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I bet you are much too savvy to jump on Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn and start furiously posting your latest in-store specials or gift card offerings. If you are using this hopeless “jam it down my throat” technique by the time you reach the end of this post I hope you will see the light. If you have adopted this method, good news your competitors probably use it too and armed with a bit of magical information soon you will be leaving them wondering, “what just happened?” as you zoom to the top of your niche.

Online communities are not advertising mediums.  They are SOCIAL networks with people discussing and sharing ideas in communities of like mindedness.  You wouldn’t walk into your friend’s house party and start handing out advertising flyers would you? Well, I won’t be mailing that invite if you do. Adopt the “get what you GIVE” philosophy and start using social networking in place of social advertising.

Networking reloaded!

Just like its offline counterpart social networking is all about building relationships with interesting people whose goals and skills COMPLIMENT your own.  Helping others in social spaces is the best way to build your brand. Consider taking some time to expand your network of friends and associates becoming more interesting, educated and valuable in the process.

Get creative with your engagements…

Use tools like Twellow (the Twitter Yellow Pages) to find influential people in your geography who offer a service or product that is an exceptional compliment to your own.  Make contact with this neighborhood influencer by commenting at their blog, promoting their Tweets to your network (retweeting), or emailing them a tip that might help their business.

While your relationship grows you will ride the reciprocity waive as they return the favor and your profile grows along with site visits, newsletter registrations and your customer base. Haven’t you ever wondered why those companies whose products you know are inferior to yours always seem to get recognized at the awards dinner?  Chances are they understand the power of networking. Stop selling and start connecting.

Now, what are you going to do with that next advertisement?

“Do your Twitter?” “What do you mean you aren’t blogging?” “You must be crazy not to have a Facebook fan page!” These questions and similar statements fill the air these days at networking functions, within the blogosphere and on the pages of trendy business publications. Succumbing to the temptation to jump at the “riches for free” promise of social media will sink your business’s ship faster than my daughter’s rubber ducky with a hole in it. Let me tell you she loves that ducky.

Use more practical tactics first

Truth be told if you aren’t already engaged in a business generating system that uses more practical means of winning new customers stay away from social media because it will suck the air right out of your business. Where social media is short on financial investment it requires a tremendous amount of time to acquire a following and to then convert your followers into dollars for your business.

Before Jumping In Head First!

Below are some business building systems you should be working well in advance of an active social media push.

1. Public Relations: Pitch stories about your company to newspapers, TV news, bloggers and work to position yourself as a trusted source for media in your niche. You will be seen
2. Email Marketing: Take the time to build a strong opt-in email list (500 or more contacts) to send monthly email newsletters to.  In addition use email autoresponders to automate the delivery of valuable information to prospective customers (ex. An email course, 5 days to a better “whatever” with a product mention carefully woven into the message stream). Contrary to popular belief, email marketing is not dead!
3. Seminar Marketing: Organize in-person, live seminars for your prospect audience to position yourself as the go-to expert. In addition to generating leads, seminars are powerful list builders.
4. Referral Lead Generation:  Exchange leads with 3 to 5 awesome businesses who sell a complimentary service to your customers.
5. Strategic Alliances: Become an outsourced provider of services that other businesses in your market need but don’t have the in house capability to deliver.

Now don’t get me wrong, I am not a Facebook hater; heck I am thinking up my next blog post as I type this article. What I am saying is build your core marketing and sales system first then enhance it with a well planned social media strategy. As PT Barnum once said about focus, “A constant hammering on one nail will generally drive it home…”

What do you say?

I am sure you have heard stories of long lost friends finding each other on Facebook and doesn’t everyone around you seem to be blogging these days? Even Oprah is on Twitter.  With the swirl of social media activity should your business be added to the growing list of companies using social media to find new customers?  Well, the short answer is…it depends.

In order to receive the benefits many gurus tout, you must first get your house in order.

Know your “BEST” customer

Before opening your business’s Twitter account, you need to know everything about your best customers, most importantly how similar people behave online.  Knowing online behavior will tell you which of the many social networks you are most likely to successfully engange your prospects. If your target customer is older and tends to be more of an observer online, his behavior rules out social networks that rely on a high degree of participation (Twitter) and lights the way to Facebook and LinkedIn as opportunities. The folks at Forrester Research have a simple tool to help you score your best customer’s online behavior (view).

Master the basics first

If you don’t already follow a repeatable series of steps utilizing several tactics that result in qualified prospects knocking on your door with a reasonable percentage commiting to becoming new customers then you should delay immediate plans to enter the social media groundswell.  Hold on, isn’t this what using social media is supposed to do? Yes, but because of the less intimate nature of online social connections it takes much longer to build the awareness and credibility essential to getting people to refer you and purchase your products. Initially you should build the core of your marketing system around more established tactics (referral marketing, strategic alliances and partnerships, public relations, email list building, etc.). Having a working marketing system in place will allow you the time (and peace of mind) needed to get the most from your social media efforts.

Have a strategy

A strategy first involves producing a set of goals which for you might include building awareness, generating blog traffic, finding good networking partners, growing your email list or following industry trends.  Once your goals are in place you need to come up with and test several methods to meet your ambitions. This might entail sending 5 automated Twitter posts (tweets) per day to position your firm as a go-to resource; answering user questions on popular forums and driving traffic to your site, etc.  Finally you will need a way to measure your success. Google Analytics is one of the best tools for the job.

Social media is a powerful tool for business “rainmaking” but only after you are ready.  Jump in at the right time and with the right approach and you will see more traffic that will lead to new customers.

How do you use social media?

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