As you are building your side hustle, small business, or self-employment opportunity, a great way to promote what you are doing is to ask your friends and family to lend you their support in 30-second increments.
Having them help you with your business doesn’t need to be hard or complicated.
6 Actions That Take Under 30 Seconds
One of the things that is hard for people who are self-employed is to get support from friends and family.
But These are just a few simple ways that you can ask your friends to help you out.
One of the things that I have found that works is to have a catch. I want to work with people who are small business owners or nonprofits. But I also tell people, if you hear somebody complaining about their job, I’d love to talk with them about setting up some side hustles. So that within six months to a year, they can move into full time, self-employment.
Here are 6 simple and easy “asks” for your friends and family.
#1 Ask them to like/follow you on Social Media
Your business should claim its spot on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and/or all other social media platforms you can think of, even if you are only planning on using 1 or 2.
On the ones you plan to be active on, ask friends and family members to follow you.
It will provide more social proof when you have more followers. When starting out, try for a 2:1 ratio. For every 200 followers you have, follow 100 people. When you have 100 followers and are following 900, it looks like people don’t care about you.
#2 Ask them to share a blog post
So as I post blog articles, I asked them to share, I put it in my email signature of my email update/newsletter.
I also have social share buttons on my website.
#3 Like or Share a social media post
Sharing or liking a post of on your business page helps that gets shown more in the timelines of your followers. It could also be something that one of their friends sees on their timeline that then promotes your business to them and you get a potential client.
#4 Tag a friend
When you post something on your website and share it via social media, having friends tag people in that post will often get that person to visit the post they were tagged in.
My friend Gordon is great at this. We are both Star Wars fans yet he follows more pages on Facebook than I do. At least 2-3 times per month, I am notified that he tagged me in a post. Guess what. I click over to the post and read it. There have been a number of pages I have started following because Gordon tagged me.
#5 Comment with a nice word or emoji.
Commenting with a nice word is another way to encourage the business owner and potentially help more people to see the post.
Even if they’ve never been a client of yours, if they’ve seen your work, if they know your character it will help.
Remember that people buy from those they know like and trust.
#6 Ask for a Shout out.
On their timeline, whether that’s Facebook or Twitter, Instagram, or any social media platform, if they can give a shout out to your business it can bring more attention to what you are doing.
Do It Today
Don’t wait.
Direct message your family and friends today to follow your business page(s).
Some will and some won’t.
