Social Media Marketing for Coaches | Life Coach Marketing

Social media is a powerful tool for coaches to build an audience and connect and engage with potential clients.

In this post, we’ll explore:

The benefits of social media marketing for your life coaching business
The simple, 2-question formula to help you choose which platform to focus on
The pros and cons of each major social media platform
Simple “getting started” strategies to help your business grow on whatever platform you choose

According to Tufts University, there are 5 key principles that make social media marketing effective in creating conversations, community, and connections:

Authenticity
Honesty
Open Dialogue
Relevance
Engagement

Notice that none of the priorities listed “sales” or “promotion”. That’s because truly effective social media isn’t about creating a platform where you promote yourself and your services.

Instead, it’s about listening to your audience and showing up with value, consistency, and intention. Social media is about creating a space for generosity, integrity, and representation.

For life coaches, understanding “why” you’re showing up on social media is just as important as understanding “how.”

Each of your social media posts is an opportunity to be authentic. Keep your focus on serving your audience with the content you create. When you create from a heart of service, you’ll be able to:

Reach out to audiences that best match your ideal client avatar.
Engage with people who resonate with your services and create meaningful connections.
Gain access to valuable research and client insights (pain points, language, desires, etc.).
Build know, like, and trust you with potential clients

Using these principles to guide the way you share content online will help your social media content work for you. When you reframe “marketing and selling” to “connecting and serving”, it becomes easier to build know-like-trust with your audience.

Your content will build bridges between you and your target audience, letting you book more of the right clients for you.

First thing’s first: You don’t have to be on every platform to build a successful online presence for your coaching business.

You do need to choose the social media platform you choose to use based on 2 essential criteria:

Where is your ideal client spending their time when they’re online? What social media platforms is your target audience using?
What platform can you commit to being consistent in using? What social media channel can you predictably show up and create content in a way that gives value to your growing audience?

The “right” social media platform for you depends both on who you’re hoping to connect and build relationships with…

As well as where you can sustainably create content long term that’s aligned with the life and business you’d love.

Below, we’ll discuss the pros and cons of the major social media platforms in use in 2023. Using the two criteria above, choose one or two platforms that might be right for you!

(If you don’t know who your target audience is and haven’t yet identified your ideal client, click here!)

1. Facebook

A lot of users stay on Facebook to keep in contact with family, friends, and communities. However, Facebook is also used as a source of news and other heavy content consumption.

Pros:

Facebook is a great place for community-building. It’s easy and free to create business and group pages and build a community for potential clients.
Facebook offers one of the largest audiences among all platforms with nearly 3 billion active users. Yet, it also offers the ability to promote content to highly specific groups.
You might already be active on Facebook, making it an easy way to begin connecting with others.

Cons:

Younger generations are not as active on Facebook. If your ideal client is under age 25, Facebook might not be the best option for your business.
Success on Facebook requires ongoing, regular engagement and content creation. You may feel like you need to put in a lot of up front effort to see results.

Target Audience: Facebook’s largest demographics are men and women between the ages of 25-34 and 35-44. However, in 2023, the Facebook demographic that experienced the largest growth was the 55+ community.

How to Get Started: An easy way to get started on Facebook is by creating a business page or community group. Invite your current connections to support you and begin sharing valuable content and stories. You can also join active, relevant groups on Facebook to connect with your audience and provide your own value.

[Connect with us on Facebook!]

2. LinkedIn

LinkedIn is a great platform for networking, posting content that is relevant to your niche, and demonstrating your unique expertise.

Pros:

Since LinkedIn focuses on professional connections, it makes it easy for fellow entrepreneurs and business owners to engage with one another and grow their networks.
LinkedIn is an easy way to build your authority by writing articles, contributing to think pieces, and interacting with other professionals.
LinkedIn offers the ability to create business pages and product pages for free, making it easy to showcase your growing business.

Cons:

LinkedIn is especially vulnerable to sales spam, so expect to weed through spam to find the authentic connections in your inbox and feed.
LinkedIn is reported to have a higher learning curve than other platforms and may take more time to learn how to use than some other platforms.

Target Audience: LinkedIn’s largest audience is between the ages of 25 and 34, and there are significantly more men than women.

How to Get Started: One of the easiest ways to get started on LinkedIn is by posting quotes and adding in your original commentary (a.k.a. a “hot take”). Polls are also a great way to learn more about your audience’s language, pain points, desires, and more.

[Connect with us on LinkedIn!]

3. Instagram

Instagram is a visual platform where photo and video content make up the majority of the experience. It’s a great way for audiences to get a more intimate glimpse into your life and business.

Pros:

Instagram is great for visual branding, allowing even small brands to stand out to niche audiences.
Instagram has growing popularity, especially for Millennials and GenZ (40 and under).
Utilizing the Instagram Stories and Reels features can make it even easier to reach a wider audience. Instagram Reels are competing with Tiktok and Youtube Shorts, making it a great opportunity for your original content to gain traction.

Cons:

Instagram requires the regular creation of visual content (images and short-form videos), which may feel overwhelming for some.
Without using all of Instagram’s features like stories, reels, and affiliate marketing, it can be hard to build an audience with posts alone.

Target Audience: 60% of Instagram users are under the age of 35. Instagram’s largest audience is made up of men and women from 18-24, followed by men and women 25-34. There is a slightly higher number of men on Instagram than women.

How to Get Started: As an easy starter strategy, post photos and share stories of your daily life. Provide quick insights, practical tools, and position yourself as an expert in your niche. For example, if you coach moms, share snippets of your day-to-day life as a mom. Offer tips to help your audience solve a problem that’s related to the results you offer as a coach.

[Connect with us on Instagram!]

4. Pinterest

Pinterest is both a social media platform and a visual search engine. It’s a hub for collecting and inspiring ideas, shopping, and sharing interests in the form of curated boards.

Pros:

Pinterest allows you to curate content specifically for your target audience and easily send traffic back to your website.
Pinterest users respond positively to ads, frequently use the platform to make purchases, and are open to discovering new brands and solutions.
Pinterest content is evergreen, allowing your pins to get seen long after they’ve been created and posted.

Cons:

Content is purely visual, and the visual quality of your “pins” plays a large role in determining how successful they are, which might be a challenge for some.
Pinterest has a smaller audience than other social media apps, and can require a lot of attention to see results.

Target Audience: The median age for Pinterest users is 40, with nearly 80% of the platform’s users being women. The largest age group of active users (38%) is between 50-64 years old.

However, it’s important to note that there is a fairly even split between other age groups. For instance, 32% of their users are between 18-29 years old and 34% are between the ages 30-49.

How to Get Started: If you have a website or blog, you can post content on Pinterest that links back to your website. Create boards to divide your content into categories that make it easy for your ideal clients to navigate your content. Pinterest is unique because it promotes users leaving the platform, so it’s perfect for driving organic (unpaid) traffic to your site.

[Connect with us on Pinterest!]

5. TikTok

Although this platform is being used by mostly younger audiences, it’s becoming more popular with influencers across all age ranges. TikTok features short videos that are simple and can be fun to make.

Pros:

Creating content on TikTok can humanize your brand and showcase your services and products in a casual format.
Tiktok is growing in popularity and offers ample opportunities for viral content and a growing audience.
The content on Tiktok is divided and often shown to users by topic, making it easy to reach people who are interested in your specialty.

Cons:

Tiktok requires minimum account thresholds to be met before you can link to your website or other outside resources.
Creating short form video content can be overwhelming if you aren’t familiar with it. Filming and editing can be time consuming even though the videos are short.

Target Audience: While Tiktok has a reputation for being only for younger audiences, its audience is spread across all age groups. Nearly half of Tiktok’s users fall between 10 and 24, but, 24% of users are aged 25-34.

How to Get Started: The easiest way to get started on TikTok is by following what’s already trending. Spend some time on the app exploring topics that relate to your business’ specialty and the work you do. You’ll see how other influencers in your niche are using what’s trending to amplify their brand.

6. Twitter

People use Twitter to stay up to date on trending conversations, breaking news, events, and discussions. With its 280-character limit, Twitter empowers people to share their opinions with break-neck speed and simplicity.

Pros:

Twitter users are highly engaged, and tend to interact with and respond to content quickly.
Twitter can help you learn to be clear about your messaging and the value your business offers, since content needs to be short and concise.
Twitter does not require visual or video content creation to get started.

Cons:

Responses to your tweets are highly visible on Twitter, so negative feedback can be more apparent than on other platforms.
Because Twitter moves so fast, there aren’t many ways to create or leverage evergreen content. Users must always be creating new content to be seen.

Target Audience: Twitter’s largest age group is between 18-29 years old and makes up about 42% of their active users. It has more male users (61.6%) and a third of its entire user base are college-educated and earn more than $75k/year.

How to Get Started: One of the best ways to use Twitter is with the poll feature to gauge your audience and gather valuable insights.

Having a great social media presence means attracting more dream clients, which ultimately means creating more of the impact you were meant to make in the world!

So as you explore and have fun with creating social media content, remember to share value and be YOU!

The key to success on any platform is to be authentic and inspire others. And the best way to create value is through meaningful conversations.

If you would like to learn more ways to spark conversations with clients who would love to work with you, download our FREE ebook:

>> 10 New Clients in 90 Days

Inside you’ll discover the 8 steps every successful life coach follows to enroll new clients (without the pushy sales tactics)…

All while turning your genuine desire to serve others into an effortless enrollment process.