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Your social media stream is one of the very first things people notice about your brand.

Yup, I said brand.

Regardless if you are the social media manager of a large company, the “marketing department” for a small brand, or a solopreneur, your social media matters.

It helps establish loyalty, 53% of Americans who follow brands on social media are more loyal to them. It also helps with overall influence, “93% of shoppers’ buying decisions are influenced by social media – because 90% trust peer recommendations.”

If that’s not a case for getting your social media on point, I’m not sure what is.

But, the big question is how should you approach your social media? What content should you be sharing? And, how do you find the right content to share?

The last thing you want to do is share all your own content all the time. Gary Vaynerchuck, famed entrepreneur, author, and social media guru of sorts, follows the “jab, jab, jab, right hook” approach to social media.

Jabs are content that you share that highlights others, interesting topics, expert opinions, and information that appeals directly to your readers.

The right hook is the ask. It’s your own content.

This mix of sharing content you think your followers (and potential customers) will love is the perfect formula to educate, provide value, and set yourself up as an influencer or authority.

Now that you realize how important it is to share different types of content, including a mix of your own. You’re next step is to find that content.

This is where a lot of people get stuck.

It can be hard to find great content that both applies to your industry and interests, as well as  educate your followers.

As you’ll see with most influencers you’ll find online, they seem to have a “knack” for sharing content that gets tons of shares. Their secret isn’t that they just have access to better content than you do. Nope, it’s that they have systems of finding it.

That’s what we’re going to cover today. I’m going to share with you exactly how you can set up a system to consistently have a pipeline of great content to share online.

The first thing you need to do?

Know where to look.

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Ahh email marketing.

It’s a lot more than just sending out dozens of spam emails and hoping someone, anyone clicks a link.

Now, you may have read our overview post, The Beginners Guide to Email Marketing that covers the basics on email marketing. It’s a great start, and we’re going to build on the foundation of that here.

In fact, email marketing is one of the best tactics any brand can employ to generate leads, build connections with potential customers, and of course, make more sales.

But first, let’s take a look at how important email marketing can be in growing your business.

Need proof?

We thought you’d never ask. 

Check out some of these email marketing stats:

• Salesforce found that for every $1 spent on email marketing, the average return is $44.25
• A study by McKinsey noted that email is close to 40 times better at acquiring new customers than Facebook or Twitter
• The Direct Marketing Association found that email marketing “yields an average 4,300% return on investment for businesses in the United States.”

If that doesn’t convince you about the importance of email marketing…

Still with us? Glad to hear it! Now, if you’re a service business you might be wondering how email marketing campaigns can work for your brand.

You’re in luck, here we’re going to share with you three different autoresponder campaigns any service business can use to help grow your business.

Let’s take a look. 

Photo courtesy of peecheey.com

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before.

You write an awesome post, click publish, then sit back and wait for the hordes of adoring readers to leave hundreds of comments on your site.

Except…

Crickets.

Sound familiar?

Chances are this has happened to most of you at least once because this is exactly how most people go around promoting their content, by focusing the vast majority of time writing it. The promotion part ends up being an afterthought.

The funny thing is, this is exactly the opposite of what most big bloggers that have seen success are doing.

As Derek Halpern of Social Triggers is always quick to say:

“It’s smarter to find another 10,000 people to consume what you’ve already created as opposed to creating more. Or, in other words, create content 20% of the time. Spend the other 80% of the time promoting what you’ve created.”

You see, it doesn’t matter how great your content is if no one knows it’s there.

The good news?

We’re gonna change all that.

(Drumroll….)