Some people think that if they just get a few thousand followers on Twitter and a Facebook account with a several hundred friends, they’re ready for their marketing blitz.
They think they’re just inches from having people chase them down, wallets open, ready to buy their product, service or join their business or affiliate program.
Then they start sending auto-DMs in Twitter with links to their affiliate products, or ‘***GET in NOW on the GROUND FLOOR!!! ***’.
Their Tweets become a torrent of spam links, and they even use @ replies to get attention when their DMs are ignored.
Then they ramp up their ‘marketing’ efforts by sending messages to all their Facebook friends, writing on their profile walls about the hot new biz-op, how you can get in on the top, and make a fortune if you only act now!
This is akin to the car salesman down the street popping into your home without knocking (wearing his obnoxious toxic blue polyester suit) during an intimate cocktail party with your friends and spouting out how he has the best deal in town!
It’s still hard to believe that people think that this is ‘marketing’ , and expect to be taken seriously. But it’s just a matter of jumping in before learning a few basic ideas of what Social Media Marketing really means.
The person in this case does not realize is that they’ll immediately be taken for an armature, never be taken seriously, and will soon alienate everyone on their list. And that list is probably not even a targeted one, had they even identified their target market.
Stop Wasting Time and Effort
First of all, the key word here is Social. That is, person-to-person, individuals who know what ‘friends‘ are, usually ignore commercials, and in most cases hate to be sold.
So in order to be liked and trusted, build a valuable network, and be the marketer rather than the maniac, there are just a few simple guidelines to follow:
Define Your Target Market – In many cases, the person jumping into social media for marketing purposes has not taken the time to define their target market.
Once you determine your what your target market is, join the social networks where you are most likely to connect with these people, join groups and participate in forum discussions, and above all, add value over promotion. Do not spam your new ‘friends’ or you’ll find yourself ignored, or worse, blocked.
Create your Funnel – If you expect to be gaining potential customers or associates from these connections then you should capture these from a central point. Places like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn have ‘connections’ but these are not ‘opted in’ and have not yet given you permission to approach them with anything you may have to offer.
By providing value, you will eventually find people opting-in , opening the door for further, more targeted communication with them via an auto responder.
You may want to provide value over several venues but it may be best to centralize these in a blog or web page, and then providing links back to this ‘central hub’ from all of your social networks. Your call to action for the opt-in should be where your value is located. This is essentially creating your marketing funnel.
Keep it Simple – While you add the task of online social networking to your usual business activities, efficiency is going to be challenging. Just because it doesn’t cost anything to do social media marketing, doesn’t mean that it is necessarily free. It can be a huge time hog. Make the best of your time by avoiding distraction and using some key tools.
Start with just one to three social networks, and stay away from the likes of Facebook applications and games, they are time wasters and can be addictive.
Watch your time in Twitterville, YouTube, or social bookmarking sites, as these can be a vortex. It is very enticing to look at a dozen links, videos and pages, and next thing you know an hour or two is lost (although you may find an occasional nugget to use to add value for an upcoming post or video).
Use tools such as social bookmarking sites such as Stumble.com, Digg.com, and Del.icio.us to increase your exposure and SEO. Make tagging your blog to these sites easy using clickable buttons (plugins often provide these). Learn about and use account management sites such as Socialoomph, FriendFeed, and Ping.fm to consolidate your posts.
Listen! – Remember you are in a relationship business first and foremost! And that means your primary focus should be on your prospect, your potential customer or business partner. Your most important skill when face to face, listening, carries into the realm of social media. Learn about your contacts, and find out what it is that they need.
Learn how to compose yourself and what to say to people when the opportunity does arise to mention your product, service or business opportunity.
You don’t want to have them running in the opposite direction from what they perceive as another attempt to ‘sell’ them. And if you are at all negative, unaccommodating, or desperate, you’ll quickly turn them off.
Interpersonal communication skills include not only listening and speaking, but particularly in marketing, being clear and concise with your written message. Marketers should absolutely be good writers, and this is not an impossible skill for someone even if they are currently poor at writing.
Writing a catchy headline as well as keeping interesting content in a post are both important. Headlines should grab attention and the post should be interesting enough but not overly wordy or disjoint.
As long as you are enthusiastic, educational and/or entertaining, you’ll have an audience.
If you’ve been struggling to crack the nut in social media marketing, and feel yourself meandering about trying various methods with little or no success, give this training and duplicatable lead generating system a try, I think you’ll be amazed at how it can help you to focus and learn online marketing from the industry leaders.
“Relationships Are The Root Of All Business.” Ty Bennett
Just be yourself and let people get to know, like and trust you you while you get to know them and understand their needs, and you can’t go wrong!
Coach Freddie (28)
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Great article Vicki…
TY Dan!
Hi Vicki,
simply a great post. Thanks for sharing it.
Have a blessed weekend
Oliver
Thank You Oliver!
You have a blessed weekend as well!
Vicki
I am a relative newbie in Social Media and I can already see that spaming is not the way to go. Great Post. I wish more people will stick to rules.
Great post! I find it the most annoying thing marketers can do online. Social media sites definitely are not the place to pitch your business or products. People do not like to be sold on anything. Its all about building relationships and sharing valuable content that will help others! Give first!
Thanks for your great post!
Amber Keinath
Thanks Amber! I just chalk that type of behavior up to inexperience, but if they knew how it made them appear as armatures then they would learn how to use social media properly and we would all see less spam!
Wishing You a Brilliant Day!
Hi Vicki,
Fantastic post. I TOTALLY agree. Social media is a great marketing tool but can have terrible effects if not utilized appropriately.
Thank you for sharing,
Alicia
Thank You Alicia! Yes it’s too bad people don’t realize how they are hurting themselves by starting off on the wrong foot!
Wishing You a Brilliant Day!
Hi Vicky…
I really like your style… it really catches our attention!
And, you share some great information on bookmarking and social media account management.
All the Best,
Phil
Hi Dr. Phil! Thank you for your comment and compliment! I appreciate your support.
Wishing you Every Happiness and Success!
Great post Vicki. I have definitely found that many marketers on facebook are breaking these rules. I have started to see patterns with which opportunities are making the most ‘noise’. Way to lead by example by providing great value with this post!
Cheers,
Garth
Thank You Garth! Yes I wrote this post after seeing so much spam out there and just knowing these people were hurting themselves more than anything (we can just ignore them, but what they don’t realize is how many people ARE ignoring them!).
Appreciating your support!
Hey Vicki,
So true… our focus must be to add value. I use a “Mantra” through out the day to keep me focused. The Mantra is… “how may I help how may I serve”… “how may I help how may I serve”… “how may I help how may I serve”… it takes the focus off of me (what do I get) and puts it on others… “what do I give”.
Coach Freddie
.-= Coach Freddie´s last blog ..What Is Success =-.
Thanks Freddie! I love it! I think I’ll pick up that mantra as well, a great way to live your day!
“how may I help, how may I serve”
Thanks for stopping by and adding value here!
Wishing You a Brilliant Day!
Vicki,
This is a fantastic post! I totally agree with everything you are saying. Relationships should come first as well as getting permission to give more information to people. Hopefully with people reading this, they will “get it” more and we can have more people out there marketing correctly.
Looking forward to more of your great content.
Have an awesome weekend!!!
.-= Karen Marrow´s last blog ..How To Find What You Love To Do =-.
Hi Karen!
Thank you! It is something I felt had to be said, to reach people who haven’t gotten the idea yet that if they are marketing with social media that they should be building relationships first. I think we’ll always see people spamming at least until they learn what not to do, and some I suppose still just won’t care!
Wishing You Brilliant Success!
Hi Vicki,
Very good points… I have invitations on facebook to join their games quite often, and I unfortunately either ignore them, or accept their gift, but go no further. I also know what you mean about people attempting to sell online… Twitter seems to be the worst from what I have seen. I used to get sucked into some of these sites, next thing I know, it’s dinner time!
You gave some great advice, thank you!
John Engle
.-= John Engle´s last blog ..The Fundamentals of Comments for Personal Brand Marketing! =-.
Hi John!
I have decided to block all incoming applications, and it has very much limited those invitations! To me they are just like chain mails which I always thought was a poor way of ‘keeping in touch’ with your friends. Especially if building a new relationship, then have some honest communication and forget those silly games (which are security risks and time wasters anyway!). I also find that it’s best to un-follow or even block persistent spammers on Twitter. It clutters the stream with unwanted commercials doesn’t it!
Thanks so much for stopping by and leaving your comment, always nice to see you!
Wishing You Tremendous Success!
Hi Vicki, I couldn’t agree more! I followed some guru’s advice and got over 2,000 followers, and now my twitter feed is absolutely filled with spam. It is much better to take the time to cultivate relationships with 200 like-minded people! Thank you for the advice, and I will stay away from the games. Regards, Laurie
.-= Laurie´s last blog ..Is it really better to give than to receive =-.
Hi Laurie!
Thanks for stopping by to comment! I know, I did the same thing at first with my Twitter account, and thankfully I’ve just about weeded out most of the more offensive spammers. You even have to watch that auto-followback because people will follow you, and suddenly you are following them too!
Here’s to keeping ahead of the spammers and teaching them how to do social media marketing properly!
Wishing You Awesome Success!
Awesome Value Packed Post Vicki!
Beth
.-= Beth Hewitt´s last blog ..Enter SocialMedia-Butterfly =-.
Thanks Beth!
Great to see you as always!
Have a Wonderful Day!
hy vicky!
i really enjoyed your post till to the end! your performed so well why it is important to look at the needs that people have! very few people are at first interested in buying a product or joining a business! they are looking for someone that they can trust and where they will get good and solid information!
i wish you a relaxing and nice sunday!
gerald
.-= Gerald Gigerl´s last blog ..The Profit Of Stable And Beneficial Relations =-.
Hi Gerald!
Thanks so much, glad you enjoyed this post! It is true, we have to realize what needs we have to fulfill before people can get to know us and we can build trust, by providing value.
Good to see you again, have an awesome day!
I couldn’t agree with you more, Vicki! I know that I have accepted friend requests on Facebook, only to see my news feed bombarded with business pitches, and I couldn’t help but think that there are some people on their page who aren’t business contacts, and are they turning themselves into someone their every day friends see posts with dread? (I know that one of my friends is in real estate, and there are times when all of this posts on FB have to do with trying to get people to buy a home.) That’s why my policy is that if they sign up to follow my business page or something like that, that is one thing, but I never send mass “make money online” messages or put them as status updates. I really liked the visual of the used car salesman, although I must admit that I had Kurt Russell going through my head before you mentioned the blue suit
.-= Steve Nicholas´s last blog ..The Jesus Prayer =-.
Thanks Steve!
LOL Kurt Russel and that blue suit, that’s good! But you’re right, it’s a shame that people make friends who then trash their wall with spam. That would be an unfriended friend for me!
Wishing You all the Best!
