Weaving social media into your business marketing plan doesn’t have to be a complicated affair. The basic principles are simple and straight forward. In fact I’ll lay out the whole explanation for you right here. It’s yours for free to get you started with social media today.
Are you ready? Here you go!
Basic Truth
Before we get to the plan we need to understand this basic foundational principle.
People do business with you because they know you, like you, and trust you.
Unless all three things are in place you will have a tough time having a sustainable business. Miss any one element to that and, unless you are selling a commodity that people are buying purely on price, people will nearly always choose to buy from someone else.
Get In Front of People
In order for people to know who you are you have to get in front of them. Most all business people understand this, that’s the whole point of advertising. The more eyeballs that see an ad, the more valuable, and expensive it is.
Right now there are hundreds of millions of people on social media sites every day. This year social media sites passed pornography sites as the number 1 web traffic sites. As far as the web is concerned now, social media is the biggest traffic driver out there.
And the best part? We can get in front of those people without spending any money! All we have to do is join those communities, and engage them by becoming a valuable member.
Then people with know us and we’re 1/3 the way there.
Build an Audience
The second part of the equation is having people like us. That means we have to build an audience. We do that by being interesting.
For example, a quick scan through the top 50 most followed Twitter accounts on Twitterholic shows the most popular accounts are overwhelmingly celebrities, media companies, and big name brands, all with over a million followers.
Think about why celebrities command such big audiences. People find them interesting.
Now we may not be able to command nearly 4 million followers on Twitter like Ashton Kutcher does, but the more interesting we are, the larger an audience we’ll attract.
That means just droning on about our business, or “automating” the process won’t really help us in the long run. We may see some short term gain. But people see through that kind of thing fairly quickly. Instead be your interesting authentic self.
Interesting Builds an Audience.
That gets us two-thirds the way there. But there’s still one more piece…
Be Helpful
One the best ways to build trust is to be helpful. When you see people asking questions in your area of expertise give them the answer. Point them in the right direction. Volunteer info.
And you don’t have to point them back to your own website all the time either. Only point to your own site if it is the best resource you can think of to solve the problem. People generally remember folks who do nice things for them.
Over time people will begin to respect your expertise and see the value in what you have to offer. With consistency you build trust.
Eventually you’ll find that people start referring their friends to you as the one to talk to when they run into a problem you can solve. Those referrals will translate into increased business.
It all starts with being helpful to build trust.
In Video Form
If you’d rather see this in video form check out this one. It’s less than 3 minutes and is just an example of the great stuff you can get, for free, over on ChrisCree.TV. Did I mention they’re yours to watch for free?
As I see it there is still the very big question left; “How to build an audience?”.
Do you have any guidelines for this?
Hey Caroline, for building an audience, you need to apply a variety of techniques to build your brand. Once your brand is built up, then its easier to get more audience.
But till the time its not there, you need to think out ways of interacting with as many people as possible.
for example- webinars, sending a promotional offer of your site through somebody’s mailing list etc
Thanks for the info Chris. In response to Caroline’s question from my experience so far – time and effort. Tweaking and constant focus!
Building an audience does take much patience, but if you like doing it, and don’t mind sacrificing, then it’s easy. I’ve quit a few jobs for my online adventures. 5 years of no TV makes people think you are an alien. Well worth it.
@alphainventions Sometimes you need to learn how to do it or else its not that easy!!
Building an audience takes small but regular effort. If an hour a month was broken up into 12 little online somethings of 5 minutes, a lot can be achieved.
Convincing business owners to do this is a different matter.
Caroline asked a great question. I am putting together a video for ChrisCree.TV to address it. Stay Tuned!
Hi Chris
As my mentor of many years has always reminded me, people that trust you will do business with you. I have never forgotten that and continue to build around that basic philosophy.
Having said that, I do find it difficult with all the things demanded of building a home based business to stay on top of the social media process and interacting with as many people as I can. At times I feel it just eats away my time from other business building processes. But that is my opinion.
I do find though, once you have a good amount of people following you or linking to your profile, then it can become a viral effect. Which is probably what most of us would like to see.
I guess it just comes down for me and others is finding what works for each other. What you do Chris with social media and networking may work extremely well, however, for myself it may not be the way that works best for myself. I like to look at different forms of interracting by finding balance in my daily routine.
I tend to focus on SEO and getting websites to the top since that is my comfort and area of expertise. But thanks for the insightful article.
Make it a great day
Great ideas, be waiting for your updated videos in social planning
I would add also create value.Being helpful creating value answering topics such as how to, what if, what is, etc.
As for interesting stuff think the unconventional way, be different from others.
When it comes down to it business is all about relationships with people and this is just another way of building these relationships.
Social media is a great way to expand your footprint locally! It helps keep you in peoples thought so if they ever need your service..well there you are.
I think a lot of people these days forget about the importance of meeting others face to face. Even with online businesses, interpersonal relationship building can often be more powerful than spending 10X as much on advertising. This is particularly true when building partnerships and strategic relationships.
Leveraging social media sites to drive traffic can be an excellent business strategy, but consumers are very smart — they will be able to tell if your motivations are selfishly focused on your business, instead of improving the community. If you decide to engage in social media, your primary focus should be on serving the community; in other words, if you weren’t getting any self-promotion from whatever you were doing, would you still do it? If you wouldn’t, then your heart probably isn’t in the right place — and that can cause a lot more harm to your brand than simply participating for the sake of improving the community. If your intentions are pure, the traffic will drive itself.
Awesome article, great work.. In last months I figured out how social media is much more powerful than I thought… Thanks
If you decide to engage in social media, your primary focus should be on serving the community; in other words, if you weren’t getting any self-promotion from whatever you were doing, would you still do it?
Hi Chris,
I accept your point in explaining about social media and its importance. From your view point I insists one must be effective in communicating with others to promote their business or online services. Its an easy way to prosper.
Nice article! A lot of people underestimate the power of social media.
I like your comment about helping others on the social network sites….being able to point others in the right direction does it for me….I feel so overwhelmed with getting in front of the right audience that I try and concentrate on just a few….I’m a little behind on twitter sorry to say…..
You make some great points, Chris. The one that really hits home for me is how “automating” your social networking is counter-productive.
I signed up for OnlyWire thinking I could automate the social bookmarking of posts on my blog. I filled in my facebook login info (along with logins for many other SB sites) and proceeded to bookmark a new post on my site. Then the next day I bookmarked another.
Now, when I login into Facebook, those bookmarks are right there, looking like the blatant, cookie-cutter self-promotion that they are.
Lesson learned; if I think that something I’ve written is truly relevant to my facebook friends, it’s worth the time to post a personal note.
Great article.
Unfortunately most businesses still see social media as an “outsourced” thing. There is so much an external vendor can do esp in social media – no one can connect to your prospects and customers better than someone in the firm.
Just as you wouldn’t go to a dentist to get your hair cut, you shouldn’t go to just any old web designer to bring all your Social Media together. Marketing and Social Media Marketing together can create a simple yet dynamic package that can have any business up and running and managing their own online presence that WILL bring in new customers.
The point is, stay in your skillset, If your a Realtor spending hours in front of your PC is not time well spent. PERIOD!
Great read
I have been extremely reluctant to enter into the social media arena, because I always thought it was spammy and for kids. Lately I have begun to notice how much money cororate America has been spending to make there presence felt there and I realize how much I am leaving on the table.. keep up the good work.
“People do business with you, because they know you, like you and trust you…” Absolutely true and I’d add that social media gives you a much less intrusive way to get yourself in front of people than other forms of communication. Great post. I appreciate the insights.
Great guide, the only thing you missed is don’t be overbearing, when they get too close to you and they come off too strong it’s annoying.
Making friends in social medias and share the valuable things and can release your new product and may get more visitors and then leads and then customers……
Great article, I still learn new things everyday.
once you have a good amount of people following you or linking to your profile, then it can become a great effect. Which is probably what most of us want.
I think social media is the best way to promote your business and yourself but…the only problem is that I don’t know how to do it! I have seen many business that achieved huge success using social media but…I can’t do it…
This is still pretty new to me. I have been looking for some easy to understand info, thanks for providing it.
Great article.
Unfortunately most businesses still see social media as an “outsourced” thing. There is so much an external vendor can do esp in social media – no one can connect to your prospects and customers better than someone in the firm.
I’m glad you’ve put yourself in front of me. Getting my blogs off the ground was moving so slowly. There seemed to be so many things to do to get people to pay attention. This article gets right to the important points. Thank you.