When I meet new people at live networking events, we inevitably start discussing the impact of social media marketing and how it’s changed the way we communicate with friends and the way we interact with our favorite brands. We’re not in Kansas anymore, as Dorothy told her dog, ToTo, when they landed in the world of Oz. If you’re like many other business owners and you feel like you’ve landed in a new world but don’t know how or where to start fitting into it easily, without making huge mistakes, you can start your journey with just a few steps. I wrote this post: Top 3 Ways To Avoid Feeling Overwhelmed About Social Media Marketing (assuming you know how to set up your profiles or have already set up and are venturing into social media marketing).
Top 3 Ways To Avoid Feeling Overwhelmed About Social Media Marketing
- First, decide where your potential clients are hanging out. Chances are that they like to hang out in Facebook. Though I love Twitter and the other social networks, for the sake of simplicity and to avoid the overwhelm, I advise you to begin with one social network. Decide if that’s LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook, which are the top three. In this post today, we’ll concentrate on Facebook.
- Shift your thinking about how you think of your clients and potential clients. Now they can be friends and fans in Facebook; followers in Twitter; subscribers to your YouTube channel and members of your LinkedIn network. Think of all your clients as your family that you protect and take care of. Think of everyone else as fans and friends. These friends and fans have to get to know you before they like you and trust you enough to hire you or refer you to their friends. Trust is the new “marketing.” Be real, be nice, be supportive.
- Think in terms of metaphors so new concepts are easier to deal with. Your personal Facebook is like a neighborhood block party. Approach it that way. Enter your live stream of posts (“Top News”/Homepage) like you’re walking into your neighborhood block party. You would not walk down the sidewalk with a megaphone, blaring your upcoming sale or promoting your new seminar, right? You’d socialize and catch up with the latest happenings going on with neighborhood friends first and if the opportunity comes up to mention your business, do it subtly and leave them wanting to know more. Note: your profile is meant for personal life posting like we just talked about. Your Facebook Business page is for posting specific things about your company. Be sure to adhere to these rules, which are spelled out in Facebook’s Terms of Use, or Facebook could take down your profile. And remember you don’t own your Facebook profile, Facebook does. But you do own your website –if you stipulated that in your contract with your Web producer. You should be the owner of your domain name and website and blog.
With any social network you’re building, there are a few daily tasks you must do in order to build those communities.
- Just like in real life (IRL), you’d send a birthday card or call a friend when it’s her birthday, you can easily do that in Facebook. Look in your right column of your homepage for today’s birthdays. Click your friend’s birthday link, land on their page and wish them a happy birthday. This task takes seconds to do and shows your friend that you care enough to wish them happy birthday.
- There are other daily tasks, such as reading your Top News (the live stream of posts) which is also your Homepage. Whenever possible but at least every morning around 7 a.m., and every evening, around 8 p.m., which are high-traffic times in Facebook, show up at the party: post a few comments on your friends’ walls and on posts appearing in your Homepage. Or save more time and hit the “Like” button.
- Be sure to keep up with other daily tasks such as accepting or not accepting friend invitations; event invitations and answering private messages.
- When friends leave posts on your Wall, respond to them. Friends have dropped by your Wall, just like stopping by your home to say hello. Don’t ignore. Be social.
- On your fan page, where you’re allowed to talk more about business, be sure to interact with fans. It’s all about engagement. These people became fans of your page because they like you; appreciate your expertise; and want to learn more about what you can do for them. Share tips; post photos of you at work; link to your latest accomplishment (your new website or blog, or an article you wrote, or something else); promote your clients; ask questions of your fans that would help you improve and think of other ways you can engage and be interesting.
- Your Facebook fan page strategy should include fun things like contests and drawings for prizes with the task having to do with increasing your number of fans, which ultimately builds up your community in Facebook. Perhaps you can feature a fan of the week and promote him and his business. This is your social network. Just like your “live” network: be supportive of people, connect them to each other and to resources that will help them. Be the matchmaker or “Go-to” person who is generous with her time and expertise. When people need your services, they’ll think of you.
There are many other tips I could give you about Facebook and other social networks but today’s post is about avoiding feeling overwhelmed about social media marketing. I just wanted to share the very basic things you can start to do on your own to start building your community of friends and fans. Would you please share your tips? Leave a comment and tell me what you think. I’d love to hear from you.
And if you need some guidance, I do social media consulting. Mention this blog post and schedule an hour or two of consulting now and I’ll save you $50. Fill out the form below. Thanks!
