Why You Need To Use Social Media For Your Coaching Business

Not all coaches agree about the efficacy of using social media as a way to build a coaching business. Whether you are growing a practice aimed at personal development coaching, executive coaching, or other forms of coaching, social media can be an important ally.

Using social media outlets such as Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and Facebook can be an easy way to give a boost to your professional brand and niche as a coach. It can differentiate yourself from other coaches, and can drive clients your way. Social media can help you clarify your voice and your offer to the world. {Tweet Now}

Online social communities are great places to refine your view – things that matter to you and might resonate with others – on topics such as creativity, being “at choice,” or leadership. The more consistent you become, the more you will be recognized as a source for this material and perspective.

Unless you chose to utilize social advertising, social media posting is free, giving you opportunities to market as an individual in ways that could not have been dreamt of 20 years ago.

Start small, selecting only the channels that are most popular with your target audience. Begin with what feels manageable and fits into your life easily. and commit to engage with it daily, even if only for ten minutes.

If you are noticing some resistance to using social media, or if your saboteurs are kicking in, this could be a great opportunity to practice co-active principles. You might pose these inquiries to yourself:

• How can social media support your values? {Tweet Now}
• What will you say “yes” and “no” to in order to use social media? {Tweet Now}
• When you empower yourself and tweet or post a blog, what perspective do you want to consciously choose to come from? {Tweet Now}

Once you’ve aligned your goals with some methods, and are willing and ready to jump into the social media pool, here are a few basic guidelines for three popular social media platforms.

There are an increasing number of coaches taking advantage of Twitter in ways that do not monopolize their time or mind space. Some keys to using Twitter as a coach:

• Tweet at least 5 times per day at various times, in order to maintain a presence. That can include retweets of other coaches or organizations, as long as you keep engaging people.
• Become known for specific content. For example, post original tweets and re-tweet content about co-active principles such as values, purpose, and transformational change.
• Use images. According to many research studies, tweets with images draw significantly more re-tweets by others than plain text tweets. Pick images that appeal to you, and include a quote on the image itself (by using easy tools such as the excellent Over app) or in the text body. Even include your web URL on the image if you’re feeling crafty.
• Use hashtags to engage with larger conversations and to drive interest to your tweets. We like to use #coaching, #coach, #CoActive, and #ItsYourWorld, just to name a few.
• Build your follower base by following others. Start by following those who follow people similar to you, who may like to read what you share. While not everyone agrees on this strategy, growing a large following can help you expand your reach exponentially.

Many of the principles from using Twitter are the same for Instagram.

• Hashtags are even more important on Instagram, allowing you to fill the space with hashtag topic links. People surfing Instagram do so by tags more than almost any other means.
• Post at least once per day. Include your web URL in the body of each post, or on the image itself.

If you want to build your executive or organizational coaching practice, you need to use LinkedIn. It has been widely adopted by the business world, for many purposes beyond just job searching. Some of the most successful leadership and coaching bloggers – Daniel Goleman, Lolly Daskal, Zig Ziglar, and Dan Rockwell – post on LinkedIn regularly.

• Post at least once per day, but not more than three times. More means you will be disregarded as a LinkedIn feed-spammer.
• Reposting other articles, especially if you include a personal comment (2-4 sentences) about what you learned from it, is a great way to start.

With each of these venues, you can use automated posting tools such as Hootsuite or Buffer to save time, loading in a batch all at one time, but scheduling them to post over multiple days. Don’t post to multiple platforms all at once, and remember that the formatting of images or links can be skewed across platforms, so live posting sometimes works best.

As you use these social media tools, notice where you may be feeling overwhelmed, and stop and breathe. Consider reducing your activity level so it feels manageable. If, however, you find you’re on a roll, celebrate your successes!