Do’s and Don'ts of Having A Social Media Presence

Guest blog by Graciela Moore

Graciela Moore is a motivational story-teller and creator of the Hope Series. She helps people thrive in  mindfulness, confidence, and hope by facilitating a transcendental journey into soul-alignment. She also offers business/branding Social Media consulting.

Graciela graduated from the Lumia Coaching Intensive in 2021. You can connect and follow her work on Instagram @SongofMyself.IG or explore her website at www.SoMCoaching.com.

Ready to Get Visible This Year?

If any one positive thing has come out of the pandemic, it just might be our appreciation for the World Wide Web, and the incredible buffet of choices we have available to reach one another and connect in some capacity. We desperately craved connection during quarantine, and almost two years later, we still do. 

Also super big during the pandemic: “small” businesses and entrepreneurship. More specifically the way we access them, how we see their products, and the experience of how we engage with and purchase from our favorite brands, creators and shops.

If you’re a coach and you want to launch your practice on the internet, this is your time!

Over the past nine years, I've "launched" several businesses online. These experiences have taught me one signature theme for success: connection. It doesn't matter what you’re offering or “selling”, if you want your business to have a meaningful social media presence, you need to connect. 

What follows is the result of what I’ve learned - a list of boundaries and best practices around business interactions on social media. On their own, each one is a strategy that demands consistency and personal attention. As your business and account following grows, interacting personally with all of these elements will become harder. That's a good thing! The need to outsource is a proof of growth, so start here and see where it takes you. 

Social Media Do's and Don'ts

DO: Introduce yourself when someone follows you. 

Step 1. Message the person by name (no automated intro), thank them for the follow, let them know who you are and what you do (who you help). Let them know you’re here to help. If I feel any hesitation about this person, I ask how they found my account. 

Step 2. If the follower has a public account, follow them. The point is to build community, so an initial follow-for-follow is a must. You can vet and decide how you see their content (or not) later on. If the person has a private account, the follow back happens later as the connection and interaction grows. Follow your intuition on this too, if the follower seems “off” to you in any way, don’t follow them or interact. 

Step 3. Watch their content and interact, especially if they like and interact with yours! 

DON'T: Respond or give in to any trolls. 

It is a mindfulness exercise and a proof of self-reliance and restraint to simply ignore, report, delete and/or block a hater as opposed to making it “a thing”. 

DO: Research and read the community guidelines for each app you use. 

This will help you better understand what boundaries to set around your own content, and the content you interact with, and when to report conduct violations. 

DON'T: Waste time, money or effort on “follow loops” and engagement gimmicks. 

Growing organically takes real, personal, 1:1 interactions. Think of it this way: a follower is interested or curious; a believer stays and trusts. This takes time. 

DO: Study, formulate and invest in a business strategy for your content. 

I recommend doing this once a month, as it includes enough data for growth and engagement analysis. Regular planning and review of what's working (and what isn't) can  guide your work along the way. This saves you time and peace of mind in the long run, which in turn allows you to do more.

DON'T: Compare to someone else’s account. 

There's so many reasons why this is important for new coaches, but I'll just focus on one. The way social media apps work depends on many variables, right down to the brand and model of the device you’re using. In other words, unless you have the exact same environment and circumstances as someone else, then you really cannot 100% predict the results of how your content will perform on the internet relative to anyone else. 

DO: Settle on what values you want to “showcase” in your content. 

Being clear about the purpose behind the content you share allows you to show up authentically and provide clear value to your followers.

DON'T: Stress so much about the growth, or numbers. 

Post your content and follow up on the interactions. Each and every one may be a doorway into a conversation. 

DO: Focus on showing up consistently, both in timing and on your themes. 

We all thrive with consistency and structure. Communicating with your followers about when and what you’ll be posting builds expectation. By holding yourself accountable and actually showing up the way you said you were going to, you build trust with your audience. 

DON'T: Worry about showing your mistakes and imperfections. 

Those are the things that people relate to the most. It’s about what makes us human, and what connects us. Remember - you’re a human who ebbs and flows as drastically and dramatically as the people we invest our time and energy into helping. 

DO: Add a call to action (CTA) regularly to your posts!

Encourage your followers to take the next step and visit your website, book a call or sign up for your email list.

If you want to have a social media presence to reach more people and level up your coaching practice, showing up confidently, consistently and strategically is the way to go. Consider these suggestions, and what ideas and questions come up for you around each one as a guiding map. Figure out what works for you, what sits well with your values and personal expectations and desires, and go from there. 

This new year will be great - I can’t wait to see what you create! If you’re curious but “on the fence” about how to get your online presence underway, I welcome you to book a Strategy Session with me. I’d love to help! (See what I did there? That's an example of a CTA!)

Want to Become A Coach?

One of our values at Lumia is that we dare to be different. Our coaches like Graciela ignore the expectations society tries to impose on them, and seek to live from their own truth instead. If you are ready to step into your power and you’d like some partners in the process, come check out Lumia Life Coach Training. Grounded in science, our ICF accredited program features authentic instructors, a robust curriculum, and business instruction to prepare you for liftoff.

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