GROW – A social media structure for Coaches

If you’re a coach, the term GROW will already be an acronym that you are used to.

It’s one commonly used to structure a coaching call, and can be particularly comforting when you are setting out as a coach to help you remember key elements of the call and create a process to keep you on track.

So how about if you were to use that knowledge of how you structure a coaching call, to help you structure your social media?

Goals:

When you set a goal for your social media for your small business, you give it much more power.  Often, it’s easy to step into social media marketing just because you feel that you should, or that everyone else is.  Whilst there is definitely something powerful about getting involved so you don’t get left behind, you’ll feel much more in control of how you use social media if you use a structure and work to a goal.

So what kind of goals may you want to consider for your social media marketing?

Goals you can think about are:

• Growing your reach by using social media as one of the ways that you market your business
• Engaging other industry professionals by showing yourself as a thought leader within the industry
• Finding out more about where your target market are online, and what they are talking about
• Building online presence with the ultimate goal of creating new connections, and from there, new business.

Reality: What is happening out there?

In traditional coaching, Reality is what is happening in the reality of the client, and quite often, what they have already been doing to work on their goals. In the same way we can consider what our social media reality is:

• What starting point do we have now? (What social media tools are we using, how comfortable are we with them, how active are we?)
• What is the reality of how your customers and competitors are active on the social web?
• How much time do you have to spare when it comes to social media?

Reality is about understanding where you are starting from and listening to how the social web is being used. From here you can then go on and create your active strategy.

Options:  What could you do with social media?

Once you know what the reality is, you can start thinking about how to make it work for you:

• What platforms appeal to get involved in?
• How actively do you want to participate in social media?
• How much time do you have to get actively involved and engaged with people?
• What content can you talk about that will be valuable and remarkable for people to share?

Will – What WILL you do?

This is all about taking targetted action.  Now you’ve thought about the first few stages, you are in a much better place to create an effective social media marketing plan.  Start small – you can always build presence organically as you go.  Avoid any “get rich quick” links or opportunities – like most of these, there is no such thing as a free lunch!  Start with your current contact and find out how they are using social media.  And look at your competitors to find out what they are doing.

It is then much easier to create your own action plan that meets your specific social media marketing goals, how you like to work, and the time you have available.  Have fun, and let me know how you get on by leaving me a comment, or ask me a question if I can help you get started!

Related posts:

1. Wrapping up 2009…