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This article is part of the series, and is based off the ebook 'Top 21 marketing ways for membership sites published by The Subscription Coach Amanda Northcutt.

 Download the entire series as an ebook

The Big 6 social channels: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, LinkedIn. Choose one or two channels where your target users are located and on which you enjoy interaction. Be active on these channels five every day of the week. 80percent of what you say should be helpful as well as entertaining for your audience, with less than 20% being promotional. Thus, 1 of 5 social media actions should have the quality of "salesy," that's it. No more, no less.

The social strategy you choose to implement should be tied into your content marketing strategy. For example, if you have a monthly topic or theme within your membership, your content marketing (remember you need an unpaid or. paid content strategy in order to make this work) should also align to the theme of your month. It's not surprising that the social media strategy you choose to implement must promote and be connected to your free content that month. Don't reinvent the wheel. Make your content marketing more efficient and social strategies using the same strategies you're doing behind your paywall for your members who are paying.

Facebook is the best option to advertise on paid for websites that are members, as it has 2.3 billion active users. Infinite customizations are allowed, but it's not the ideal place for your free social activities unless you've established Established Facebook Group.

I won't take a deep dive into the pros and cons of each medium, as this is beyond the scope of this document. We do recommend Instagram, Pinterest, and/or YouTube if your membership centers around highly visual instruction or education, as well as Twitter and LinkedIn for memberships that are B2B (business to business). Utilizing a scheduler for social media such as Buffer or Edgar which can assist you to organize your social media shares as well as ease the burden of being present on that social platform daily. That being said, you should show up frequently and interact with people who are listening, but it's unlikely to be practical to include daily social engagement to everything else that you must do as a membership site owner.

Your once-weekly promotional, more salesy, or social media interaction social media should include a call to action (CTA) that matches what your users across all platforms might be willing to complete in order to join your group. It could be an exciting contest, taking part in a test, registering for a webinar, visiting your website or landing page and the downloading of your lead magnet.

If you're in need of an email address for the content you've created, that piece of content can be described as lead magnet. A lead magnet is something with a high value and relevance that you offer to your potential customer as a reward for the email addresses of those who sign up. If someone enters their email address should immediately receive the promised content by email, and also be added to your email list. Don't allow them to get on your email list for periodic newsletter emails or something similar. Instead, have a strategy put in place to turn the new customer into an active member on your website! It is done through preloading a lead-generation email sequence that automatically kicks off when someone downloads your lead magnet. Yes, it's tedious work, however, this is by far the most efficient set-and forget selling tool you have available. Start by doing it one time, then review your nurture email sequence each six months.

The primary objective of the Social CTAs is to collect a prospect's email address so they can begin receiving your automatic nurture emails. Similar to all forms of marketing, social engagement must be planned as well as contextually relevant and quantifiable. If you don't have proper information on click-throughs, conversions, shares, likes and retweets as well as lead captures, etc. It's possible that you're in the wrong place. Do you have it?

For more information concerning Facebook Live, grab Hubspot's Ultimate Guide here.

Marketing with organic influencers

Collaboration with companies that have the interest of a significant majority of your audience is the fastest path to growth for a membership website. You can try to orchestrate this on your own instead of trying to pay for it.

For the purposes of membership sites, the term "influencer" is someone who has amassed a large, loyal, and engaged following online because they are the expert in their field, or just super funny/interesting/etc. People love being around them. Engagement is the primary metric to look for when seeking out influencers within your industry. Certain influencers have hundreds of thousands or more followers, but this is not enough if the majority of them do not follow and don't engage with the person they follow.

It's been reported that there are instances of paid influencer marketing in which celebrities are employed to act as spokespersons for an established brand. Bootstrappers and entrepreneurs have taken that concept and used it in specific niche market.

Odds are, there influencers within your field. What author has published an article on your membership topic? Who organizes conferences that appeal to the people you want to reach? Which are the best 3 blogs, podcasts, and YouTube websites that your customers pay at? They are your influencers. They are the ones you must identify, find, and start being helpful to these individuals. Here's how to make sure you are putting your best foot forward so that, over time, you'll be able to build authentic relationships with those who influence you to work toward collaborations that are mutually beneficial and collaborative.

Giving value to your industry's influencers by being kind and useful is the most effective approach to make it onto their radars. Your overarching goal with this marketing channel is to first establish genuine relationships (to create a friendship, be a friend) with these influencers. Then, in time, work towards creating mutually beneficial methods to connect with the audiences of each other. Make sure to treat these relationships with child gloves. Take care, be aware, and be cognizant the fact that they often have the power to influence the buying decisions of their audiences. You want that working for you, not against you.

It is easy to become a more helpful person by consistently doing things such as connecting with them through social media (retweets or likes, remarks or likes. ) Reviewing your book(s) on Amazon and leaving a positive review on the podcast on iTunes and leaving regular useful comments on blog posts, sharing their content with your audience and tagging them on various social channels and a short thank you, and so on. Put these types of events on your calendar as a regularly scheduled event, so that your organic influencer plan stays on track.

When you write an email or send an initial appeal on social media for introducing yourself, you should include a quote from an influential person from a blog article or podcast interview. You can also send them a message from a recent speaking gig with some insightful comment from you on how their advice/expertise helped you or ask you a follow-up inquiry. This will show that you've done the research, and you're not comin' in hot out of thin air with an agenda to execute.

You can then say that you've been long-time admirer of their work (because they're a part of your life their work and helping them for quite a long time, right? ), you've published their work to your followers on multiple occasions, and you're working in the same field and you thought it could be helpful to make connections. Next, offer the opportunity to introduce them to any within your circle who could help the other (great to have individuals who you're sure they're friends with). Make sure you don't request anything during this initial contact. If they're positive, move forward slowly and slowly and continue to provide the value they need to that person. You can work at your own pace, but don't be shy to ask for collaborations as it makes sense.

If you are working together you will naturally to share each other's content when relevant, be present on the other's podcasts or cross-promote service, bundle your services to get special deals, and pursue other creative collaborations for audience sharing.

If your influencer marketing efforts organically fail or aren't on time, don't panic, you can try for the option of paid influencer marketing!

Influencer marketing paid for

As with natural influencer marketing you'll initially have to determine the influential people in your sector, but you can speed up the process by approaching them with paid promotion possibilities.

Some recognized influencers could have a media kit of some kind available on their site if they've done paid influencer marketing for others previously. If you're not sure if that they've received a fee for collaborations or access to their audience before then you may need to determine the possibility of the possibility. Regardless, you're better off if you've followed the relationship-building steps outlined in the previous section on organic influencer marketing so you're on their radar before you make that inquiry.

Opportunities for paid influencers can include: a sponsored email to their subscribers or a blog post that is sponsored, a guest spot on their podcast or paying them to be the guest speaker on webinars or to be interviewed or to give a talk at your conference or event or any other thing that makes sense in the context of your business.

The ability to borrow the audience of someone else is the fastest and often the least costly way to increase your reach. Don't overlook the power influencer marketing has in your acquisition and marketing strategies.