Algorithm-Proof Your Business

Are you tired of the algorithm? Are you tired of the updates? Do you want a business that can survive without being tossed to and fro with the algorithm? Awesome. Then I’m your girl. And this post is for you. I’m going to show you how to algorithm-proof your business.

Hi, I’m Michelle. I am the founder of Business Mom School, which is where I help you learn how to grow your business. I also run a marketing agency, and I coach hundreds of women in my Money Makers group. What I’ve found is that when people start their business online, they put all of their effort towards gaining a following on social media. And so they spend countless hours on Instagram and countless hours on TikTok, trying to grow a following without having a way to get paid from the following they’re growing. What’s worse is that they don’t have a sustainable business without social media!

Social Media is not the end zone 

Now I love social media and I think it’s a great tool, but it cannot be the end of our business. It has to be the beginning. It has to be the handshake. Social media should be the place where someone meets us and then wants to learn more about us. It should lead customers to sign up for our email list or purchase our products.

Social media is the handshake. It is not the end zone. I have a five-part framework that I call my Money Maker method, and that’s what we’re going through today. I’m going to walk you through the five different levels that you need to grow a sustainable business. And this is going to spell MONEY. So get ready.

The Money Maker Method

The first step of my Money Maker Method is Make your Mark. This is where you do your brand. Next, you have to Optimize your Opportunity. This is where you’re going to build your customer journey. After that is Need to Notify, which is your email list or text list. Then it’s Establish your Ecosystem, which consists of creating your website so that you can sell your products. Lastly is Yell to Your People. This is where you are creating content.

I think about it like an iceberg. So if you picture this pyramid in the ocean, then you just see the tip of the iceberg as the content that people actually see. It’s such a strong iceberg because it has all the layers underneath. But the tip of the iceberg is all people see. Now what happens is that if the algorithm comes and something changes with your content, you’re not moving anywhere because you have the foundation built.

But what I see happening with people is that they only focus on their content. And so they’re just floating around. Then an algorithm comes and there’s a huge tidal wave when they start floating and they are not a strong iceberg. They’re an ice cube just floating around in the ocean.

And I don’t want that for you, because then what happens is any change sets you off course and it’s not a way to grow a sustainable business. So I want to make sure that you have the whole iceberg under there. I don’t want you to have an ice cube. I want you to have the whole ‘berg.

Now, back to my Money Maker Method. Let’s go through each of these steps and I will tell you how to determine each of them and what to do for your business.

Algorithm-Proof Your Business Step#1: Make Your Mark

The first part of the iceberg is Make your Mark. This is where we are talking about your brand. Your brand is made up of what people see (like the colors, fonts, and logos), what they say about you, and why you’re here.

Let’s start with why you’re here. What is the bigger purpose behind your business? What is your mission here? How are you trying to change things with your business? What problem are you tackling? If you can understand that and get people to understand that, then it makes it easier for you to attract a following. 

What is your brand message? It is made up of the five Ps – Person, Problem, Product, Promise of Transformation, and Personal Authority. Number one and two are that you have a person with a problem. Then we have a product that solves that problem. Our product offers some kind of transformation that will solve their problem. And then number five is personal authority. Why are we the unique person that they should choose to solve that problem? 

So when we are thinking about our brand messaging, we need to understand those five Ps. Then it makes it very easy for us to know who we’re talking to and to know what to say to them, because we know what their problems actually are. This allows us to connect quickly with our potential customers. People can talk about us easily because they know exactly who we’re talking to and what problems we solve. 

Personal Authority

Let’s give a real-life example. I could say that I teach business to everyone. Because honestly, a lot of the things I teach apply everywhere to any business – man or woman, mom or not a mom. In my business, I infuse a little bit or a lot of me. I’m a mom to five kids. And I want to make sure that you understand the things that are most important because you don’t have time to waste if you’re a mom raising kids. As a mom speaking to other moms, my perspective is going to be different. That’s my personal authority part. 

So when people know moms who are ready to start a business, they can easily refer my page to them, because I’m clearly defining who I’m serving. If you know that for your business, it makes a big difference in how people can talk about you, how much you can grow, and how fast you can grow.

I know some of you will want to say, “I am passionate about a lot of things, and I want to talk about a lot of things.” You can do that, but it’s going to take longer because people don’t know what you do or how to talk about you. So, if you do choose not to niche down, I don’t necessarily recommend it because it does take longer. So even though it’s scary, I do want you to niche down. It makes it so much easier to make your business algorithm-proof.

Consistency is Key

The other part of the Make your Mark branding is what people see. It is having consistent colors, and consistent fonts, so that you can show up professionally on social media, on your website, and other places where people find you online. We want people to instantly be able to recognize this and to say, oh, that’s a Julie quote, or that’s a Jennifer quote. This can be just as easy as choosing your colors and making sure that you’re consistently using those colors on social media and your website.

Algorithm-Proof Your Business Step#2: Optimize Your Opportunity

All right, let’s move up to the next section of the iceberg and that is to Optimize your Opportunity. And this is your customer journey. So I like to think of my customer journey like a ladder. The first step of the ladder is how are people going to find me. How do people come in? What is the free content that I’m putting out that attracts people? 

When I’m trying to attract people, I try to be on as many search engines as possible so that when people are searching, I come up. The best search engines are YouTube, Google, and Pinterest. And then social media and other places. So, what kind of free content am I going to put out? After I decide that, the next step is where does that free content lead? Usually, it’s an email opt-in. And then how do they get on the email opt-in or text list and get sold a product? After that, how do they get sold another product or a higher-level product? So how do I bring people in and move them through the customer journey of purchasing more and more products with me? This question is answered by the next piece of the iceberg.

Algorithm-Proof Your Business Step#3: Need to Notify

The next step on the iceberg list is Need to Notify. This is your email list. Now, listen, you do not own your followers on social media. We don’t, we just borrow them. We need to make sure that we can notify our people when we want. I highly recommend getting an email list. Some people may say, “I’ve already heard that and I’m not doing it.” Listen. I want you to do it and I need you to trust that this is a big deal. I use an email list and a text list. And the text list open rate is around 98%. It’s insane. Texting is awesome. 

I try to build both my text list and my email list so that when I need to ask my audience something or sell them something, I know I can get my content to them. Because the algorithm on social media is going to continue to change. It’s going to continue to get harder and harder to reach the people that you want to without putting ad money behind it. And because of that, you want to grow your email list. This way, you can build that community and you can always have the ability to talk to them when you need to. This is how you can algorithm-proof your business.

Algorithm-Proof Your Business Step#4: Establish Your Ecosystem

The fourth step is to Establish your Ecosystem. With establishing your ecosystem, you need a website. You need a place that you control, that’s your home base, where you can sell your products in the way that you want to. I know, you just want to sell on Instagram. But I need you to have your website. 

If you are selling professional services or products, you need a website so that people can purchase and get your products. It doesn’t matter if it’s a service or a digital or a physical product, or you just need to get people to your website because you sell your influence with ads and things like that. You need a website to send people to, so don’t be afraid of building a website. It is your online shop. It’s your place that you can control and you can lead people down the buying path, and get people exactly where you want them to go.

Algorithm-Proof Your Business Step #5: Yell to Your People

Alright, we’ve made it to the tip of our iceberg and this is Yell to Your People. And this is where you’re creating the content. I recommend choosing one long-term piece of content that you create on a consistent basis. You’ll want to create long-form content on a YouTube channel, a podcast, or a blog. 

Now, if you’re not sure where to start, I highly recommend using YouTube. And the reason why I recommend YouTube is that it is the easiest piece of content to repurpose. So you could take a video, extract the audio, and make it a podcast. You could then take the transcript and make it into a blog post. And you can take that blog post, make some pins, and put it on Pinterest. You can take some of the quotes out and the step-by-step instructions and make some carousel posts for Instagram. Lastly, you can take little clips out and you can make them into Reels or TikTok videos. 

Choose Your Platform

So YouTube is the place to be because it’s the easiest to do. But maybe you’re not in that stage of life where YouTube is for you, then podcasting is easy. And podcasting is a great place. However, because podcasts aren’t super searchable right now, I would make sure that you use your podcasts and get them on a blog.

Next, you’re going to choose a social media platform that is going to be your hub for your community. This can be Instagram, TikTok, or a Facebook group. You get to decide. Now you can be in more places than one. But, if you’re feeling overwhelmed, just choose one and kill it at that one. And then when you get that under control, you can add another social media channel. Just choose one place for consistent long-form content and one place for social media content. And then repurpose as much as you can.

The Money Maker Method is your foundation

That is the Money Maker method. If you build a solid brand, you have your customer journey, you have an email list, you have a website, and then you create your content. This is how you build an algorithm-proof business. Because let’s say social media doesn’t work for a minute or the algorithm is completely nuts and you’re only getting seen by 1%. That’s actually not that far off. Then what you have is this system in place. You have this giant iceberg, this foundation, so that you’re not getting tossed to and fro. You know how you can talk to your people. Lastly, you have a website where people can go and they can purchase your product.

How to Algorithm-Proof Your Business

Don’t get stressed out if you don’t have all of this done right now. Now you know the framework and I’m going to be teaching more of this here on my blog, podcast, and  YouTube. I’m going to walk you through how to do all of this. What I want you to do is to choose what you’re going to do first. Just choose one step.

And then take that step and then add more to it, but don’t get overwhelmed. Figure out where you are in your business and then take that next step. I am so grateful you’re here. I love helping you grow a business. Follow me on Instagram and TikTok for more business tips and tricks! You can also join me at Business Mom School where you’ll receive two emails a week with homework assignments and social media updates. Sign up by texting BMS to 951-309-7885 or clicking here. Class is in session!