How To Build, Engage & Monetize Your Social Media Following In 2022

Social media marketing can be a massively useful tool for all businesses – big and small – to utilize for generating more income and growing their loyal fanbase of followers…

But if you want to really use social media marketing to your advantage, then it’s going to take a bit more strategizing than simply throwing up a few posts every now and then. 

In this article, I’m going to share my top tips & proven strategies for generating more likes, comments, leads, and sales from your social media content marketing. 

Now these tips will apply no matter what social media platform you prefer to use – and no, I’m not suggesting that you have to be active on them all. 

In fact, I’m suggesting the exact opposite! 

Pick the platform(s) you genuinely enjoy using the most, and stick to those ones only. In my experience, that’s guaranteed to give you the best results simply because you aren’t “forcing” yourself to show up on a platform that you don’t enjoy. 

Which makes showing up consistently much, much, much easier!

So whether your platform of choice is LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, or Tik Tok… utilizing the correct social media strategies in your business is a smart move to make. 

But not just because these platforms can build your brand awareness and grow your reach…

Also because, with literally billions of active daily users, social media is one of the best places to reach ALL of your business goals…

With social media you can:

• Generate new leads
• Drive more traffic to your website
• Raise brand awareness 
• Cash in on conversions & have bigger launches 

Which all sounds pretty epic, right?…

But what does “social media marketing” actually entail?

Well the short answer is – anything that drives audience engagement! 

Because here’s the thing… 

While there is absolutely no doubt that social media is a great place to generate new leads, build brand awareness, and cash in on serious conversions…

It’s not just as simple as haphazardly throwing up a post every now and then, cramming your caption with hashtags, or asking people to sign up for your email list or buy your products & services… 

You have to remember that #1 purpose of social media has always been, and will always be, to build relationships. 

So your social media strategy needs to be focused on relationship building first and foremost. 

That’s right – your primary focus should not be to make more sales… it should be to make more loyal fans. 

So to do that, you really want to be thinking of things like…

• Engaging captions, images & videos
• Reels
• Tik-toks
• Going LIVE with your audience
• Posting polls & quizzes
• Doing Q&As
• And honestly the list goes on and on! 

And of course – paid advertising, promotional posts, sponsored content, and user generated content does play a big role in social media marketing… 

But those should all come into the picture after you’ve done the front work into building relationships and trust with your audience. 

So let’s break that all down a bit more… 

Engaging Content 

I know this might sound a bit obvious, but it’s a mistake that I see a lot of people making on social media. 

If every post you make is asking people to buy something from you or sign up for your email list, you’re definitely going to drive away A LOT of followers and massively hurt your engagement.

Aside from the fact that people on social media like to stay on social media (and not click out to other sites or links).

Social media platforms really like their users to stay put. Which means the algorithm doesn’t favor posts that drive engagement away from the platform.

By constantly including a CTA in your posts to click a link or visit a website (which means less likes and comments on the post itself), you’re inadvertently hurting your reach because platforms like Instagram only continue to show your posts to followers if people are actively engaging with it.

Yikes—bummer right?

So a good rule of thumb is to give your followers what they came for—inspiration, education, or entertainment. 

I like to make sure my posts always follow what I call the “Four Pillars” of social media content: Promotional, educational, personal, and engagement/relatability. 

Where…

• Promotional Posts: You’re clearly promoting your product or service to your audience. This is what you might think of as more “traditional marketing”. 
• Educational Posts: You’re delivering mad value in the form of free education or inspiration. 
• Personal Posts: You’re building rapport with your audience. Letting them know more about you, your personal story, your quirks, likes, and all the things you might think are “irrelevant” to your business!
• Engagement Posts: Your opportunity to engage with your audience, ask them questions, and uncover their needs, wants, & desires. 

I break down these four pillars in more detail—including examples AND swipe copy for you to use—in my free Cheatsheet for writing Click Worthy Captions & CTAs. 

Now a good rule of thumb is to keep these posts on a consistent cycle. So if you post 4 days/week, you would post a different pillar each day, rinse, and repeat!

This way, your audience won’t get tired of seeing the same promotional content over and over… and over again. 

And here’s another HOT TIP: Remember that you should be posting some of your most valuable content on social media—yes for free!

Especially if you’re in the beginning stages of building out your audience. 

You should be focused more on forming relationships, delivering value, building trust, and getting people really excited about following you!

Now, once you’ve done this very important front end work, you can start thinking about the second phase of social media marketing…

Paid Advertising & Promotional Posts

This is where your mad copywriter skills can really come in handy!

I mean sure, social media is “technically” content sharing, which means there is A LOT of content writing involved… 

But when you’re utilizing your social media platform(s) to generate leads and gain more conversions — copywriting principles are essential!

This means: 

• Write compelling hooks
• Make sure your captions and ads have good flow & are easy to read
• Pay attention to formatting
• And never skip a call to action (CTA). 

Every caption or ad you post on social media should follow the ABCs of copywriting basics – and yes, I like to write ALL my ads just like I would write a promotional caption:

1. Attention

First, they need to get ATTENTION, with a great graphic and compelling hook or headline.

On social media, your hook is the very first sentence of your caption. If your first sentence isn’t captivating, then the reader won’t tap “More”… and your amazing caption or CTA doesn’t matter.

2.  Big Promise

Second, they need to provide a BENEFIT or BIG PROMISE  in the form of education, entertainment or inspiration.

Once you have your readers’ attention, you need to keep it! This is done by implementing great storytelling, content or wisdom, and opening loops throughout your caption. 

Always make sure your caption delivers on the hook you opened with! Nobody got time for clickbait captions.

3. Close

And lastly, they need a strong CLOSE. 

They need to give people one clear and concise CALL-TO-ACTION.

Because – remember the #1 rule in copywriting (and all of marketing for that matter)…

If you want your audience to take action, you need to tell them exactly what you want them to do!

Remember that every single CTA is an opportunity for lead generation or conversion.  

And no, that doesn’t mean that every CTA should be “buy from me” or “download this” or “sign up here.”

The fun thing about social media is that you get to be super creative with your CTAs to increase engagement and have conversations!

For example…

At the end of a post explaining how to write better headlines, my CTA at the bottom might say something like “Do YOU want to learn how to write better headlines? Comment YES or NO below!”

Then a really simple, and effective way I could gain new leads on this CTA would be by simply following up with every person that comments “YES”. 

In this case, I have a free headline writing guide that I could send you. 

When the new lead downloads the guide, they’ll be added to my mailing list and just like that, I’ve got a new lead that may turn into a customer if they find value from my free content. 

Another way of utilizing this “back door” strategy for lead generation, is using the CTA to ask an engaging question.

For example…

In a post about starting your own copywriting business, my CTA might be “Tell me, what’s holding you back from STARTING?”

The comments here would likely have a big range of answers that you can directly reply to in the comments – or even better – if you have a free resource, video, or course that addresses their problem directly, this is a great opportunity to DM them the links directly.

Which can result in lead generation or conversion! 

But remember, while your #1 goal for utilizing social media might be to grow your revenue…

When it comes to social media marketing, you have to prioritize the #1 purpose of social media…

Which is to build relationships. 

So no matter what you’re putting out there – images, videos, or ads – they should always be focused on helping first and foremost, NOT selling & pitching. 

Do this and you’ll naturally find that your reach is growing, your audience is active, and your launches are selling out. 

It truly is a win, win! 

To see all these strategies in action, make sure to follow the Copy Posse on Instagram and YouTube (my social platforms of choice!) 

Thanks so much for reading. Until next time, I’m Alex – ciao for now!

Alex Cattoni

Alex Cattoni is an industry-leading copywriter, marketing genius and founder of the Copy Posse. With over 10+ years of experience working with multi-million dollar brands, Alex is now sharing that knowledge with her students around the world. Since founding a boutique agency and online academy, she now has a global crew 100,000+ strong of authentic copywriters with the same passion for creating community, credibility, and conversions with nothing but powerful and precise wording.