Five Key Ingredients to Optimize Organic Social Media in 2022 featuring Elyssa Bloom

We have so many options in 2022 to market our businesses, and an organic social media campaign is appealing to many business owners because it is FREE. But the truth is even though organic social media posts do not cost money, running a successful social media campaign for your business takes time! And most business owners do not have very much time to WASTE! 

There is no better way to learn, than talking to an expert themselves. So I wanted to go to the guru, the smartest person I knew that used social media for her business, and helps other businesses use social media to market their business to make more money. 

May I please introduce you to Elyssa Bloom of Bloom Digital Creatives?

Welcome, Elyssa. Can you tell me a little bit about your business before we get into it? 

Thank you so much for having me. I am the owner of a digital marketing agency, Bloom Digital Creatives. My team takes over anything from content creation, virtual assistant services, web services, and my personal favorite - social media marketing. 

Because it’s important to keep our audience interested, sometimes we have to use different tools to engage with a potential client to close a sale. Why do you recommend that businesses use organic social media? What do you think is so great about it?

So if you think about the psychology behind social media, it's social. While marketing as a business, you have to remember not to be salesy, but to keep it social. Through this interaction, you're making a friend and a connection. This ultimately leads to: leads in sales, new connections and referrals.

This is because people like to work with people they trust, right? It’s great to know that you can build trust with social. I like that, it’s essential to have trust as social media is constantly changing. Would you mind sharing your top five key ingredients to optimizing organic social media in 2022? 

Like you said, social media is always changing, and there's just so much that goes into it, but I could definitely share my top five ingredients. I  kind of already touched on my first ingredient, but I would say the first thing is to keep it social, and remember that it's social media.  I know that not all business owners feel comfortable posting their own faces or their families, but there's other ways to go about it. It’s important to do whatever you feel comfortable with. But do your best to open up a little and share some things. You could post a photo of your morning coffee and say, “How do you take your coffee”? That alone makes you human. You drink coffee, and most likely so does your follower.

We can definitely talk about coffee, I like that! What's your second key ingredient?

Build, like, know and trust. I recommend having a four part series, and just do a pattern and cycle through them. A post on ‘like’ would be, “Oh my gosh, I watched The Bachelor last night”. Something that your ideal client could relate to. If my ideal client watches The Bachelor, I might post about it to humanize my page, and get my audience to like me and connect me with a little better.It’s important to be genuine, don’t just make something up.

So what I'm hearing you say is, think of something you could have in common with your ideal client, and then share what you like about that thing, like watching The Bachelor, and then that will endear them to you?

Right. Because you want someone to like you first, and then you can get them to know you. And again, that comes back to the coffee, or, “I have a dog”, just a little bit about you so your audience knows you better. And the trust is that you know what you're doing in your field. So testimonials, knowledge, tips, anything about your business is important to share.

Educate the audience on what you know. That sounds good. How about the third ingredient?

Engagement. I do think this is quite possibly the most important part of social media. Especially for Instagram. However, it  is important for Facebook,TikTok and LinkedIn as well. You can have the best content out there, but if you're not talking and building relationships on social media, then you're not likely to get too far.

Don't you agree that it’s so easy for your client to engage with you and you to engage with them. So people should take advantage of having those genuine conversations? 

Yes, yes, exactly. It's all about trying to keep it genuine. Talk to people that you'd actually want to work with, or that you'd want to socialize with. I made several online friends, and one of them was actually just visiting from Washington this past week. So that was so cool to spend some time with her!

How fun! I have a friend Lynley, she's a realtor in Miami. She's really embraced Instagram to build her know, like and trust in the community. Because she's seen that it's really helped her referral business. When people that know her hear of someone that needs a realtor, they think of Lynley because she's always in their feed. I brought it up because she's at a realtor conference this week in Texas, and she said it feels like her Instagram account has come to life, because all the other realtors that are active on social media, they've all found each other on Instagram, and now she's seen them in person. So it's pretty cool! 

That's awesome. I love that.

I'm with you. I think when you talk to your audience, and you answer any questions they have that definitely builds trust. They trust you because you've answered. But also if they start talking back to you, it makes them feel as though they can rely on you for that specific niche. I think it's just such a golden tool for closing sales. So what's your fourth point?

People often forget about their bios on social media, but I like to think of a bio as your business card. Often in the bio, you can only have a certain amount of characters. So you have to squeeze in all the information at once. But if you think about it as a business card, drop the contact information because that's already given on all the platforms. And just think of two sentences that you would share about your business. 

That’s a great point! Sometimes if I have room, I say ,”click the button to book a call with me”! 

Yeah, especially if you're a freebie or a lead magnet, definitely include that in your bio. And then you can just drop an emoji pointing to the link, because Instagram has a link section so you don't have to include that on your valuable bio space.

That's such a good idea! What is your fifth key ingredient to optimizing organic social media?

I wanted to talk about video content. I do think that is super important these days thanks to TikTok. All the platforms are now wanting you to use it, but it doesn't have to be complicated. It could be any form you want. It could be long. It could be short. It could be real. It could be funny. It could be made on Canva. But people are wanting to watch videos, so give the people what they want.

If someone has never done a video on Instagram before, what do you think is the easiest place to start? With a reel, or just turning a camera on themselves?

That's a great question! I think it depends on the person. Scrolling through reels on Instagram, and just using the audio is a great place to start! They also have templates now, so it's super easy. That is personally how I started. For other people who feel comfortable just talking to the camera like, "Hey, this is Elyssa. I have five social media tips for you today," and just talking, that would work, too. For someone who doesn't want any video of themselves on social media, creating a reel on Canva would work as well. 

Oh, great. I don't think I've tried making a reel on Canva, but it's as easy as everything else. Canva's the best. Thank you so much for those tips.

You're welcome. Thank you so much for having me!

If people don’t have time for social media, but they want to use it to reach some new customers, would you consider doing it for them?

Yes! My team and I would love that! Our website is bloomdigitalcreatives.com, and our Instagram is @bloomdigitalcreatives.

Great! Thank you for sharing that! Elyssa, it’s been a pleasure talking with you. Your five key ingredients on optimizing organic social media are so helpful! I will definitely be implementing these points into my Instagram strategy, and I’m sure others will be doing the same! 

Thanks so much for talking about all things Instagram with me today! Talk to you soon!