How to Gain Organic + Free Visibility

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Not all free and organic visibility is equal. You want to be intentional and smart with your plan.

Here are a couple of questions to ask yourself before taking action so you can be as intentional and productive as possible when it comes to your efforts.

Questions:

  • Why do you want visibility? Sometimes visibility or simple to gain followers can be out of vain but if you truly understand and get yourself in the mindset of why you want to gain visibility and increase engagement it can have such a positive outcome to your experience

  • What do you want to achieve by visibility? What am I going to gain from the visibility and what am I going to do with? This is extremely important because knowing the answer to this will then shape your strategy and roadmap to gaining that visibility. If you start taking action to gain all the visibility for the sake of visibility, you could be wasting time showing up in front of the wrong audience.

You could want the influence to increase your email subscriber list, to increase followers...but why? Why increase your email subscriber list, why increase followers? Most of the time it is going to go back to a) helping others and serving them up a solution you can help with and b) increase revenue for your business.

Regardless of what it is...know your WHY.


Visibility without a plan isn't efficient or productive.

Your goal is to maximize your visibility with the least amount of input. You want to put in the minimal effort for the greatest amount of output.

For example:

Don't do this - Imagine you’re a VA and you're looking for more clients. You decide to email a bunch of contributors at Forbes and pitch them a story. Your thought process is that if you can get published in one article, that then the clients would come in like hotcakes.

Why is this not the best way to go about gaining visibility that makes sense? Because if your goal is to gain clients, there is an easier way to do it.

Do this - Share with your current clients that you're looking to take on more work and wondering if they have anyone in mind that they can refer to you. Or, reach out to people that you already have some sort of relationship with.

Don't reinvent the wheel.

Before you start, ask yourself, "Where do my potential clients/customers hang out at? Here, you should also take a look at your current client list? Do you notice any trends or characteristics of your clients that you can identify that will then help guide your strategy in finding more clients like them? Are your clients B2B or B2C?

The more you can better understand your target audience, ideal customer avatar, the better and more impactful your strategy for achieving organic + free visibility.

Depending on the type of business you have, you'll most likely choose a different way to gain your visibility.

A VA may differ from someone who is a coach, to someone who has an agency. I'll talk about this in a bit.

But first, there are a handful of ways to gain visibility:

  • Improving your content (creating viral/shareable content)

  • Leveraging SEO

  • Blogging / Guest blogging

  • Podcasting / Guest podcasting

  • Social Media:

    • Instagram

    • Facebook Groups / Facebook

    • Pinterest

  • Referrals (visibility doesn't always have to be an insane influence)

Think of a funnel. The top of the funnel is the surface area. It is what people see in front of the scenes...posting on Facebook/IG/Pinterest/blogging, all that good stuff. Get them to engage by either DM'ing you, emailing you, or signing up for your list is where the traction happens and is behind the scenes.

It isn't wrong to want to grow your following for the sake of wanting to grow your following but tread lightly thinking that "If you only had 5,000 followers, THEN your business would be thriving." There are plenty of bloggers with 80,000+ followers and don't have a consistent income and aren't making six-figures. There are also plenty of 7 figure business owners with less than 2,000 followers.

How to Create Your Visibility Strategy:

  1. Know your end game (what do you ultimately want to have happened with the increase of visibility)

  2. Where does your target audience hang out at

  3. Decide your key outlet (podcasting, guest blogging, etc)

  4. Create a plan for SM and key outlet

Few examples of how to leverage some outlets to gain visibility:

  • Podcasting:

    • Make a list of podcasts that have a listenership that is your target audience

    • Pitch yourself to these podcasts. Do so via their process: submission form on their site most likely. But don't pitch cold. If there is no form, then message them and ask.

    • Tailor your pitch to add value to their audience.

    • Always include a proper CTA

  • Instagram:

    • Share behind the scenes

    • Share client success stories (this one is the best because you want your potential clients to see themselves in one of your other client's success) Show them what is possible.

    • Always have a CTA as well.

    • Be mindful of how much you share for sake of share and building your brand and how much you're pitching. You don't always want to be selling to them.

  • Become a contributor:

    • There are plenty of sites that accept guest contributors.

    • By doing this you can build up your voice of authority in your particular market.

  • LinkedIn:

    • Depending on whether or not your target market hangs out on LinkedIn (most likely a B2B company), writing blog posts on LinkedIn about your client's challenges and how you provide solutions could be fruitful.

Now, your turn to Create your Visibility Strategy:

  • Get clear on your endgame, what is your ultimate goal and what do you want to do when you get visibility

  • Think about where your target audience hangs out at. If you could only hone in on ONE social media platform, what would it be?

  • Think about one key outlet (guest contributing, podcasting, direct referrals)

  • Create your plan for SM and your key outlet

Time to get to work my friend! :)

 
Amanda Boleyn