instagram | AaronMstephensMBA

Are you looking for some helpful advice to growing your audience? As a marketing expert, and social media influencer myself, I thought I would throw out some cool tips and tricks if you are starting your own following. I actually have coached paying clients on how to reproduce the same system that I have been using. I know there are a lot of my friends in my own circle who are continually perplexed on how is it that a normal ordinary guy like Aaron M. Stephens manage to amass such a ridiculous number of fans/followers/readers? Believe it or not, it all comes down to marketing.

YOU are the product. So, what are you selling? Preaching? Teaching? People ask me what do I sell and I tell them they can go buy a childrens book or they can buy a website. But actually they can’t, as I am not taking on any new clients right now. BUT as a new influencer, YOU will need a website. That should be your starting point at directing all your new fans. All of your social media should be on this site and they should all link back so people can find all your outlets. It doesn’t have to be super fancy. It can be just one page, your picture, bio, and links. So depending on how you are branding yourself, your site should reflect it. People buy from people that they like. They also buy from people that they feel have common ground with themselves. One key selling advantage when I applied at the jewelry store was there were no Asian salespeople working there. Well, guess what? Asians prefer to buy from Asians. It’s a known fact. That is why they all cluster together and form their own communities.

*

So if you are a writer, you should have things to read. If you are a photographer lots of pictures. Beauty artist then you should have how to do videos. If you are a life coach, you should have testimonials from people’s lives you have changed. Once you have determined your “niche” then you also need to have a lot of content. Your Facebook business page should have at least 30 minutes of unclickable content. I say unclickable, meaning, you don’t want people leaving YOUR page to go read some other author’s work. Now, if you just wrote an awesome blog on your website, sure put that on your Facebook page. While you are building your content, DO NOT ASK FOR LIKES or followers. Let me repeat that. DO NOT ASK/BEG for likes. I cannot tell you how important this is. If you have NOTHING on the page your friends “might” like it out of pity, but not because they truly believe in your product or service. They might even unfollow the page as they don’t know what you are going to spam them with your new business page. IF you create great content, hashtag it, you will be default find new followers and they will like your page. This is true with all media channels. Don’t announce or ask for anything until your product launch day. Set a day you are going to “open for business”. You can preset every single post in Facebook for a future day, or days. How cool is that?

As part of your branding, you should always let readers know who you are, in addition to the things that you can do. There is a big difference. Your website really shouldn’t be your LinkedIn profile. It should be entertaining. It should be easy on the eyes. If you are selling something on your website, you should outline pricing clearly, or give ballpark figures. If something seems too expensive right off the bat, people will just close and leave. I highly recommend you incorporate a blog into your site. That way you can write articles, reviews, and updates for your readers. Some websites don’t have a blog, they are old and outdated and they probably never get repeat visitors. As I have talked about in past articles, when you write a blog it keeps your site the most current and when people do searches it maintains your site comes up first. Now of course you need some SEO, tags, headers, and hashtags, but WordPress makes it easy. Remember, your website is the one piece of social media that you control. If Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, or whatever decide to ban you, … you – are – screwed. All your content you wrote on those platforms are gone forever. Your site however, you can backup daily.

You fans/followers are typically NOT your friends. They are strangers who know nothing about you — other than what you share with them. Whether you have 1 follower or 100 thousand followers, you have made a decision to be in the public eye and the things you think, say and do can have amazing or horrible outcomes. So determine why you want to have a following so you can detail your marketing messages appropriately.

On a side note, 6 Dr. Suess books have been banned. I never really saw the fascination with them but of course I am familiar with the artsy books. After seeing a radical racist cartoon and the caption “Slap the Jap” I am appalled that these books have not been banned sooner. Mississippi joins Texas in the no mask mandate. Wow. March madness begins. What do you think will happen next that is super crazy? I bet something big around social media will happen. Parler? TikTok? Facebook? Grab some snacks and sit back and watch the fun. Speaking of fun, the season finale of WandaVision launches at midnight. If you have been waiting to binge the whole season, just remember, it starts out slow but builds and gets better.

73,923,495 people voted republican. Why did I only lose 1 person on Facebook? Oh wait, she is now requesting me to be a friend, … again. Where was this Facebook mass exodus for Parler? For the record, I voted for Harris, just like the other 80 million legally registered voters in the United States. I actually thought I would have this huge decline in “friends” on Facebook. There are some very vocal people who think they can persuade their own circle/network to think like they do. Interesting concept, but that only works for so long.

*

Believe it or not, there are thousands of women who “think” they can change their boyfriend once he is their husband. And that ladies and gentlemen is the reason why there is such a high divorce rate in the United States. NEWSFLASH: You can’t change someone unless he/she wants to change, and even then you cannot modify someone’s behavior to suit your needs … long term. Oh sure you can manipulate someone to get your way, once or twice.

*

So what is Parler you may ask? Another new social media platform/app that I have to download, update a profile and try to connect with friends/family/role models? Yikes! Okay, I will be the first to admit that I am sort of set in my ways. There are some “things” that I don’t really want to partake in on a daily or weekly basis. Another social media platform … or I guess in this case, an alternative to Facebook. But is it really an alternative platform when it is secretly a place for grown ass adults to go and bitch about things they have no control over? Hmm… I am going to go with the latter. I took I look at their website, and it appears to be a “free speech” platform where users can bitch about Biden and the election and not get banned/muted/Facebook jailed for doing so. Okay, I get it. You can also write your own blog on your website with no restrictions. Complaining doesn’t get results, and it certainly doesn’t accomplish anything on a positive level. Negativity changes your “vibration” within the universe and as you may know, also causes you to attract negative things in your life. We are all spiritual magnets, and you can attract some negative people very easily. You have heard the phrase “birds of a feather flock together”? Misery loves company.

*

Now I have not joined so I don’t really know all the tea, but I do know that people are spending way too much time on their smartphones on time wasting apps. If you know me personally, then you know I am usually busying doing “something” and scrolling aimlessly for hours is not one of them. Facebook in general I think is pretty toxic. It used to be a place where you could go and see fun updates about your friends and family. Unfortunately, most of my friends are not writers or authors, and those who are rarely post any actual content of their own. However, many of my republican advocates have REposted various content that usually is just false data that has not been verified. I will be very happy when we go back to a society where lies are not accepted and making false accusations should have serious detrimental consequences. Many of these same supporters also believe that the coronavirus is a conspiracy or a hoax. Just when you think people can’t get any stupider, they pull shit like this. I personally know of a handful of people who have DIED, so there is no trying to pull the wool over my eyes and think that it is a bad case of the flu and those people died of something else. WTF. No. Science and statistical data results are not the liars.

*

The scary thought that crosses my mind, is what if the virus has serious long term effects like getting shingles from chickenpox? Thousands upon thousands got exposed to the virus, and many did recover … for now. Thousands upon thousands report constantly feeling weak, no strength, tired, and it is always hard to breathe. We have no data as to what happened to all the vape smokers and their outcome after COVID19. I did watch a video of Alyssa Milana, former Wen spokesperson and Charmed actress, where she is losing clumps of hair when gently brushing her hair. I don’t know about you, but I would probably think that would be a big concern for someone who uses her looks for income. I also don’t want to just lose my hair as an after effect of the virus. We are on the brink of a vaccine/preventative measure. People just need to chill TF out for another couple of months. Start your manuscript. Write your autobiography. For those that are dumb shits and think they are immune, go ahead and write your obituary. I personally did this once as a group writing exercise and it amazing how YOU see your life, versus someone else see it. No one ever “thinks” that it is going to happen to them. Dying that is. If you think about it, you probably have enough supplies to last you for another 30-45 days. I know I have lots of cans of soup in my kitchen. When I was really poor I used to eat rice and egg drop soup. It was cheap and easy to make and it filled me up. Plus with all those eggs, I was getting tons of protein. You bought all those dvd’s years ago on new release day Tuesday. Do you know ALL the lines from each movie? Can you play the “What movie did this quote come from” and always win? I can’t.

In in case you missed all the sales for Black Friday, Cyber Monday is tomorrow and there certainly will be more opportunities for you to spend your voting dollars. Despite the Nintendo Switch and PS5 sold out everywhere, Switch users can go to the eStore and download games at a huge discount. My console is already loaded with games for that rainy day, so I did not get any additional new games. Legend of Zelda Age of Hyrule is waiting for me. I saw online that someone has already beat the game and I can’t get past level 1. I did watch a cool YouTube video of all the cut scenes made into one. Actually, I saved it to watch it later, as it is almost 2 hours long. Yeah, I know crazy right? If the cut scenes are that long, how many hundreds of hours will it take to finish the game? If you have long hair, did you check out my first YouTube video? I’ll be making another one this week. I got a new hair straightening device I saw on an infomercial. It is crazy cool how it rotates and smooths your hair. Check out my Instagram profile picture. I usually wear my hair in a bun. I tell you, I could totally be an actor or something. I have so many different looks. And with the power of make-up, who knows? Ordinary people get discovered on Instagram more than any other platform.

Although, technically I am writing and producing my YouTube talk show. One thing I have noticed, which most artists don’t do … is market themselves very well. I will be watching something and have no idea who they are. So, with my videos I’ll have my name displayed at all time. Most of my viewers will already know me. I haven’t announced my channel on any of my social media … yet. Why? Well, just like a Facebook page, you really need to wait until you have at least 30 minutes of content/scrolling. If you don’t have very much, people might visit, see you have nothing to entertain them, and they may never come back. I have also noticed that every single YouTube artist tells you to like and subscribe to their channel. I haven’t. Why? Well, I don’t know after one video if I am going to want to see more. It literally took me 20 videos before I subscribed (not liked) Tati. Tati is a beautiful super model YouTube artist/influencer who is super fun to watch and learn beauty product recommendations. What can I say? She is entertaining.

Best Buy is running their sales all weekend. Friday morning I scored a new 27″ monitor. They have a 49″ gaming monitor on sale for $750! Normally $999. Too bad my Switch wouldn’t translate into a monitor like that. I wonder if the new PS5 will be full screen for the first person shooter games?

If you liked this article/website, please like my Facebook page. If you read this via forwarded email, you can subscribe on the website in the footer. I am not sponsored by anyone and have no affiliation with Tati Westbrook.