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An Interview With Candice Georgiadis

Build relationships with your target audience and referral partners — I’ve found great clients by finding referral partners on Instagram. Of course, I network with my target audience but I find that most people forget to network with referral partner online.

As a part of our series about How To Leverage Instagram To Grow Your Business, I had the pleasure of interviewing Amanda Melissa.

Amanda helps mission-driven women entrepreneurs who are seeking more impact and sales with a simple content strategy to attract their dream clients. She has 7 years of marketing experience working with Fortune 500 companies, content creators, and local businesses. Her 3 step process to a simple content strategy is identifying your message, target audience, and conducting market research.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?

I graduated college with a BA in Communications Studies and a Business minor. Then I worked at “KB Home” in their marketing department and at “Essex Property Trust.” I also worked with several small local businesses on their email, podcast, and social media content. I love everything about content, from the research, to planning and creating it.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started this career?

Honestly, I love meeting other women experts in the online world. I think it’s so cool that we can work with other businesses across the world and collab on a project together. I believe we truly live in a unique time, and it’s so important to be grateful for being allowed to work with people from all over the world. Although, thinking about it now, I recently posted on my Instagram stories how crazy it is that most of my clients are from the east coast when I am on the west coast. If we were in 2000, I think I might only serve local clients.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

I think the funniest mistake was not starting an email list sooner. I have a background in marketing and I always knew it was essential but it truly has been a game changer in business. And this is why I also offer email marketing, because it’s literally another revenue for your business to drive sales and you don’t even know what you are missing until you start using it.

Ok. Let’s now move to the main focus of our discussion. For the benefit of our readers, can you explain why you are an authority about Social Media Marketing?

I have over 7 years of marketing experience. I went to college to study marketing and I learned the fundamentals about influence but it wasn’t until I worked in corporate that I learned how to implement social media marketing. And this is why so many people need help with it because, there are a lot of experts who are good at knowing the algorithms but what drives sales on social media is your story, message, and expertise and the people who truly understand their audience and how they are different are the ones that see results and not because they posted at 12pm which is the time Instagram told them to publish content. This is why I’m an expert, because I believe that algorithms aren’t the answer but more importantly it’s the relationships we build on their that drive results. I am an example of this because I’ve been working from home since 2020 and I have been able to drive sales to be at home with my daughter from social media. My clients have literally went from in person businesses to driving $30k in revenue in 30 days.

Which social media platform have you found to be most effective to use to increase business revenues? Can you share a story from your experience?

Instagram has definitely been the most effective for me to grow my business, but I will say that I also drive clients from LinkedIn and TikTok. I have converted clients from FB groups too, but not as much as from my Instagram account. My experience is that you have to find which platform you enjoy and which platform you ideal client is on.

Let’s talk about Instagram specifically, now. Can you share five ways to leverage Instagram to dramatically improve your business? Please share a story or example for each.

  1. Define your brand — how are you unique that your competitors, what is unique about your process, what are your values, and what do you offer that no one else offers. It’s important to understand your brand so that you can clearly communicate it to your team members and audience.
  2. Define your target audience — this is more than demographics. What do you target audience believe to be true about your product or service? What mindset is holding them back from buying from you? You have to define who you want to attract so that when you work with a social media marketer or ad agency they understand your target audience and can create unique messages that speak to them.
  3. Define your message — I always tell my clients social media is the distribution center and your message and content is the product. If your message isn’t clear then it is really hard for your audience to buy your product or service. The best way to define your message is to do your research and see what is performing well for your competitors and then tweak it the more business you get.
  4. Create video content — It is so much easier and faster to build relationships with video content because in a world where we can just “buy now” we just need to know if we can also trust that person. If you want to give your audience a great brand experience implementing video in your strategy is a great way to stand out so they can make the decision to work with you.
  5. Build relationships with your target audience and referral partners — I’ve found great clients by finding referral partners on Instagram. Of course, I network with my target audience but I find that most people forget to network with referral partner online.

Because of the position that you are in, you are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂

I would love to inspire people to be their most authentic selves. I feel that especially in the online space a lot of people are trying to be something they are not and giving their followers full access to them. You don’t have to share every aspect of your life online because that isn’t authenticity. Authenticity is sharing things online because you want to, not because you feel like you have to.

Some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them 🙂

JLO has been a big idol for me. I loved watching her in the movie “Selena” as a little girl, and I love that she has been able to have such a long and respectable career as a Latina in the movie, business, and music world. I would love to learn any insight she has about Latina’s in business.

Thank you so much for these great insights. This was very enlightening!

Thank you so much. Please make sure to follow me on TikTok @amandamelissa.c and Instagram @amandamelissa.co

Solopreneur Amanda Melissa: Five Ways To Leverage Instagram To Dramatically Improve Your Business was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.