Fact: social media sites drive over 31% of all referral traffic on the Internet.

With all the new channels constantly emerging, it’s very easy to fall into the trap of thinking about social media as a tactical plan instead of a strategic one.

The best social media plans set forth measurable goals and work with any social venue.

There are the big guns like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. And other familiar names like Instagram, Pinterest, and Vine. However, these are just a drop in the bucket when it comes to all of the social media channels out there. And although they are “smaller,” they still have tens or hundreds of thousands of users. If a large percentage of these users are in your target audience, you should be strongly considering adding it to your active social media strategy.

Here’s the big benefit of smaller networks: barely any other business uses them!

Think about it. The biggest businesses need a huge audience, so they stick to the biggest social networks, they cannot survive on a couple dozen sales leads a day. But you CAN, and actually you can thrive.

Small home businesses owners typically believe that they should just try to copy the big businesses…

This is the reason you see thousands of your competitors doing the exact same thing on Facebook and Instagram.

With smaller social channels, there is zero competition! You can quickly amass followers and drive large amounts of traffic to your website in no time.

You start seeing faster responsiveness, better lead results, and more sales profit.

This article is all about a simple strategy that will work on just about every social network out there.

How to Find Small Social Networks

Expect to have to dig around for 30-60 minutes to find the best one for your business.

There are dozens of social networks that will work amazingly well for your niche audience, so you just need to spend the time finding the one that is right for your business.

Check out this list of social media channels you’re probably not using and see if they have any potential for your business.

Pheed

Pheed does more than let users share video, text, music, and photos. It also offers live broadcasts and a pay-per-view option. Users set their own price for their content.

Thumb

With Thumb, ask a question and get feedback from other users in real time. You can also share your own opinions and start conversations with peers on topics of interest.

WhatsApp

WhatsApp is a cross-platform mobile messaging app. Users can send photos and videos, share their location, and create groups. There are thousands of home business owners, boutique owners, and other vendors with shippable merchandise that use WhatsApp on Instagram. It is a stress free, confidential, and easy to use method for communicating with buyers around the country. By installing the app on their phone, the buyer can text you their size, address, and other information without sharing it on social media.

PicsArt

Is a photo editing app combined with a social network. Users can share their photos, discover images other users have uploaded, create a collage, co-edit, and enter contests.

hi5

Is a social entertainment site. Users can use features similar to other social media sites like sharing photos, connecting with friends, and meeting new people. But hi5’s big focus is on playable games.

Buzznet

Members can share photos, journals, videos, and other content based on their interests. Most content centers around music and popular media. Content can be tagged and found on topic pages.

About.me

Makes your personal homepage into a shareable digital business card. You can connect a resume, or “backstory,” and add a mission statement to your profile. Users also gain access to stats on who visited their site, what they clicked on, and where they are from.

Archetypes

Allows users create a customized “Story Page.” Users take a quiz to determine what their personal archetypes are and then that information is displayed on their page. Other features are included to highlight personal preferences and connect users with each other.

Tsu

Gives its members a chance to share in earned revenue for the content they create. This method motivates users to create compelling content as well as gives them ownership in what they turn out. Membership is by invite only so it’s a little exclusive.

How to Use these Smaller Sites:

Your goal is to find the few networks that are likely to have your target audience. All networks have their own purpose-their own niche(s).

For now, write down all the networks you think might have your target audience. As you work through navigating each site, you will ultimately determine if your choices are good networks to spend your time on.

Look at the Users:

Once you’ve chosen a few networks to check out, you can start learning about them.

New social media sites pop up constantly. Start to spend a bit of time on the site. When you do, you will begin to understand how the site works and how users interact with each other.

Whenever a new form of social media emerges, of course you check it out. After all, you – and your business – should always be on the forefront of trends. Plus you want to know, “Could this be a good fit for my business?”

But, after browsing all the social media sites out there, which ones should you really stick with? The plan is always to find great social media channels that allow you to connect with your target audience. Finding and connecting with the right audience makes the secondary step of getting them back to your website (or other call to action) much easier!

Understand the Basic Mechanics of the Site:

Although these smaller networks don’t often have marketing guides written about them, most of them will have some sort of tutorial you can read to help you out.

For example, if you Google:

How LinkedIn works

You will find guides and tutorials offering explanations of the main functions of the site.

At the very minimum, every successful site has some sort of help documentation where you can look up the functions of certain buttons or definitions of site’s terms.

Learn How Users Interact:

Learning what the major parts of the network are will tell you the main purpose of the network from the audience themselves.

It’s important to know: what, why, and how people interact on the site.

Pick one social media network and get extremely good at delivering what your audience expects from it.

When you have systems in place for getting new followers, generating leads, and bringing people over to your newsletter, website, or funnel, only then would you move on to the next social network.

Learn How to Drive Traffic from Your Chosen Site:

It can be hard to figure out the best way to get users of a site over to your website.

To make it easier, you can look for businesses already on the network. Study them to find out how they connect their social profiles and activities with their website.

What you want to do is pinpoint as many types of interaction on the network as possible where users can click a link. There is no magic formula for getting people to click back to your website. For this reason, vary the length and format of your content for many different kinds of readers. Intersperse shorter, news-based blog posts with long-form content as well as video, infographics and data-driven pieces for maximum impact.

Find at least one realistic path of getting users back to your website. If you start to see responsiveness, then network has potential, and you have the foundations of a strategy.

Connect With Anyone You May Already Know (or Have A Common Connection With):

1. The best way to make new connections is to “follow,” “friend,” or use whatever connection mechanism the site has to connect with people of a certain interest.
2. What about sending an email to your email list? Since you’ve already identified that your target audience might like this network, you could invite them to join it and connect with you.
3. A quick email template could be:

Subject: I just discovered something amazing…

Hi (Name),

After searching for a great (your industry) community outside of the big ones (Facebook, Instagram, etc.), I have hit the jackpot!

A couple weeks ago, I started looking at this social network called (name of site). So far, I am really impressed with the quality of users in our industry on this site.

(Here is where you will insert all the great aspects of the network that your subscriber would be interested in).

I am emailing today to let you know that I think you would be interested in joining. It’s free, of course, here’s the signup link: (URL).

All you have to do is create an account, and send me a friend invite (my username is (username)).

I think you will really find this site useful too!

(Your name)

Your goal here is to start building some connections and followers. You don’t need hundreds or thousands, just try to get a few dozen for now.

How Much Time do You Have?

And now for the question every reader is screaming at their computer right now…

“How long does this process take to start seeing results”?

If you don’t think you could do it for longer than 5-6 months, you might as well not start.

This is the mentality you need to possess with any strategy you are using in your business.

Want to make the dime, got to spend the time…

Basically, Your Time Break Down Will Look Like This:

Every Monday, revisit your strategy to make sure you’re on the right track and focusing on the right areas

Time: 1 hour

Monday through Friday, implement the strategy. Schedule, create, and post updates. Engage with the community.

Time: 2 hours

Every Friday, check your metrics. See how you’re doing on your goals, and identify areas for growth.

Time: 1 hour

Total time: 12 hours per week

Depending on the scope of your business, your time could be greater or smaller than this. The above times are simply a guide and benchmark for your own social strategy. (https://blog.bufferapp.com/)

So, if you commit to a good strategy and follow it, you’ll get there a lot faster, but it will still take time.

You need to be patient and be willing to keep working for months without seeing much in the way of results. Overnight success rarely happens overnight. Your results will start slow but grow faster and faster over time (this is the process to becoming ‘sticky’).

The Key to Social Media Success:

How you execute your strategy on a consistent basis will either make you or break you.

Besides having the right mindset, you’ll also need other things, namely content.

Content is defined as articles, guides, white papers, or reports that you can share with the network community through your profile.

Decide on Content:

These five content marketing strategies have been found to drive popularity

Ideas

Buyers are doing more of their own research online. To help buyers recognize needs, you must leverage content that illuminates trends, highlights issues, and provides tangible ideas on how to solve problems. The more independent the content, the more credible it is.

• Webinars
• Article highlights
• Thought-provoking blogs

Personalization

Offering exclusive contests, discounts and deals are popular ways to connect with buyers who seek a “bargain” from every purchase. Create a dialogue with your followers, fans and connections. Here are some ideas:

• Monitoring activity
• Actively engaging the user base
• Answering questions
• Providing advice

The marketers that appear most successful are leveraging the right content at the right time to connect on a personal level and move the buying cycle forward.

Entertainment

Everyone needs a laugh now and then. Entertaining and thought-provoking videos, animations and cartoons are being used to gain followers, fans and connections.

Determine your Participation Frequency:

Every network is different when it comes to posting frequency.

You don’t want to post so much that you annoy your followers, but you need to post enough to grow a bigger audience.

To figure out how often you should post, you’ll have to test different frequencies.

To start, look at the most popular users (say 10-20), and record the number of posts per week they make.

Find an average of those numbers, and start with this frequency.

If you Want Success, You Have to be Consistent. That’s it.

Come up with a system that will help keep you on track: efficiency and ease of implementation.

Having to log in and make a post every X hours is not easy or efficient. You’ll miss some posts that would be beneficial and this will slow down your results.

Use automation (but wisely!)

Some things shouldn’t be automated:

• Curating content – don’t just share any content. Take the time to read posts so that you can share the best ones.
• Interacting with users – you can’t automate authentic conversation. If you’re ever commenting or messaging a user, do it yourself.

What can be automated, however, is the actual posting of the content. You can do all the curating beforehand and then have it posted automatically.

Streamline manual processes: Do all of the steps in batches.

Batching is a productivity technique, where you do the same task many times in one sitting.

This reduces time spent switching between tasks and helps you get “in the zone” while working.

When it comes to your social media strategy, pick a day once every week or two to curate content. Find as many posts as you’ll need for those weeks so that you can just schedule them to be posted.

And as for interaction, don’t constantly check your account for new notifications.

Instead, set a time or two, like first thing in the morning and last part of the working day, to check your account and reply to your followers.

Conclusion

Social media sites are one of the best sources of traffic.

But just because a network isn’t named Facebook or Twitter doesn’t mean it can’t help your business.

Smaller social networks often have far fewer marketers on them than larger ones do, which makes any type of marketing on them much more effective.

Most people have the sense to find a leader to guide their steps fairly soon after they decide upon a direction they wish to take. Unfortunately, I have never been one of them. It has taken me ten years of wandering largely in the deserted wastelands of the Internet to come to the conclusion that I ought to get myself a mentor. The advantage of this time lag is that I have been able to choose a mentor whose progress I have had the opportunity to observe over the course of a decade or so and, indeed, I have been fortunate enough to be able to persuade one of the very first Internet ‘gurus’ whose newsletters I ever subscribed to that I might make a reasonable candidate for mentoring.

These guys are a little fussy, you know. It’s no longer just about the money they can command from wannabes when they reach the dizzy heights. It’s about ensuring that their pupils go out into the virtual world and become a credit to their teachings. A guru is only as good as his last disciple, so to speak. Well, I hit the jackpot, as it turned out. My new mentor suggested that, rather than take instruction from him alone; I join one of the longest-standing groups online, run by a team of firmly-established Internet and Social Media marketing experts and consultants. Agreeing to do so was, without a doubt, one of the better decisions I have made in my life.

Apart from the incredible talent and experience that has been made available to help me on my way, the software that is provided for members to use is astonishingly cutting-edge and probably worth many times the subscription fees. In fact, just recently, I was sent a link to the latest software developed especially for the group which, apart from being incredibly helpful in the business environment, has enhanced my enjoyment of using the Internet as a whole and made some of my erstwhile tedious chores turn into pleasurable tasks that are quickly completed.

Amongst the materials available to members are a wealth of training videos and also a series of thoroughly readable documents of various kinds, each designed to give clear indications of what is still working, what no longer works, why and why not. Some of the documents are also made freely available to the public outside the group and I have taken pleasure in sharing them with anyone who wanted some straightforward guidance without having to buy it.

There is something very reassuring about being in the company of those who lead the markets that everyone else runs to try and keep up with, after so many years of being amongst the stragglers who turn up at the table when all that is left is the scraps from what clearly must have been a wonderful banquet!

One of the highlights of my week is Jack Humphrey’s Friday Traffic Report blog. Every week there is something interesting, pertinent and of practical use to all Internet marketers, whether newcomers to the scene or veterans of long standing. It is to be hoped that you will take advantage of the fact that one need not even be a member to enjoy the mine of useful information in Jack’s blog at jackhumphrey.com/fridaytrafficreport/ every week.

You may like to start with: Track Your Social Marketing Enjoy!

The Old School

I worked the old school of network marketing. The company I represented used the multi-level-marketing model. Because of the bad name multi-level-marketing received over the years, many companies renamed the model network marketing.

Network marketing depends upon ones ability to multiply a down line in order to gain success. This means duplicating oneself through other people. First the leader must be successful in order to multiply a down line or there would not be a reason to duplicate. Second, the leader must help the down line to become successful and duplicating.

Most of the leaders are highly visible and they attract many followers through their popularity alone. The followers are exactly that, followers, not leaders. Whether consciously or not these followers point their prospects to their leaders, their company and their products instead of to themselves.

The down line has been taught that this is just sharing instead of selling. They share with everyone they come in contact with causing others to avoid them instead of joining them. Further, the down line has been taught that everyone is their prospect. Instead of attracting prospects to themselves as a leader to success, they are repelling their prospects.

The fact is that people join your network marketing opportunity because of what they want and who you are. They join a person, not an opportunity. Network marketers must learn to market themselves to a target market.

You should be looking for people who are looking for you. You probably do not have a big enough circle to find a big enough target market in your offline world. So how are you to become attractive to a big enough target market?

Enter the internet

Internet marketing can be targeted toward the people who are looking for you. From the other side of the world they find you by typing in a key word search. Once they find you, you must make sure that they find you to be attractive. They find that you are the kind of person they would trust their training to. They see you as a leader, a consultant, a guide to internet marketing.

With internet marketing you can use the power of the search engines to help you with your marketing. If you wish, you can create your own web page with internet marketing to promote yourself. You can generate a prospect list that belongs to you, not your company.

With internet marketing you can use a quality system that will help you make money while you are prospecting; turning what is an offline expense into an online income. This affiliate marketing method on the internet is like a finder’s fee offline. You get paid to refer people to none competing companies. A good system allows you to set up your affiliate marketing in the background. This way people who walk out your door may walk into your affiliate’s door and buy something, and you get the finder’s fee in the background.

With internet network marketing you can use the ever popular social sites today. Talk about sharing your passion, social marketing is where you can really share your passion. This is where you can carve your niche market. Social marketing is where you can make a name for yourself and become recognized as a friend and leader. All of this and it is free advertising of you and your passion.

In conclusion, I believe the internet has significantly changed network marketing. It has changed my world. When you set it up correctly, the right internet marketing system can do all your marketing for you. It can send out your automatic prospecting materials. It can sift and sort your prospects. It can be used as a training site for your down line. It can free you up to win back your family and school friends that the old network marketing school helped you lose.