to do this. And then step number three is you want to find one of those groups that your avatar, your dream clients, will be in and you wanted to go in there and you want to start providing value. And value means that sometimes, if you have the resource, share the resource. If you have an opinion, share the opinion. If any advice that can help someone to get unstuck, share that advice, because essentially, that's how you start attracting your clients to you. Okay, so I hope this is helpful. Let me know what your question is so that I can help you answer these on the live call, like what we did today. Hey, go out there and go get them.

Speaker 2: 16:16

Thank you for listening to Make it Visible podcast. If you love this episode and want deeper support for your coaching business, head over to elevatelifecoachingorg and see how we can partner together to turn your passion into a profitable business. I help female coaches launch and scale their coaching business faster than ever, without wasted time and money, filling the gaps in your marketing strategies, creating a simple and easy to follow system so you can accelerate on the path of coaching business that you love to wake up to. Head over to elevatelifecoachingorg and grab a free strategy audit today.