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Dr. Lisa Thompson Talks About How Social Media Can Turn Around Lives And Help You Generate Leads & Sales

Updated on December 10, 2021

8 Min Read

Tragedies bring out the best in some humans. This is specially true when we talk about Dr. Lisa Thompson, a social media influencer. During the recession of 2008, Dr. Lisa Thompson worked for 28 straight days to provide for her family after her husband was laid off from his job. However, she never backed down and saw the opportunity of helping home business owners, and marketers build their brand, score more leads & sales using Social Media. This new found career kickstarted the journey for Dr. Lisa Thompson.

Since starting out, she has generated over 3000 leads online, have launched her coaching program that teaches other home business owners how to set up their blog, have been placed in the top 20 of an affiliate product launch, and have been interview by three home business leaders. Moreover, these are only a pinch of the achievement she has garnered since 2013.

Recently, Cloudways had a chance to interact with Dr. Lisa Thompson about her journey on social media. In the interview, she talks about how social media changed her life around and helped her in achieving 30K followers on Twitter. This interview was an enlightening experience to conduct, and I am sure you would like to know how Dr. Lisa created a $300/month income stream from her blog through affiliate commission.

Lisa Thompson

Cloudways: Dr. Lisa, you have over 30K followers on Twitter. You are a known personality on Social Media. How would you define the work you do? Would you please tell our readers a bit about yourself?

Dr. Lisa Thompson: I help home business owners build their brand through blogging and social media. My entrepreneurial journey started in November of 2008 when my husband was laid off from his job during the Great Recession. I was the sole income owner and had to find a way to provide for my family.

Initially, I looked at building a website from scratch and adding affiliate products along the way. I was not on social media at that time. I even didn’t know WordPress was a blogging application at that time.

I struggled for the first five years because I did not have the right mindset and plan to begin working. That is, I did not focus on strategies that would put my business in profit, such as leveraging social media to drive traffic to my blog and building an email list.

It was not until I found my mentor in May of 2013 who taught me how to leverage social media to brand myself. Since then I have created a website on WordPress as a resource to help my readers brand themselves through social media and blogging.

Cloudways: Social Media is now an important medium for marketers. However, many marketers still fail at reaping the maximum benefits. Where do you think these marketers go wrong in integrating social media successfully into their broader marketing strategies?

Dr. Lisa Thompson: There are three big mistakes that I see marketers; especially home business owners, make using social media. First, marketers focus on trying to leverage every single social media network at once. You wind up spreading yourself too thin. You see, it is not the number of followers you have that determines your online success. It is about building a responsive and loyal, buyer’s audience.

The second mistake I see is a lack of knowing who their target market is. This lack is rampant in the home business arena, where people think that everyone is their target market. When you market to everyone, you market to no one. As a result, you waste a lot of time and money in the process.

Spending time, in the beginning, knowing who your target market is and their biggest problems will help you create content on social media that will attract the right people to you.

The third and final mistake marketers make is that they forget what the spirit of social media is all about. People do not go on social media to buy. Rather, they go on social media to connect with friends and family, be entertained, and learn something.

Cloudways: You are a followed voice in the domain of social media. According to you, what makes a person an “influencer” in social media?

Dr. Lisa Thompson: My mentor Ray Higdon gave me an important piece of advice that has served me well. “Instead of building an audience, focus on serving your audience.” That to me sums up what an influencer is.

An influencer is a teacher and problem solver who provides massive value to their market, through a variety of content marketing methods such as blog posts, video, infographics, and podcasts.

You listen to the needs of your market by asking them questions about what they want to see more of and engaging them, rather than just advertising. You create an environment on social media where people want to leave comments, likes, and shares instead of pitching links to your sales page.

Cloudways: Social Media is important for startups. What are the smartest things a startup can do when launching their social media presence? How much time should startups plan to invest in their social presence?

Dr. Lisa Thompson: Before launching a social media present, the first thing a startup can do is answer these four questions:

  1. Who am I
  2. What do I stand for?
  3. Whom do I serve?
  4. How do I serve them?

Once you have answered those questions, you then choose one social media network to focus on to build your buyer’s audience. I followed the advice of Gary Vaynerchuk. When Gary started on social media, he focused only on Twitter and answered every question his audience asked.

When you focus on one social media network, in the beginning, you can spend up to an hour per day interacting with your audience. ENGAGEMENT and consistency are the keys. You need to show that you are active on your social media site and willing to interact with your audience.

Make sure you spend time studying your metrics of your social media network to find out what types of content are getting the most likes, comments, and shares, as well as when your followers are on social media. What’s so awesome about social media right now is that there are automated tools available that can help you schedule your content to go out at those peak times as well as to help you respond to the likes, comments, and shares of your social media content.

I spend about 30-45 minutes/week uploading content to automated tools that send my content out to my market at the times they are on. I then spend about 15-20 minutes per day growing my following and spending 45-60 minutes per day interacting and engaging with my followers.

Cloudways: Lisa, do you read everything that you share or RT? Is sharing becoming a form of showing gratitude to your peers?

Dr. Lisa Thompson: Absolutely! However, here’s the key when RT or sharing content. You want to make sure you tag the person, so they are notified that you left a comment along with a short personal message. That goes a long way to building a relationship.

When you do this, you invoke The Law of Reciprocation. According to the Law of Reciprocation when someone goes out of his or her way to do something nice for someone, they will feel compelled to return the favor.

Moreover, social media is all about reciprocation. People do not buy from companies, websites, or social media networks. They buy from those whom they know, like, and trust.

Cloudways: A lot of small business owners believe that social media is not important enough for their time. The ROI is difficult to measure. How do you tackle this kind of opinions? What’s the best way to develop a social media strategy that can be both actionable and provide a return? What techniques to implement to measure ROI from social media marketing?

Dr. Lisa Thompson: Social media is one of the most cost effective forms of advertising out there. You can know immediately what your stats are to see if your advertising is working and can make revisions with ease.

For example, with Facebook advertising, you can target your market where it reduces the cost of advertising.

Businesses can add a Facebook tracking pixel to their website. When people click on their website, Facebook keeps track of that audience, and they can create advertising to that audience.

The best type of advertising to start out with is a paid Facebook likes advertising campaign targeting their market, followed by a video ad promoting a product or service to their target audience.

Cloudways: B2B companies, such as Cloudways, have a hard time in realizing the true potential of Social Media. What strategies would you suggest for B2B companies on maximizing the potential of Social Media?

Dr. Lisa Thompson: The first thing they need to do is create a Facebook Fan page to establish a presence on social media. Next, create a paid FB likes campaign to drive more likes to their Fan Page, followed by creating a Facebook ad to their blog posts.

Cloudways: Normally we see B2C companies and other entertainment social pages post gets viral. How can B2B companies generate this kind of viral posts?

Dr. Lisa Thompson: Again, Facebook is an excellent way to get leads via social media using paid Facebook advertising. The key is to build a highly engaged Facebook fan page that their audience, will like, comment, and share posts.

Cloudways: You must have followed a lot of social media campaigns. Can you list some of the best ones? What do you think was the secret behind their success?

Dr. Lisa Thompson: One of the best social media campaigns I ever saw was during Super Bowl XLVII by Oreo Cookies. During the Super Bowl, there was a power outage that caused a delay. During that delay, Oreo created this tweet.

This image immediately went viral. That is the power of social media. Businesses can take advantage of a current event and create an ad campaign that can give them massive exposure, leads, and sales.

Another great example of social media campaigns is President-Elect Donald Trump. I believe one of the reasons why Trump won the presidency is that he bypassed traditional media to creating campaigns and went straight to his audience using Twitter.

Cloudways: You have a massive Twitter following. How do you manage them? Which tools and apps (paid or free) do you use? How do you keep your engagement levels high?

Dr. Lisa Thompson: I use three Twitter tools to grow my Twitter account.

First, I use Status Brew to grow my followers. I follow 1,000 people per day based on my audience. I then unfollow those who do not follow me back within five days. The reason I love Status brew is that I can set parameters such as those who tweet every day, have a profile picture, speak English, etc.

I also use Status Brew to send out a welcome Tweet tagging my new followers as well as a private message containing a welcome video encouraging them to follow me on Facebook and subscribe to my YouTube Channel.

I use Tweet Jukebox to upload content to Twitter every 23 minutes.

To engage with my audience I use Commun.it because it allows me to see leaders and influencers who are commenting and sharing my tweets.

Cloudways: Whom do you consider among your best buddies to hang out within the Social Media Marketing niche?

Dr. Lisa Thompson: They are in the home business niche, such as Ray Higdon, Diane Hochman, Norbert Orlewicz, and Brian Fanale to name a few. These three people taught me how to lead with value when it comes to engaging with people on social media.

Cloudways: Books help in gaining the right knowledge. Which Social Media Book would you refer to readers who are looking to become social media superstars?

Dr. Lisa Thompson: Jab, Jab, Right Hook, Crush It, and Ask Gary Vee by Gary Vaynerchuk are tops. However, the one book that everybody MUST read in this social media age is How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. Even though it was written in 1937, it gives such practical tips for how to build rapport and relationships with people.

Cloudways: Events and Meetups are great for networking with the right people. What events would you like to recommend for social media marketers? Do you have any personal favorite event that you never miss out?

Dr. Lisa Thompson: I always go to Live the Dream Event in the middle of August. It is one of the best events for home business owners where you learn a combination of mindset and marketing techniques that will help you build your brand. The leadership is accessible, and the friendships I have formed are AMAZING.

Cloudways: 2017 is here, do you see any major changes to the social landscape for small businesses in the future?

Dr. Lisa Thompson: I believe the name of the game is engagement. You have to put content out that makes your audience want to engage with you. Right now video live stream is huge especially on Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter (Periscope). Instagram just added live, stream video, and I anticipate other social media networks will follow suit. Livestream videos get lots of engagement and build rapport with your audience quickly.

Cloudways: Finally, just for our readers, can you please send us an image of what your desk or workspace looks like!

Dr. Lisa Thompson: I do not have a picture right now because my office is going through MAJOR renovations. That is the beauty of having an online home business. I can take my laptop anywhere and work 🙂

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Arsalan Shabbir

Arsalan works as Digital Marketing Executive for Cloudways - A Managed Cloud Hosting Platform. He looks after Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn for Cloudways. (Cool, right?) In his spare time, he loves playing cricket.

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