Many small business owners view social media sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter as an exciting new shortcut for marketing their business. They think social media magical solution; if they sign up customers will flock to their website or store front. It’s as if marketing no longer has to be work.
Well I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I’m here to tell you that it’s just not true. Whether you are using Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, or some other social media site, the truth of the matter is the people who get true value out of social media are those who put in the hard work. If it were truly easy, everyone would be getting rich.
What hard work?
The truth of the matter is the best marketing – the most effective marketing – involves building relationships with real, live people. It’s about giving people the chance to get to know, like and trust you. And it doesn’t matter how fabulous your website is, how funky your Facebook fan page is, or how witty you are when you Tweet, if you aren’t building relationships you’re spinning your wheels.
Ultimately building relationships using social media means you can’t hide behind your computer to promote your business. At some point you have to get away from the keyboard and either pick up the phone or meet face-to-face with the people you’re connecting with. Yes, you can use social media to virtually meet people, and get on their radar, but that is only the beginning. The real power of social media comes from taking these initial connections and getting off line.
This is not a quick fix. There are no shortcuts. You need to find the time and the reason to follow up and connect with your social media contacts.
It’s exactly the same principles as networking in real life. Just showing up at a networking meeting isn’t going to get you business. You need to have a plan, meet new people, provide value, and follow up.
The people who go to networking meetings, sit with their friends and then go back to the office and behave as if nothing has happened get no results. However, people who go to networking meetings, get to know the people they meet, and find ways to help those people (whether by connecting them with other people, sending them resources, sending them appropriate websites) and only after they’ve taken the time to build a relationship do they sell, these are the people who get lasting results with networking.
So how do you get from following someone on Twitter to getting them on the phone? First, you need to take the time to get to know them. Visit their website, read their tweets, look at their profile, connect on other social media sites. Next, you need to start a conversation. Reply to comments they make, reTweet their messages, send them @replies with helpful links. Once you have proven yourself as a valuable resource, then you can approach them about having a conversation off line.
If you skip any steps along the way, you may be perceived as pushy or creepy.
Consider dating. If somebody were to ask you out, take you out to dinner, and you have a good time, you might consider it okay for them to kiss you at the end of the date. However, if a complete stranger came up to you on the street and planted a big juicy one in your lips you probably hit them.
So when you’re out in the virtual world networking on Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter, don’t be a virtual masher. And don’t be a virtual hermit either. Take the time to get to know people, give them a chance to get to know, like and trust you, and then take the relationship off line. If you can do this, you’ll be ahead of 90% of the social media marketers online today.
Andrea J. Stenberg
Do you have a success story of how you connected with someone you “met” online? Tell us what you did, how you did it and what results you got by leaving a comment.
Totally agree with you Andrea. My new philosophy is Social Networking is Social Net-Working. Ask your friends and family to help spread the word about your product, service and you will get leaps and bounds of growth in your social groups. For example, I tested it last night and within 24 hrs have increased our facebook fanpage from 388 to 439 FANS whom will see all my updates. Goal by end of weekend is 500. Wish me luck and check it out to see if it works at:
http://www.facebook.com/explorethebruce
Happy Holidays everyone.
Bruce County Torusim – Explorethebruce.com
Andrea,
This is a good post and it’s advice I have tried to follow on twitter. In all honesty, however, I have not found it to be that beneficial as a place to connect with others and form new relationships.
It seems to me, that everyone is mainly writing down their own quick message, and that there is not a lot of interaction going on.
Am I missing something?
Laurie,
Yes you are missing one aspect of Twitter. The @reply. If you want to make a comment directed to me you would include @andreastenberg in your Tweet (andreastenberg is my Twitter user name). This flags me to let me know you are talking directly to me. Of course, anyone else who is following me or you can see the @reply so you need to keep that in mind.
You use the @reply when you have something to add to what another Twitter user has said. I have several people who I “met” on Twitter and had conversations this way. In fact, when I’ve run into these people at conferences they immediately knew who I was.
Another aspect of Twitter is that it is often a stepping stone to deeper relationships. I frequently see someone start following me on Twitter. After a while I’ll get a Friend request on Facebook. Next I’ll see them on my email newsletter list or leaving comments here on the blog.
Of course, not everyone who follows you on Twitter will develop into a deeper virtual friendship. But when it happens, it’s golden.
Hope this helps Laurie.
Andrea
Thanks Andrea. I do already use the @ reply, but do get some interaction, but not much.
How much time do you devote to it a day? I have to go check to see if I”m following you:-)
Laurie,
It’s hard for me to say because I don’t sit down and say “for the next hour I’m on Twitter”. I do dribs and drabs throughout the day. I check the Tweets coming in and whenever I see something interesting I try to send a quick reply. Maybe five or ten minutes at a time, four or five times a day. So I guess that becomes an hour most days.
One thing I’ve done is set up a column in TweetDeck to keep a closer track of people who have replied to me. You see, I have a bad memory, particularly when it comes to names. I can barely remember the names of people I actually know. So I was finding that when people I don’t really know who made a single reply, I’d forget who it was, so I wouldn’t always notice what else they were saying.
By adding them to a separate column on TweetDeck, I can be sure to watch what they’re saying a little more closely. Then over time, I can continue the conversation and hopefully we’ll gradually develop some sort of online relationship.
Like any marketing activity, it’s not a fast process. It’s also not the only way I market myself. But over time, it all adds up.
Andrea
Just found your blog after doing some research. Lots of great posts and these have helped me a lot.
I have bookmarked your site and will check back often for new posts.
Once people find out the “secret” to social media success is nothing but hard work and relationship building they lose interest real fast. I would love to guest post for you with a template that features just how a person builds relationships.
[...] Andrea Stenberg wrote an interesting blog post recently that describes one of the least understood—yet most important—aspects of social networking: how to deepen a surface-only online relationship into a business relationship. [...]