Social Media - The Bottom Line for a Business

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