Have you gotten one of those DMs from a random person going, “Gurl your work is amazing! I wish I could do what you do!” 

So you respond with “thank you and I’m glad you like it” and all of sudden this person goes into pitch mode telling you how they can help you make money or grow a following or start a business.  Kind of annoying, right?

And now that you know how that feels, you pretty much have an idea of what not to do on your social media platforms. Especially, when you’re using it to sell something.

There are better ways to market your business than dropping into people’s DMs with unsolicited, icky, sales pitches and in today’s episode, we’ll talk about the different personas you’ll encounter online so you can avoid being one of them. 

We all know how marketing is crucial for our business and these days there are various ways to show our potential customers how we can be of service to them. One of the easiest and most accessible way is through social media. Social media platforms are free and fairly easy to use. You just sign up and you have an account but, not many people know how to properly use them for their business, especially when it comes to building their brand and establishing the know, like, and trust factor with their potential customers. 

I’ve been using social media platforms for years  I first started using it as a way to share what’s going on in my life, things like the food I’ve cooked, photos of my kids and our travels as a family, and the artwork I was creating. It’s how you got started on these platforms as well!

Over time my use of these social media platforms have evolved into what it is today –   marketing tools that I as a business owner use to promote what I do.  

And in the years since I’ve begun using it as a marketing tool, I’ve learned quite a number of things when it comes to social media and how to best leverage it. But today, we’re going to focus on what NOT to do or better yet – WHO YOU SHOULD NOT BE, especially if you want to see growth and establish trust with your customers. 

Now to make it interesting and easy to remember, I decided to create 10 different personas of these types of marketers we’ve all probably encountered online.

So let’s get to know them, shall we?

1. The pretend friend – they send you DMs and approach you telling you how good your work is and how much they admire you. They’re secretly waiting for you to respond and take the bait. And when you reply with as much as a Thank You, they’ll immediately hit you up with a message saying their business is rapidly growing and they need people like you who are ambitious and dedicated to helping others. Clever aren’t they? The message sounds personalized but doing a business pitch right off the bat is a major turn-off.

2. The needy one- you’ve known them for a while. Have followed their accounts for quite some time and admire what they do. So one day you finally decide maybe they’re the one who can help you with what so need so you send a message inquiring about one of their offers. It’ll start with a simple hi/hello and business intro. You’ll talk about your struggles and challenges but after talking to them for a while you realized it’s not what you’re really looking for. So you politely tell them, ‘thanks for taking time to share but I don’t think it’s the right fit. However, you’re soon flooded with follow-up messages trying to convince you to take the offer. And no matter how many times you say NO, they just won’t stop in the hopes they’ll wear you down and give in. Don’t be needy, it’s creepy!

3. The show-off – they keep talking about their achievements, how good they are, how pretty their work is, how many clients they have, how people love their art But the one thing they never talk about is how they can help you! Show-offs only share self-serving posts and never about helping others because they want people to see how good they are. Eventually, people will get bored of them and hit the unfollow button.

4. The chronic complainer – ugh. They have nothing good to say about practically anything. They find problems for every solution. They find faults and issues even on the smallest things. They play the victim card and look for someone or something to blame when things don’t go their way. Avoid being like this type of persona, it’s hard to trust a complainer.

5. The abuser – of hashtags! You know what I mean. They keep repeating the same hashtags or using unrelated ones over and over and are not intentionally using them for good. I’m pretty sure we’ve all done this at a time or two. When used strategically, hashtags are a great way to be found by the right people. So don’t just copy and paste the same hashtags from your notes app. Be intentional when you use them and use them wisely.

6. The obsessive – They always talk about numbers – they monitor their following every single minute of the day, the likes, the comments, and how people are engaging with their content. They obsess about statistics and analytics to a point that it paralyzes them from actually doing the things that are more helpful and important in their business, like creating content that actually helps people.

7. The trend-follower – they care about what’s the newest, hot thing on the planet more than they care about their brand and their core offering. They follow trending stuff like a toddler who can’t decide what toy they want to play with next, flitting from trend to trend – calligraphy one day to brush lettering to typographic food art, all in a bid to get people’s attention and go viral. They don’t understand that it’s affecting their brand growth and instead of wowing anyone, they’re just confusing their audience because they’re hyper-focused on their end goal – having more followers. And doing this might help them get the following they want but those numbers could end up being followers who you can’t convert as customers.

8. The “seener” – They see your DMs but choose to ignore them. Either they’re busy and they really just have no time to respond to you or they’re too high and mighty and don’t think you’re worth replying to. Don’t put your potential customers on the seen-zone, it’s not a good place to be in especially if you want to build trust with your audience. Treat your audience well.

9. The overdoer – they put out content multiple times a day to the point of exhaustion because they want to grow their following, get more eyeballs on their work, and sure you get growth but what’s really at stake here?  They sacrifice their time for family, their sleep and they don’t get enough rest just to get all of these done and to no one’s surprise get burn out faster than a match stick and they end up abandoning all efforts. 

The ghost –  you see them once in a while and then they’re gone. They can’t seem to figure out the right way or the right platform to show up consistently so they chose to just pop up or not even show up at all. Why? They don’t have a clear marketing plan and strategy to get their business out to the world.

Alrighty! Those are the 10 types of personas you find online, now I know the way I described them can be a bit harsh and if you find it so or you may even feel a little personally attacked or defensive. Know that it’s nothing personal and I’m here to help you with a dose of tough love because at the end of the day, what I do here is to ultimately help you grow your business.

So if you identify with any one of these persona’s, leave me a comment below. I’d like to know which one so I can help you with what you can do instead.

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The Elite Creators Inner Circle