A few years ago Zoetica Media founder Kami Huyse was asked how she manages to show up all over social media to promote her own brand while at the same time serving clients at her agency. What they really wanted to know was, “did she ever sleep?”
It was an excellent question, leading Kami to sit down with a bunch of sticky notes to map out the pathway she’d taken, identifying several key steps. 📝
This sticky path eventually formed the basis of the free Pathway to Social Media Mastery she shares with PR and marketing professionals and clients.
Demonstrating how to stand out in a crowded market and get maximum visibility without relying on the whims of social media companies is at the core of the pathway.
“You have to future-proof your social media,” she said in a recent livestream where she shared an overview of her process and the six elements of social media success.
She also advises people not to get bogged down in the specifics of social media as these change over time, but instead focus on where they are in the journey.
“One of the most important things about these steps [is that] they are more about who you need to be than they are about the actual technical pieces of social media.” – Kami
Step 1. Explorer
“The Explorer step is about what makes you special,” she says. She suggests people ask themselves, “What is it about you that will attract people, that will bring people together?”
This includes identifying your superpower. One way of determining that is to look at what specifically people come to you for and what people regularly ask you about.
Another way Kami recommends identifying your superpower is by looking at the gap you fill in people’s knowledge. “What irritates you, what [are the things where] you think ‘people should know this, why do people not do this, why do people do this, I don't understand!’”
Step 2. Connector
The Connector step is all about how to attract followers and clients that are eager to work with you.
The best way to be a connector is by building a community of “people that trust you, people that rely on you and vice versa, [where] you rely on them and you trust them,” explains Kami.
Creating and being part of such a community is particularly important considering the transient nature of people on social media platforms. People switch from one to another when they no longer feel comfortable somewhere or when they feel their interests are better reflected or able to shine elsewhere. By being part of a community, you’ll see these shifts happening in real time and can move as well if and when the time comes.
Step 3. Architect
“You want to be an Architect of what I call your ‘hive’,” Kami says. “You want to have your own landing page, your own website, [and] you want to have that connect all of your social media parts.”
One way of doing that is by taking your content and sharing it across platforms. An example of this is Kami’s weekly livestream which gets turned into a blog post and is then shared in modified form in places like LinkedIn and Instagram.
“A lot of people [were] saying websites are dead, blogs are dead, everything's dead, and then guess what, five or six years down the line they're not dead anymore,” she points out.
Step 4. Creator
Prospective clients need to see you out in the world to know how you can help them solve their problems and achieve their goals. Creating content that showcases your knowledge and talents is a sure-fire way of making that happen.
That’s why “you want to have a way and a method to create content fast,” Kami says.
She explains that she’s able to create the content for her livestreams in about half an hour because she has a system and scaffolding in place. At my agency, “we have the content generator, we have all these different methods that we use inside of our business and also with our clients and also with our [Smart social Mastery] community group members.”
This also saves an incredible amount of time. “You need to have the scaffolding in place so that all you have to do is sit down for a couple of hours… and create all of your content for that quarter so that you can just execute it or implement it,” she explains.
Step 5. Attractor
Being an attractor means capturing people’s interest and then drawing them in in a way that brings them completely into your fold. This can be through a funnel, a landing page, an email list, or some other method.
Kami says she regrets having initially failed to do this. “The biggest mistake I made in my business early on is that I didn't have this in place. I just figured we'll keep in touch online, so I did not build an email list, [naively thinking that] as an agency owner I would just use word of mouth,” she admits.
She also notes that it’s essential to properly package your offers or services so they attract the right clients.
Step 6. Innovator
“Being an innovator and educating yourself is so important,” Kami says. “You have to be on the cutting edge of what's going on in this business right now and the only way to do that is by getting more than just passing knowledge. You have to take the time out to do this.”
Acquiring the necessary knowledge is critical, but so is having the right people around you. “Team building is huge…because you will not be able to do this all by yourself.”
If you have a full-time paid team in place that’s wonderful, but not always necessary, Kami argues. “You definitely have to have collaborators, and people that you work with, and people that you share the burden with because this is not a solo sport… social media is a team sport and you need to have that community around you… an inner circle.”
Kami dives deeper into these six elements in her live stream, which you can watch in full replay here. Plus, you can pick up the free minicourse to help you create your own pathway to visibility: http://bit.ly/pathwayvideoseries