I always worry that I’m going to get in over my head with new technology … no matter how simple it may look to you, I tend to get myself in a predicament that winds up being painful. I’m not what you’d call a technophobe. Technoboob is more accurate.

I’m very detail-oriented when it comes to writing. But when the subject is technology, I often stick my fingers in my ears.

Quick story. My mother was a systems engineer for IBM for 28 years, starting in 1954. When I was in junior high school, she often took me to her office in Hammond, Indiana, so she could work on a Saturday afternoon.

Year: 1960. Picture a huge office - to me, at age 13, anyway - filled by … a single computer. And from the computer were big cables, connecting to peripherals in corners of the office. And on either side of the actual computer - which probably had a footprint of 200 square feet - were 5 desks, manned (womanned?) by punch card operators. Every program was a huge set of punch cards, each with a certain pattern of 0s and 1s punched out.

It was all absurd to me.

About 1978, when the Commodore-64 and the TRS-80 personal computers came on the market, I told my wife, “No one will ever buy a home computer. They’re way too complicated.”

Now … I have other technoboob credentials, but that comment certainly should give you the idea.

Which brings us to Twitter.

(If you want to join me on Twitter, go to http://Twitter.com/rden)

Like all these gadgets, I’ve resisted Twitter for quite some time. But now, friends have pointed out some very good marketing reasons to use it. For instance, you can target all the Twitterers who are using the exact keywords your prospects would use. That’s pretty hot. I’ll talk more about it in another post.

But here’s the point right now. You can follow those people on Twitter, and when many of them follow you back, you can send them a message like this:

Thanks for the connection - I value it. If you’d like to talk and network, add me on Facebook: http://profile.to/RichardDennis

That is 124 characters, under Twitter’s 140-character limit. You’re not trying to sell anything, and it’s not pushy - which is important, this being the social media. Those who friend you on Facebook are, I think, pretty hot leads for you. They are tweeting about a highly-relevant keyword phrase (which we have discussed at great length on this blog), and they have followed you off Twitter, over to Facebook, and added you.

Very good indication that this is a person you may be able to build a long-term, mutually beneficial relationship with. And this system could be an easy way to feed your net traffic machine every day.

What do you think?

Richard Dennis

Holy Mackeral!

These eye-popping social media statistics from Pew Internet Research show why building your own Net Traffic Machine is the quickest, most certain way for you to create a strong online profit base.

Richard Dennis

See that picture? That’s Alcatraz. If you use the social media wrong, you may as well be in Alcatraz. That’s how much chance you’ll have of building a good presence online.

You have no doubt seen many, many examples of social media online. This blog is social media. MySpace, Facebook, Digg … all social media where people get together and communicate with each other … as opposed to a static, never-changing webpage.

In many of these media, when you fill out your first form, their #1 question is something like: Are you here for

• friends?
• relationships?
• networking?
• dating?

The idea is to help tag you for others. It’s also a lesson to you about why people are there. It’s helpful to understand the “social media mindset.”

People come to these sites for friends, relationships, networking, & dating. That’s interesting. Do you notice that one category not here is …

to be advertised to

No one goes to a social media website to be advertised to. They didn’t go to MySpace so that you could change their life. No one filled out a Facebook profile hoping you would show up and preach to them about how much you love some product or company. They didn’t go out on a quest to find a bunch of people they don’t know and will probably never meet and yet, those people ask them for money.

THAT is definitely not the purpose of joining a social networking website. They don’t show up, hoping to be hammered into submission. And yet … and yet … I sure see a ton of people trying to do just that.

If you try that, the game is over. They click away. It’s not what they want. You go someplace else. And yet I see it all over - Facebook pages, Myspace, blogs. You see people who have a company logo as their photo. Or they have a product as their photo.

Let’s review …

Networking. Friends. Relationships. Dating.

To be advertised to?

NO!!! Who wants to network with a company logo? Who wants a relationship with a company logo? Who wants to date … well, you get the idea.

The value of the social media is in building relationships. And what we have found … I work closely with Charles Heflin at SEO2020.com, presenting the Perpetual Internet Traffic Machine for you to assemble and use … what Charles has found over the years in his testing is, the social media don’t really give you very good leads.

Is that a bummer or what, after all the time & effort you’ve put into it?

You can certainly get site visitors from the social media, but that is not where you get your best prospects.

However … if you tightly define what your target market wants and then do your research and uncover content your target market will really value … and you link to it in your social media … then people will connect with you. They will want to build a relationship with you, because you give value. They’ll link back to you. And they’ll promote your links to others in your target market, who will also link back to you.

You can get a lot of inbound links to your blog (Central Hub) by promoting other people’s great content from your social media sites. And as far as Google and MSN and Yahoo & the other search engines are concerned, nothing impresses them more about a website than inbound links. THAT is a site they will rank high.

So you’ll get more searches. And you’ll get more click-throughs, more people to your blog. And those are REAL prospects, people who have been searching keyword terms appropriate to your target market. Those visitors are way more valuable than the ones who come straight from the social media. But … you made use of the social media to find them. That is how it ties together.

One more time. The social media mindset is, people come to your blog (Central Hub) to be entertained, educated, enlightened. They are NOT looking to be hammered into submission. They are not looking for a salesperson.

They are looking for someone they can trust. That is key. They are on the lookout for good people in their niche to build relationships with. They want to find specialists in their niche, people who share their interest, people they can learn from.

Let that be YOU! Let someone else go to Alcatraz.

Richard Dennis

The business purpose of social networks is to build relationships with people in your target market, who could become your customer and who may lead you to a lot more customers (their friends).

Some people just don’t get this.

They don’t do their due diligence to find where their target market is active. Instead, they just find a social networking website and immediately put themselves out there. Then another and another and another.

The fact is, you can’t effectively interact on more than a handful of social media. Maybe it’s just a couple or three, or five or six. But if you try to do more than that, you’ll get splattered all over.

And notice that word “interact”? That is really an important word. There is no sense in joining a site unless you are going to interact with others who come there.

And notice back back in the first paragraph, that phrase “target market”? The purpose for a business in social networking is to build relationships with people who will become your customers. That means you need to be able to describe your customers, and you need to know where they hang out. You need to go there and listen as they talk and find out what really excites them and what really frustrates them.

That knowledge puts you in position to be helpful to these potential prospects. You can research and find information that they’ll value - and build a relationship with them in doing so. You can answer their questions yourself - and build relationships by doing so.

As you build and strengthen these relationships, as you make yourself valuable to people in your target market, your business will build. That is the point of a social network.

It takes time and it takes commitment to do just one social network right. There’s no way you can be involved in even a dozen networks and still do justice to them and put yourself in the best light for the connections you need to really build relationships.

So don’t spread yourself too thin. Do your research, and find two or three or four places your target market gathers. THOSE are the networks you need to join. Then listen. Then interact. Give value.

That’s a plan that works.

Richard Dennis

You need several very simple ingredients to be successful in social networking. Unfortunately, most business people start with a recipe that their visitors choke on and spit out.

Marketing in social media is 100% attraction marketing. People must come to you because you give value they want. You can never, ever advertise. You can’t treat social media as a revenue opportunity. You can’t treat your profile visitors as business prospects.

They won’t stand for it.

Your job is to educate, entertain, enlighten. Give value. Then give more value. Help people.

If you try to sell anything, you are dead in the water. Even if you just try to get their contact information right off the bat, they’ll be offended. They do not know you. They do not trust you. They are not looking to buy from you. As soon as they see you trying to make them do something, they will click away.

Is this so hard to understand? I mean, it’s exactly what YOU do!

Internet marketers see social media as just another advertising tool. You got no hope with that viewpoint.

IMPORTANT FACT: Time & testing have revealed that most of your direct visitors from social networks are NOT good prospects to begin with. Even if you have a terrific presentation, just a very small percentage will ever convert to sales.

Why?

Because they are not well-targeted. People on the social networking websites are NOT just regular targeted buyers who you can advertise to, as you would in other media. It’s a completely different market with different wants, needs and desires. You had better treat it as a different market, or you will fail.

To get really targeted prospects, you need to use social networks to build your online reputation, to leverage the search engines. This isn’t difficult to do. But the bottom line is:

Your job is to educate, entertain, enlighten. Give value. Then give more value. Help people.

So what should you do?

Choose a social networking website where people who share your interests hang out. Set up your profile. Go into detail. Answer all the “prompt” questions in the profile. Upload a photo.

If you don’t upload a photo, your chance of success is very, very low. People won’t trust you. Everybody else has a photo. Why don’t you?

It all comes down to trust. The social networking sites were set up for social networking. People resent anyone who comes in with some other agenda. And if you start out talking about the wonders of your free ebook, then they see you as just another huckster.

It’s obviously the start of a sales pitch. Visitors figure that if you really cared about a trust relationship, you wouldn’t start off selling to people you don’t even know. They’ll avoid you like the plague.

Social networks - and your blog is definitely a social network - are for networking socially. You’ve got to know the right recipe. Be friendly. Be helpful. Give great value. Be very passionate about whatever is your blog focus.

And never sell. It will not work.

Is the fog starting to lift?

Richard Dennis

Social networking has always been such a tease. You look at the limitless prospect base having millions of conversations about millions of things everyday. You think you’ll just put yourself in the middle of all those talkers and start doing business.

But after a lot of blood, sweat, tears, and man-hours, you realize those talkers don’t do anything but talk and ignore you when you want them to buy.

Not too long ago, my friend Charles Heflin puzzled over how businesses could routinely get positive cash flow from social networking. Charles had gotten measurable ROI using social media for years. He wanted to create a formula so the process could be effectively taught to others.

So he focused on spotting the elements of online social media that don’t change, then developing an effective action plan from those elements.

Through rigorous testing, observing and implementing over the past two years, Charles reached some conclusions:

1. Your level of success in social media (measured by ROI) is directly proportional to
a.    The speed at which you gain trust from visitors
b.    The social nature of your products or services
c.    The nature of your social network traffic conversion funnel (sales funnel – different from traditional internet marketing tactics)

2. Focusing on social network systems for incoming links to increase SE rankings is a short-lived strategy. We have evidence that Google values the level of “community”, “friendship” & “voting” within accounts that list your website link. They can easily spot footprints of social media black/grey hat tactics. Using social networks to build links will destroy your social media presence and your search engine visibility.

3. Social media networks (forums, blogs, micro-blogs, social networks, etc.) exist fpr two-way communication. They’d die without it. You must engage people within each network or you’ll get no value. Social bookmarking to increase awareness is not enough. You must also increase awareness of yourself (your brand) within your bookmarking, content, & other communities.

4. All content you post or promote must be educational, enlightening and/or entertaining. If not, your goose is cooked.

5. If you are an Internet marketer, you must unlearn everything you have learned. Success in social media is determined by your ability to educate, enlighten or entertain your target audience, not by how great a sales page you can write..

6. Sales resulting from social media interaction are proportional to the level of trust you get from visitors. Promotion doesn’t work. Branding yourself and building high search engine visibility put you in position to create trust. Visitors will find your “buy now” button without you shoving it in their face.

7. Strong social media communities change the focus from traditional SEO to community driven content delivery. SEO is automated through crowdsourcing. The focus on traditional (technical) SEO is melding with social rankings or “The New SEO”. Community trust leads to crowdsourcing and a dramatic increase in visibility across all major search engines.

8. Two social media elements lead to branding and ROI:
a. The ability to gain trust (by educating, enlightening or entertaining) and lead people off network to your blog or website. Your blog (or website) must continue the trend (educate, enlighten, entertain).
b. The ability of your blog (or website) to call visitors to action. Include an opt-in form offering a white paper, free report, MP3, video, etc., of high interest to your target audience. Maintain high trust and educate, enlighten, and/or entertain your audience throughout.

9. Listen to your target audience. Spot and understand their wants & needs before engaging them. Otherwise, you’re flying blind.

This is a good start with social media. There’s a lot more to come.

Richard Dennis