One of the hardest things about being an entrepreneur is not having someone to bounce ideas off of. You don’t have anyone in the next cubicle to ask “hey, how do you do …”
However, if you’ve built a good social media network, you can have the next best thing.
I’m currently organizing a course – Getting Started with Social Media Marketing: How to Use Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter to build your brand, increase traffic and make more money. I also set up an affiliate program – other people can sell my course and get a commission on the sale. I used a service that was recommended to me, figured how to set it up so Paypal will accept the payments and purchases will be added to the appropriate Aweber mailing list. Then the problems started.
First, several people I emailed to invite into my affiliate program couldn’t receive my emails because their ISP blocks links to the affiliate provider. Then I got an email from a friend. She visited my sales page and her anti-virus software warned her my site contained spyware. I was pulling my hair out.
Shopping cart; that was the solution. More expensive and difficult to set up than I wanted at this time, but that’s the cost of doing business. Then I heard from a respected colleague with more experience then me that he won’t participate in affiliate programs tracked by this shopping cart because of errors it makes.
Arrrrrrrrgh!!!!!!!!!!!!
Did I mention this was only 10:30 am? I was stumped. What do I do? Where do I turn?
Then I got the answer: my social network. I tweeted about the problem and got four good replies right away. I posted it on LinkedIn and so far have seven great solutions. Yes, some of the advice is contradictory, but I have more information to go on and more options. Even better, everyone giving me suggestions is recommending a product they actually use.
So, next time you’re stumped go on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook to ask for help.
Andrea J. Stenberg
How has your network helped you? Leave a comment and tell us how your network as pulled you out of the fire.
