If you are planning to use social media as a marketing tool you need to keep two goals front and centre to guide all your actions.
Goal One: Connect with people, don’t just collect names
First you need to remember the social in social media. And you need to keep in mind social media sites were designed as social networking tools not social marketing tools.
Why does this matter? The real power of sites like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn is the ability to get to know people. Too many users of these sites are just trying to collect as many names as possible without truly connecting with anyone. If that’s all you’re doing on social networking sites, then you’re really just a social media slut. And if all you’re doing with your huge number of casual encounters is promoting your business, then you’re a social media spammer.
So how do you build a descent sized network of people you really connect with? I hate to say it, but it takes time. Social media is not an automation tool; you need to put in the work. Just like you can’t outsource all your in-person networking, the same thing is true of your online social media networking.
Send a personal message to everyone you invite to connect on LinkedIn and Facebook. Look at everyone’s profile. Leave a comment on their Facebook page. Participate in the community. Join groups; leave comments and ask questions. And from time to time, connect with someone privately.
You don’t have to make everyone your best friend, but try to get to the point where if you see a name you’d at least recognize they’re in your network.
Goal Two: Get people onto your own site
The second goal with social media is to get people from your network onto your website or blog. You want to get them to join your mailing list. Remember, the money is in the list – but only if you own the list.
Yes, you can contact people through social media, but you can’t always sell via social media without breaking written or unwritten rules of the site. But more importantly, you don’t want to be dependant on someone else to maintain your list of contacts. What if the site goes down? Or loses your contacts (those on Twitter remember that happening earlier this year)? Or what if you get kicked off?
Don’t be at the mercy of other people’s rules and whims. Get people onto your own mailing list. Send a Tweet whenever you write a new blog post. Import your blog into Facebook and LinkedIn. Create an event page in Facebook whenever you host a teleseminar. Invite new Twitter followers to sign up for your ezine. Include teleseminars and your ezine in your LinkedIn profile.
If you keep these two goals in mind – getting to know people and getting them on your mailing list – you’ll be successful with your social media marketing efforts.
Andrea J. Stenberg
Are you still on the fence about social media marketing? Have you joined Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter and thought “now what”? Please join me for Getting Started with Social Media Marketing: How to Use Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter to build your brand, increase traffic and make more money. This four-week course will introduce you to Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter and get you started using them effectively. Please join me.
