Social Media Marketing for my business after slump?

[Blacksmith876]

Hello everyone, at the start of this year I created a telegram group where I shared analysis for sport (mostly MMA but others too) and posted bets for people to follow.

My USP was full transparency, tracking everything/not hiding or lying about when I lose and also trying to teach people the skill after doing it for fun for years making no money and then making an income from it after I reached out to some professionals who were kind enough to reply to my messages and school me which sent me on this journey.

I was making a living from my profits but decided that this business had potential as the industry is quite murky so I built a small following of people who appreciated the honesty as well as me explaining what is realistic/what isn't.

I noticed that I needed to invest in the business to grow it so got myself a good 9-5 sales job in tech while I build the business. 8 weeks ago I started a subscription service which is going ok but my growth has slowed down significantly.

Online I make posts on twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn (as I have a large following on there compared with the others) and also have begun making YouTube videos but still the growth seems to have ground to a halt.

I've now spent a lot of time trying to learn social media marketing online but am finding it difficult to get results and my free group of 155 is only adding new members at a very slow rate so I wanted to ask what resources I should look at to learn this skill as maybe the content that I'm finding is outdated or not so relevant to my niche.

Any advice would be massively appreciated as I am considered hiring someone to help with the marketing strategy but I would rather learn the skill myself first.

Thanks everyone

 

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[Choate]

What's your website? Social media is a black hole, you make content one day and it's gone the next. It's like throwing away energy out into the ether. I feel like social proof, background, etc. everything that goes with a website to build trust and authority is exactly what you need here.

You see yourself as a transparent sports analysis thought leader but I see another influencer competing on content creation and social media marketing against 50% of Gen Z. Even if you get a website though, the unfortunate aspect of this market is that advertising is restricted and you are going up against gambling laws, opening yourself to all sorts of liability; and maybe dealing with the wrong kinds of people to boot.

Most importantly, who is your target market here? How many people have "that friend" already that has no problem dishing out advice on good bets? Who really listens to him? Why would they want to listen to you? How far does your transparency/honesty really go online to total strangers? Isn't it almost more of a red flag when you think about it?

Who exactly is the person that doesn't want to gamble with their own thoughts, doesn't want to listen to a friend or family, but will seek you out? I don't think you've solved this problem which is why you aren't seeing growth.

IMO double down on the tech sales job.

 

[Blacksmith876]

What's your website? Social media is a black hole, you make content one day and it's gone the next. It's like throwing away energy out into the ether. I feel like social proof, background, etc. everything that goes with a website to build trust and authority is exactly what you need here.

You see yourself as a transparent sports analysis thought leader but I see another influencer competing on content creation and social media marketing against 50% of Gen Z. Even if you get a website though, the unfortunate aspect of this market is that advertising is restricted and you are going up against gambling laws, opening yourself to all sorts of liability; and maybe dealing with the wrong kinds of people to boot.

Most importantly, who is your target market here? How many people have "that friend" already that has no problem dishing out advice on good bets? Who really listens to him? Why would they want to listen to you? How far does your transparency/honesty really go online to total strangers? Isn't it almost more of a red flag when you think about it?

Who exactly is the person that doesn't want to gamble with their own thoughts, doesn't want to listen to a friend or family, but will seek you out? I don't think you've solved this problem which is why you aren't seeing growth.

IMO double down on the tech sales job.

Thanks you for taking the time to reply.

You absolutely nailed it thank you. I am competing with that demographic when mine is more middle aged which is why I was surprised to find out LinkedIn won most of my subs as well as recommendations. I have engaged a graphic designer and the next step is a website build too. I have information people want so its just driving traffic there which is proving harder than I thought. Once people are in the group my conversation rate is very good for the industry (about 15%)

The reason people listen to me is social proof/recommendations as people like bragging to their friend that they have access to good information, seeing my followers winning slips that I post or that they tag me in online, videos or posts I make about how to sports bet/analysis. The transparency is there as the information is all public so they can monitor my progress and see its accurate for themselves or go to my link to an impartial 3rd party tracking website but most people in all honesty don't bother and prefer to just follow and watch my progress.

My audience are people like my colleagues, friends and family who are in their 30s/40s and love betting sports but don't make money doing (as 95% of people lose money sports betting) I have two types of followers, ones who tail my plays only and ones who tail them but want to learn how I make the plays (I struggled to learn how to sport bet myself before I became profitable which is where I got the idea as I only learned by messaging loads of professionals until a few were kind enough to reply and school me.

In terms of the business model it is a huge industry where the standard marketing process is selling unrealistic expectations akin to scam-like, get rich quick schemes so I know my approach is different and lacks the FOMO appeal but my followers see me as an alternative to these. A common message I get when someone who signs up is 'its nice to find someone who doesn't exaggerate their numbers or hide their losses, I was scammed by someone else pretending to win when they lost/lying about their record' etc.

People follow tipsters and move around until they find someone consistent and trustworthy, mostly from Twitter and Instagram. Maybe I'm just expecting results to come a lot faster than I anticipated as I've only been marketing heavily for 9 weeks now but at first I had much bigger growth so I feel like I'm just doing it wrong so I was wondering where I should start to learn how to market online. I did ok in the B2b world on LinkedIn for my career before this since its easy to standout from all the corporate BS on their but this is a completely different game and feels like I just don't understand the rules of the game.

 

[Choate]

where the standard marketing process is selling unrealistic expectations akin to scam-like, get rich quick schemes so I know my approach is different and lacks the FOMO appeal but my followers see me as an alternative to these

I think this is the crux of the issue. You are selling balance to people looking for a get rich scheme. These things are inherently opposed to one another. Things just don't line up. The same people spending a lot of time on social media are also not looking for super measured, level-headed approaches to gambling. Those people are either not on social media or not seeking out a guru-type person.

Like you said, only 9 weeks is not a lot of time. I would expect your growth to be from word of mouth as that trust component is insanely important here. You probably just need a combination of more time in the market and reaching a more critical mass of followers before things start to shape up.

 

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