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This post is part of the series, and is based off the ebook 'Top 21 marketing channels for membership sites published by The Subscription Coach Amanda Northcutt.

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The big six social media channels: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, LinkedIn. Pick 1 or 2 channels on which your users are located and on which you are most comfortable interaction. Participate on those channels 5 days a week. 80% of what you post should be useful, useful, and/or fun to your followers, and less than 20% of it being for promotional. So, 1 out of five social media activities ought to have the quality of "salesy," that's it. No more, no less.

Social strategy must tie in seamlessly with your strategy for content marketing. In other words, if there is a theme for the month or theme in your membership, your content marketing (remember that you require a free instead of. paid content strategy to achieve this) should also align with that monthly theme. It's not surprising that your social media strategy should promote and relate to your free content each month. Do not reinvent the wheel. Make your content marketing more efficient and social strategy using the same strategies you're working on behind the paywall with your paying members.

Facebook is an excellent choice to advertise on paid for membership sites as there are 2.3 billion people using the site and unlimited possibilities for customization, however it's not necessarily the best location for free social efforts unless you have an existing Facebook Group.

I won't take a deep dive into the advantages and disadvantages of every medium since this is beyond the scope of this guide. But, we do suggest Instagram, Pinterest, and/or YouTube for memberships that revolve around highly visual instruction as well as Twitter as well as LinkedIn for memberships that are B2B (business to business). A social media scheduling tool that works like Buffer or Edgar can help you manage your social sharing as well as ease the burden of being present on the same social network daily. In reality it is important to show up frequently and interact with people that are paying attention, however, it's probably not a good idea to add every day social interaction to everything else you have to do as a membership site owner.

The once-weekly, promotional, and more salesy, or social media interaction social media must contain a call-to-action (CTA) that is the same as the step your audience across all platforms might be willing to complete in order to join your membership. It could be an engaging competition, taking a survey, registering for a webinar, accessing your website, or a specific landing page as well as the downloading of your lead magnet.

If you need an email address for a piece of content, that piece of content is referred to as an "lead magnet. It is an item of high relevance and value you give to your prospective customer in exchange for the email addresses of those who sign up. The person who puts in their email address should instantly receive the promised information via email . They will also be included in your email list. Don't allow them to get on your email list to receive an occasional newsletter or similar. Instead, have a strategy put in place to turn the new customer into an active member on your web site! You achieve this by preloading an lead nurturing email sequence which automatically starts into action when somebody downloads the lead magnet. Yes, it's labor-intensive, but it is by far the most efficient set-and forget selling tool you have available. Start by doing it one time, then review your nurture email sequence at least every six months.

The primary objective of your CTAs on social media CTAs is to get an email address from a potential customer so that they start receiving your automated nurture emails. As with all marketing actions, social interactions should be intentional as well as contextually relevant and measurable. If you don't have proper information on click-throughs, conversions, shares, likes and retweets as well as lead captures as well as other such metrics. It's possible that you're losing your time. Are you?

To find out more concerning Facebook Live, grab Hubspot's Ultimate Guide here.

Organic influencer marketing

Working with people who hold the interest of a large mass of your target group is the most efficient route to growth for a membership site. You can try to orchestrate the process yourself or directly paying for it.

For the purposes of membership sites, the term "influencer" is someone who has amassed a large, loyal, and engaged following online because they are the expert in their field, or just super funny/interesting/etc. and people like to be around their company. Engagement is the primary measurement to consider when looking for influencers in your field. Certain influencers have tens of thousands or more followers, but it doesn't matter for those who overwhelmingly ignore and are disengaged from the person they follow.

There are many instances of paid influencer advertising when celebrities are hired to be the spokesperson for a certain brand. Entrepreneurs and bootstrappers have applied the same concept to niche markets and put it into specific niche markets.

Chances are that there influencers within your field. Have they written an article on your membership topic? Who organizes conferences that appeal to the people you want to reach? Which are the best 3 blogs, podcasts, YouTube channels that your target audience is paying attention to? These are your influential people. You need to identify the ones you can find and then begin by helping them. This is how you can put your best foot forward to ensure that over time, you can forge genuine relationships with influencers in order to create mutually beneficial, collaborative projects.

Providing value to your industry's influential people by being friendly and helpful is the best way to get on their notice. Your overarching goal with this method of marketing is to first establish genuine connections (to create a friendship, be a friend) with the influencers you're targeting. THEN in due time create mutually beneficial ways to reach each other's audiences. Make sure to treat these relationships with child gloves. Take care, be attentive, and aware that these influencers often hold the ability to influence purchase decisions of their audience. It is important to have this working for you and not in your favor.

It is easy to become a more helpful individual by doing what you can like: Engaging with them via social media (retweets, likes, comments or likes. ), reviewing the book(s) through Amazon and leaving a positive review of the podcast on iTunes, consistently leaving useful comments on their blog posts, sharing their content to your followers and tag them on various social channels and a short thank you etc. Get these kinds of activities on your calendar as a recurring event so your organic influencer strategy stays on track.

If you send an email or initiate an outreach on social media for introducing yourself, you should have a quote from the influential person from a blog article or podcast interview. You can also send them a message from a the most recent appearance on stage with an interesting comments about what they've taught you, and/or to ask them an additional inquiry. This will show that you've done research and aren't arriving out of thin air with a plan to follow.

Say you've been a for a long time a enthusiast of the work they do (because that's what you've followed their work and helping them for some time now, right? ) In addition, you've published their work to your audience multiple times, and that you're also working in the same field and think it would be helpful to make connections. In the next step, ask them the opportunity to introduce them to any within your circle who could benefit the other (great when you've got specific people in mind you're certain they're not already buddies with). Make sure you don't request anything during this first contact. If they respond favorably then move on slowly and slowly and continue to provide value to this individual. Take your time however do not be afraid to inquire for collaborations if you think it makes sense.

If you are working together the relationship should naturally to collaborate on material when appropriate, participate in each other's blogs or cross-promote service, bundle your services to get special deals as well as explore other innovative partnerships for sharing content with your audience.

If your influencer marketing efforts organically aren't working, or you are low on time, don't panic and try the option of paid influencer marketing!

Influencer marketing paid for

Just as with natural influencer marketing first you'll be able to recognize the influencers in your sector, but you can speed up the process by approaching the influencers about advertising possibilities.

Some recognized influencers could have a media kit of kind on their websites if they've done paid influencer marketing for others previously. If you're unsure if they've been paid for collaborations or exposure to their followers in the past then you may need to first see the possibility of the possibility. Regardless, you're better off if you've followed the relationship-building steps outlined in the previous section on organic influencer marketing so you're on their radar before you make that inquiry.

Some examples of influencers who can be paid can include: a sponsored mailer to their email list, a sponsored blog post, a guest spot on their podcast, paying them to be a guest on a webinar, paying to interview them or to give a talk at your next event or conference or any other thing that makes sense in the context of your business.

The ability to borrow the audience of someone else is often the fastest and the least costly way to increase your reach. Do not overlook the impact that influencer marketing could have on your marketing and acquisition strategies.