Hate social media?

Hate social media? So do I.

But I also manage to reach almost 20 million people a year using it... (find out how)

Most of us don't actually like using social media.

But here's the reality.

Imagine you're running a cafe. You don't like washing up. So you don't do it... and what happens?

Imagine you're running a B&B. You don't like making beds. So you don't do it...

Those dreaded tasks are an essential part of running a tourism or hospitality business. 

If you want visitors to visit your business, you need to do some marketing. 

You have some marketing choices.

You could pay a fortune for loads of ads and hope for the best - you'll probably be disappointed.

You could build a great website and hope that visitors find it. Like by magic, and thanks to a little work on your search engine rankings. And hope that AI tools find your site and mention you too. You'll be probably be disappointed. 

You could do loads of special offers and hope they pull in the crowds. You'll probably be disappointed - and lose money. 

You could stand outside your business and shout 'roll up, roll up'...

Or you could recognise that good marketing is integrated marketing, where different promotional tools like websites, mailings, word of mouth, and social media all need to work together to get you results. 

Social media is free to use. If you do it properly, it can take just a few minutes a day.

Social media can bring you new visitors. It can remind previous visitors about you. 

Social media can drive traffic to your website. It can influence whether you get mentioned in AI searches and questions. 

Social media can help you build your mailing list. It can help you amplify word of mouth recommendations.

Social media can help get you more good reviews. It can help show people who've never heard of you why you're good at what you do. 

Social media can help you get visitors and bookings, without paying commission to agents and third parties. 

Considering it's a free tool, and can be quick to use (I can teach you how to make it quick), social media is a really powerful tool. 

It doesn't matter whether you like it or not. It's part of most marketing now. It's the reality of running a business. 

There's one thing that will help you enjoy social media more.

When you know what to do, how to make it quicker and easier and see that you're getting results, social media actually becomes enjoyable and satisfying.

I still don't like social media. But I recognise its power, and when I look at my professional dashboard and see how many thousands of people I've reached, that I couldn't have reached in any other way, I do have a grudging recognition that it's worth my time. 

It's perhaps counter-intuitive but I found it's much easier to do if I post quite frequently. It takes less time, brings more results when I'm consistent. Before I spent longer dreading doing it and moaning about it. I'm not wasting time on that part any more!

You don't have to write perfect posts, take perfect photos - in fact it works best when you don't. 

I'll be explaining how to make facebook more effective, how to do it quickly, how to increase followers and engagement and make it more integral to other marketing activities on this Zoom call on Thursday, 15th October