Using Social Media to Grow Your Side Hustle's Customer Base

By Ginger Abbot

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Perhaps you walk dogs to make some money on the side or have an Etsy shop full of handmade soaps and jewelry. Whatever your side hustle, you rely on your customers to keep you inspired — and in business. Learning how to market your side hustle with social media can increase your client base and make the magic happen. 

Use Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and other similar platforms to your advantage with these tips and tricks. The better you know how to increase your side hustle’s customer base with social media, the more successful it’ll be. 

1. Share Visual Content

Whether you decide to start a blog or share information directly through social media, creating visual content is key. Today, online videos make up more than 82% of all consumer internet traffic, 15 times higher than in 2017. Social media users are also more likely to engage with and share photos and videos rather than text-only posts. 

Keep your videos short and create high-contrast, image-heavy posts that grab viewers’ attention and make them stop and look. As your social media share rate increases, so does your website's domain authority. Eventually, your search ranking will improve, too, which will drive even more traffic to your page. 

2. Promote Gated Content 

Your content sends people to your website, but are you scoring any sales? Perhaps you’re offering too much free information. Leave more to the imagination and entice your audience to actually click the “buy” button by promoting gated content. 

For example, a tutor might offer free resources or study materials but save feedback for paying customers. Share information about free and gated content through your online platforms. If your hook is good enough, you’ll grow your customer base in no time.  

3. Include a Call to Action 

Perhaps you’re still struggling to drive traffic back to your website. In this case, you might want to add a call to action to your social media posts. This one simple step can increase your click-through rate by as much as 285% and quickly turn your potential customers into paying ones. 

Of course, the most effective call-to-actions create a sense of urgency. Customers must act quickly if they want to take advantage of limited-time offerings and items in short supply. Making an offer they can’t turn down can further improve results.

4. Learn From Your Competitors

You can also use social media to spy on your competitors. What are they doing online to drive traffic and boost sales? What kind of content do they share? How often do they share it? Let their strategies inspire your own as you consider your setup and target audience. 

If you pay attention, your competitors will show you how to use social media to grow your side hustle. You might even engage with a few of them to see where their links take you, what their websites look like and what you might be able to incorporate into your own marketing efforts. 

Consistency Is Key to Success

Slow and steady wins the race, especially when growing a customer base online. Social media can give your side hustle the boost it needs to increase your income and maybe even make you rethink your career, but you have to start small. 

 

You could start a blog, make a bunch of videos and jump on every social media platform at once, but there’s only one of you. You still have to create new content, respond to comments and keep your side hustle going — all while working your day job. Start slow and be patient. Your business will grow — it just needs time.

 

Learn more about Social Hire

The team at Social Hire won't just do social media management. Our team work with you to ensure your business sees great value from the service and that your team gets tangible results.

What the Social Hire gang loves is making a difference for our clients, and we don't want to waste your, or our resources on marketing for marketing's sake, if it doesn't get your organisation the impression you need - we take a different approach. When your business utilises social media management, Social Hire improve the presence of your company online and offer your business the lift it needs to improve.

Our digital marketing managers are the wizards that can give you the insight you need to develop your business. Have you had enough of making complex personnel choices that don't work well for your digital presence?

Is it important to you to increase the digital footprint of your business by utilising online promotion, but can't work out how to begin?With the professional understanding of our digital experts working in your business, you can begin to see interaction, brand loyalty and enquiries get better without having to take your team out to spend time on ineffective marketing strategies, or spend money on a internal marketing manager with a view to get results that may not deliver!

Our team are a company that helps our customers further their digital footprint by providing digital marketing on a monthly basis.

You might like these blog posts Small Businesses: Don’t Fear the Gig Economy, How to Use Offline Media to Drive Social Media Engagement, 5 Things That Can Make or Break Your Business Brand, and Techniques to Improve Collaborative Project Management.

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