The rapid rate of technological advancement over the past few years and the incredible growth in social media networks has made connecting and communicating with people easier than ever before. This has led to the illusion that when using social media as a networking and marketing tool for your business, you must attempt to connect with as many people as possible, building superficial connection with thousands of people. This strategy may work if you are in a business that relies on this type of superficial connection with a mass market, to sell your products or services. My experience has shown me that very few, if any businesses, have enjoyed success with a strategy of simply trying to exponentially grow the numbers on their social media networks.
The secret for utilising social media as an effective means to network and market your products and services successfully and to regain the personal touch in the new digital world, is to accept that it is never about how many contacts you have. It is always about the number of quality contacts you have. Despite the apparent ease of making thousands of superficial connections via social media networks, the fundamentals of networking and marketing still apply. You still need to know who your ideal clients are, what their needs are, where to find them and then to connect with them, so that they can get to know, like and trust you and your business.
Unless you connect with the right people, who need what you have to sell. Building mutually beneficial relationships with them, whereby you can support each other, share ideas, leads and information. You are wasting your efforts on social media. The need to be a great matchmaker is as important today as it was before the advent of social media. Yes we need to be seen, build credibility for our brand and bring attention to our businesses via all the marketing channels available to us, including all the social media platforms.
One of the best ways to connect with the people we want to do business with and turn social media into a power tool for success is to explore opportunities to connect these people with other people, who they need, in a mutually beneficial way. The law of reciprocity, Sell digital products states that people are always willing to help people that helped them. Get to know your targeted group of clients by using social media and search engines to research these prospects. Once you have an understanding of their businesses and their needs, explore your network and see if you can help them to connect with someone in your network that can support or assist them in any way.
The second way of utilising social media as a networking and marketing power tool is to consistently post relevant, useful information, which your network finds of value. Over time the people in your network will grow to respect you as an expert and they will get to know like and trust you and your business. People always make a buying decision based on their emotions, only using logic to guide them. So as soon as you have managed to get people to know, like and trust you. Getting them to buy from you is simple.
As I stated before your social media network must consist of carefully selected people that need what you have to sell. This ensures that your message is reaching the right people and over time these targeted individuals will start to do business with you. Communicating your message and offering consistent value to your social media network can be facilitated in a number of different ways. You can simply post short exerts directly on the social media platforms. If you have a longer message you want to publish, you could create a blog where you write longer articles and then post links to your blog posts, onto your social media platforms. By following these links people will be able to read, like and comment on your articles.
Another way of building connection with people and becoming the resident expert on your social media platforms, is to comment on others people’s posts or blogs and to retweet things that are aligned with your vision and networking and marketing objectives. Your objective whenever working on your social media networking and marketing strategy, is to ensure that you consistently add value, so that people invest time to read and utilise your information. Success in using social media as a power tool for networking or marketing your business is always found in giving and never taking.