by Mandy Green, Busy Coach
I will be the first to tell you that I am by no means a social media guru who has a million followers. What I am is a 23-year veteran of college coaching who happens to have an obsession for finding the simplest way to get the best ROI.
My latest obsession is helping coaches to figure out how to make posting on social media simple.
The first thing I did was to create a list of every single question that recruits have asked me over the years about my staff, team, coaching style, campus, academics, etc. I got all of the possible content topics out of my head and down onto paper, so I never run out of things to ask or talk about with recruits.
Once you have the content, then you need simple ways to execute on your plan.
Here are a few simple ideas that I am helping those who are in my social media mini-course for coaches for how to execute on your social media recruiting plan:
CREATE A LIBRARY OF IMAGES:
I’ve talked about in previous posts to make sure you understand the Core 5 (things you want your program to be known for). Once you know what your core 5 are, the next step is to make a library of images or a gallery for each category.
This is an awesome way to prepare content and take the stress out of it! If you look back at all of the pictures on your phone, you likely have a whole camera roll with moments that you’ve never shared, so start organizing them into galleries and then see what sorts of content you need to create more of!
Or even better, instead of creating them yourself, it is a real good chance that your team already has the pics you need. Get it from them and then organize it into your core 5 categories.
BATCH WORK YOUR CONTENT:
Set aside one hour of time to batch your content — meaning, for one hour straight you’re only working on creating and planning out your posts. You’ll be shocked as how much easier it flows when you’re focused on one task instead of trying to create a new post each day of the week. It also helps you be intentional with your captions, the story you are weaving through your feed, and pay attention to the call to actions you’re putting out there!
There are all sorts of free scheduling apps to set up and “schedule” your posts too which will save you an incredible amount of time and stress!
EXPERIMENT AND HAVE FUN:
Some of the best things I’ve learned about social media happened during experiments! Like that time where I committed to posting a video every day for a month straight or I share a weird story to see if anyone really cares about a new aspect of my life. It’s not all about “likes” and “comments,” it’s about connection…. and isn’t connecting with other recruits the coolest? Try new things, experiment and don’t look at things as a success or a fail, just give yourself a chance to TRY!
USE INSTAGRAM STORIES:
I wouldn’t say that you need to plan out a ton of Instagram Stories in advance but I would commit to trying to show up regularly in your stories to help boost that connection factor and engagement with your recruits! If it helps, prepare and plan your stories to go along with the posts you’re creating so that you’re utilizing another side of the platform! Whether you leave prompts for yourself or for your team, prepare images in advance, or simply plan when you’ll show it, you’ll be more likely to follow through!
Consistency Pays Off, I Promise
I know it can feel overwhelming at first to even think about approaching social media in such a new way but trust me when I tell you that the more you plan in advance and approach social media with a system, the easier it gets.
The cool part? These tips, tricks, and strategies don’t just work for social media, they span across all the ways (email, texting, phone or zoom calls) that you are using to connect with recruits.
REMEMBER: If this is all new to you, new things take time to get right. You might have to train yourself to sit down and batch things up. You may have to train your recruits to engage with you, so don’t grow discouraged if, at first, you’re hearing crickets. You might encounter hang ups in following an actual plan, at first, but consistency pays off, I promise.
When you sit down and start to lay things out in a way that allows you to truly look at not only the way your images look but how your messaging and calls to action are playing a role in your feed, you’ll start to feel confident that you have an actual strategy that is providing results for your recruiting efforts.
The best part? As you create a true system (system=repeatable process), you will start to feel confident that what you’re hitting “publish” on each day is actually moving the needle for you and your recruiting. It will become something you look forward to each week and not something you dread each and every single day. I’m honestly so excited for you to experience the JOY that can come from planning (call me a nerd, but seriously, straight up joy!)
Get planning, stay consistent, and have FUN!
If you are interested in getting Mandy’s help with your social media recruiting game plan, email her at mandy@busy.coach or check out her new social media content calendar for coaches called Social Story Recruiting.