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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?

Chip’s website Chip’s blog LinkedIn Training On Twitter

Okay, your friends have been saying for months that you need to sign up for Linkedin, the social networking site built for business professionals like you.  The day isn’t even over when you whip open your gmail (please don’t tell me you use Outlook…) to find a Linkedin join invitation from one of those pesky friends. To heck with it you take the plunge.  Four weeks in you have connected with 10 old work buddies (man, you hated that job!) and 20 others you have no idea who they are.  Crickets break the silence as you blankly stare at the monitor wondering, “now why am I doing this?” Read on…

Raymond “Chip” Lambert is a professional trainer, business coach and all around business development specialist that I met while following a group of Twitterers talking up a conference where Chip was presenting.  The rain of positive comments about Chip’s expertise on creative ways for businesses to use the LinkedIn professional networking site led me to tap Chip to share his insights with our community. Get ready because you are sure to walk away with the answer to those crickets.

Give me a quick overview of your business

[Chip Lambert] I train successful professionals how to leverage their book of business and existing relationships to build their “Ideal” business.  I do this through time-tested business development strategies and new social media.  Knowing how to close a prospect is a critical skill - but so is acquiring that prospect in the first place.  Most successful people are sitting on a gold-mine of potential referral business, but they are not mining it because they are caught between “selling” and “servicing”.  I help people to break free of that trap and move to the next tier of success.

What are the mistakes most people make using LinedIn as a business development tool?

[Chip Lambert] They think that because they are “there” something will happen.  There is a parallel offline - networking events.  People show up and assume that because they are “there” that something will happen.  Nothing could be farther from the truth.  LinkedIn is a technological infrastructure for what successful people have been doing for generations - building and WORKING their networks.  It takes strategy and consistent action to really make LinkedIn - or any social media for that matter - work for you.

Say you have 100 direct LinkedIn connections and thousands more indirect…how does one effectively communicate with the network so that people understand what you do and what you are looking for?

[Chip Lambert]  This is a several pronged asnwer: 1 - Write a stellar profile.  People read them. And update it as you and your business change.  LinkedIn notifies the people in your network when it changes - this drives them back to read your updates.  Tell them who you are, why you are on LinkedIn, what you are looking for and what you have to offer.  Then tell them what you want them to do next - provide them a next step - ie. follow the link to you blog - read it;  sign-up for your newsletter - with a link to do so; etc. 2 - use the “What are you doing now” status update feature.  It keeps you in front of your connections regularly.  If you have multiple social media properties - link the status update features with http://hellotxt.com or http://ping.fm.  That way all of your networks or properties are updated simultaneously.  LinkedIn isn’t the only game in town - it has its place.  Mass marketing strategies don’t work here.  But driving them off linkedin can.

What are some third party tools that can add efficiency to managing your LinkedIn account?

[Chip Lambert] Hellotxt.com - Ping FM.  RSS reader - for subscribing to important threads or questions inside linkedin.

What parting words do you have to help people better use LinkedIn?

[Chip Lambert] Get strategic - the tactics fall out of the right strategy.  If you are looking for clients, get clear about who and search them out.  If you are looking for JV or Channel Partners, take some time and set some parameters and get to work.  To get the most from LinkedIn, get active - not passive.

Your Thoughts

Whew, I told you Chip knows his stuff but enough of our rambling. How do you make use of the LinkedIn community? Do you have questions about LinkedIn that we did not answer?  Comment below and let us know.

“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?