Social Media Sites Are The Way To Go To Get New Customers

This is more of a “selective myth” than an outright lie.

I say “selective-myth” because not all social media sites are created equally, nor with the same purpose and goal in mind. A great majority of the sites are “social” first (hence the name), which means people are there to visit and be sociable rather than shop or be sold something.

Because of that oft-overlooked fact, many of the major social media sites are either not the best places for a business owner to spend their resources – time and money – and/or their “typical” approach to marketing is not ideal and must be reevaluated and redesigned to fit the social media landscape.

*Sidebar: Truth be told, most – as in 92.75% – of small businesses don’t know SQUAT about sales or marketing. They waste money on glossy brochures that end up in the trash. They turn over their sales force at an alarming rate but hold on to the doddering do-gooders that know how to brown nose and befriend the staff despite missing numbers year after year. Their media buys are based on the deal-of-the-month with no consideration given to creating and delivering a powerful message or considering how it will fit into a bigger strategic marketing picture. And they have no centralized, process-driven system for automating, tracking and measuring it all. Now back to your regularly-scheduled blog post already in progress…

When approaching social media for business purposes – and ALL businesses should – you must first determine your primary objective and there are only two choices: networking or link building.

Volumes have been written on the various means and methods to achieve both objectives (and a Saturday morning blog post before the Army @ Air Force and LSU @ Alabama games (Air Force and LSU will win, IMHO) is not the place to get into the weeds on those topics) but suffice it to say every major and minor social media site lends itself more adequately to one or the other for your business.

Once you understand the primary focus and benefit of each social media site for your industry you can then leverage them to first make the marketplace aware of you, then lead them back to your site or blog and then to become a customer.

Start small. Create a standard profile on several major sites and start listening. Demonstrate your expertise and skill level and industry insight by first asking great questions. This will show how good you are without bragging and provide insight as to the interest level and market potential in the chosen social network based on the degree to which others contribute to your question.

Answer questions posted by others. This again shows your expertise and will begin to attract prospects to you. (It also gives you a chance to create valuable content that can be used on your site for SEO.)

Integrate your social media sites together with free tools such as RSS feeds, Ping.fm and HootSuite to expand your reach and presence with minimal duplication and see which platform produces the best results.

Always keep in mind the primary function of social media sites is help you get noticed, which causes the reader to want to visit your site or take you up on a unique, timely, relevant call to action, which, at a minimum, enables you to capture their contact information and ultimately results in a sale.

There’s a lot of moving pieces and parts.

If you need a little help give me jingle and watch your cash register ring.

Why in the heck is social media so confusing? So full of wasted energy and broken promises? So full of snake oil salesmen promising you “secrets revealed” and the “one thing you gotta do to make money with social media?”

If these guys and gals are so good why do they hide behind fancy websites and 240 page PDF’s and 95 CD’s they know you’ll never get through?

What happened to good old-fashioned, real life, live interaction?

Well, I guess it takes a Southern boy to bring Southern hospitality to the world of Social Media Marketing.

Please join me live every Monday morning to kick start your week with new ideas on how to leverage social media to grow your business. And because I’m a longtime salesman we’ll also get into persuasion, follow up, writing compelling copy, making powerful lead magnets, getting the attention of decision makers and a whole lotta other cool stuff that will help you garner and focus the energy and the power of Twitter and Facebook and LinkedIn and Ning and YouTube and all the other 57 million (it seems like) social media platforms popping up out there.

And the good part is the calls will be recorded and you can download them anytime to listen to forever!

And the even better part is…it’s AFFORDABLE! These classes will only be $47 per month!

Yep, you read that right: $47 per month. Not per week or per day or per hour or per half hour or per quarter hour or per minute or…you get the point.

Just $47 per month gets you live weekly calls with me and a host of experts and other sales people, business owners, entrepreneurs, marketing professionals to exchange ideas, share best practices, learn from each other and from the best social media marketing minds in the country.

And you’ll get access to a new membership site we’re building as I type this blog update so the same $47 per month will get you access to the membership site, also.

And, check this out, you’ll also be able to attend any future training or participate in any future workshop I’m conducting at 50% off the published price as long as you’re an active member of the Social Media Marketing Mastery Monday Mastermind.

So what do you have to lose except headaches and backaches from staring at the computer screen all day long?

Sign up now before we get the first 100 and have to either cut it off or add another class at a higher amount. (It would be worth it at $97/mo but let’s hook each other up and do some business together and grow ourselves to our true potential.)

What’s good for big business is not always good for small business.

There have been a log of myths and misnomers about the benefits of social media marketing and social networking sites for small businesses.

Many small business owners are finding that these platforms do not live up to the buzz.

While I am a big fan and promoter and provider of “outrageous” marketing consulting, ideas and tools that get your business found and gets your message out, there are a lot of challenges when setting up your social media marketing strategy and tactics

(To be fair, I’ve not found more than a handful of small business owners that know how to market worth a cr*p, so they face challenges with any marketing medium. But we’ll focus on Social Media Marketing here today.)

So if you’re drawn to the Facebook-Twitter-LinkedIn-etc. bright, shiny pots of gold on the hill, please pause and consider the following few posts before you go any further.

1. Social marketing is free.

We all know that direct mail is not free. You have to get the list, write the letter, address the envelopes, stuff the envelopes, pay for a stamp and get them to the post office…all for a 0.5% to 1% response rate (I can help you bump that up DRAMATICALLY. It all boils down to list segmentation and copy writing, but I digress.)

Leveraging social media sites for marketing is not “free,” either. In fact, because of the proliferation of social media sites and tools, it may be the most expensive form of marketing available today because it takes so much time to wrap your arms and brain around this ever-evolving platform.

Sure, most social media sites can be created for free: Facebook, WordPress, Twitter, Google, Google Wave, Flickr, LinkedIn, YouTube, TweetDeck, HootSuite, etc. all cost zero dollars to create.

But like a new puppy, they all need constant care and feeding and attention because, just like an un-supervised puppy can get into trouble, an out-of-date blog or Facebook Fan Page can actually harm your Web 2.0 marketing efforts.

And if you’ve ever attempted to write a direct mail piece, update the content on your website or even create a radio or TV ad, you know how hard it is to keep your sites and marketing material up to date and current. Social media ads the additional “burden” of requiring you to respond to questions from visitors either in the comment section or via text/chat, post brilliant ideas and concepts (such as here! , add attractive, eye-pleasing graphics, monitor (good and bad) activity (you should see one of the “crazies” that attempted to hijack one of my LinkedIn Groups) — all in an effort to create buzz and chatter about you and your business.

Companies using social media marketing to successfully close new business are on their sites all the time. What is considered “old information” today may be just an hour old! If you allow comments – as you should – and you do not respond, you might as well transfer money straight to the PayPal account of your competition.

Most mid-sized companies (and certainly, large enterprises) have fulltime “social media marketers / writers” building their online presence. It is a fulltime job keeping a presence on these sites, and fulltime people consume fulltime resources. If you don’t have that type of cash or time on your hands you can always check out my Done-For-You-Social-Media offering at a fraction of the cost of a fulltime person.

(Next we’ll look at whether or not the “big” sites are the “best” sites for you.)

Facebook isn’t sitting still with their 300 million + members. Lately they have been rolling out some cool new features that you need to be aware of.

A little time-saving feature they recently added is the ability to post content on my Fan Page that automatically posts over to Twitter with a link that directs my followers back to my Fan Page!

Pretty cool, huh?

“Why is that cool?” you ask?

Because with Facebook Fan Page Status Updates you get more than twice the space (a humongous 340 characters) to pontificate.

“But isn’t that too much for Twitter?” you ask again. (Man oh man I have some smart readers!)

Twitter will truncate / chop off / shorten your Facebook Update to about 120 characters and then – CHECK THIS OUT – insert a bit.ly link back to your Fan Page. (More on bit.ly in another post.)

If you compose your update carefully you can leave a sort of “cliffhanger” that cuts off your Update mid-sentence, thereby “tweaking” (in a good sense) your Twitter followers into clicking through to your Fan Page to read “the rest of the story.” While they’re there they might as well become a Fan, shouldn’t they?

So here is what you do: follow this link to http://facebook.com/twitter and connect your Twitter profile with your Facebook Fan Page. Edit the settings to your liking (I have checked Updates, Photos, Videos and Links but not Notes because I’m importing my blog posts from The Sales Whisperer® into my Facebook Fan Page for The Sales Whisperer® and I don’t want duplicates popping up on Twitter when I Tweet about my new posts.)

If you’re also updating your Facebook personal profile and/or Fan Page with the Selective Twitter Updates app, you should disable the Fan Page Update feature because you’ll end up with duplicating your Tweets! (Been there. Spammed my friends. Got the T-shirt and the FACEBOOK SPANKINGS to prove it! Doh!)

Now, here’s the money shot to synchronize your social media updating: Get a Hootsuite.com account and tie it to a Ping.fm account but don’t have your Ping.fm account update your main Twitter account because you’ll have Hootsuite update your Twitter account.

Hootsuite will also update your Ping.fm account. Your Ping.fm account will serve as the mac-daddy updater that goes to your Facebook Fan Page, your Facebook Profile, your LinkedIn Status and up to three blogs! Not to mention Digg, Delicious, Plaxo, MySpace, Flickr, Typepad and a host of other sites.

And if that’s not enough, Hootsuite allows you to schedule your updates so you can preload them and go about your business and your life while keeping your peeps informed! How’s that for SHAZAAM?!

I hope I didn’t confuse you but if you think it’s hard reading this try building it out and writing about it!

If I did then don’t be afraid to pick up the phone or shoot me an email and we’ll get ya squared away. Promise!

My new client wasn’t “Tweeting” because she just didn’t “get it”. She had heard that Twitter could be a great marketing tool but didn’t know how to use social media in general, or how to use Twitter for business success. My time with her spawned this post.

(Keep in mind that the underlying principles listed here apply to any and all of the social media sites, not just Twitter.)

For starters can we stipulate that successful businesses are built on relationships? “Back in the day” a prospect that needed a product or service opened the Yellow Pages and called a couple of places that looked like they could help and then went in to that place of business and actually met the staff, looked at the shelves of inventory, maybe met the owner and purchased what they needed.

Online marketing and selling follows the same principles but everything is done “virtually.” Rather than forming relationships with people we meet face to face, today’s online marketers do all of the above – get found, provide contact information, answer questions about inventory, pricing, years in business, etc – via the web. Leveraging social media for your business is a great way to inform and build trust with a clientele that may never meet you.

Your clients and prospects are spending HOURS each day on social media sites. So having an optimized social media marketing plan not only offers business owners a method to contact huge-mongous numbers of people, it also provides the ability and opportunity to reach a targeted market, which is how Google makes its money and it’s the only way to sell today. And social media marketing and promotion is free (if you don’t count your time)!

Key Principle

Treat social media like a backyard BBQ at your neighbor’s house. By that I mean,

1. Show up.
2. Dress appropriately.
3. Don’t be stupid.
4. Be polite.
5. When someone asks what you do, tell them!
6. Ask them what they do.
   1. If they’re not interested in what you do SHUT UP!
   2. Don’t sneak your card into their pocket.
   3. Don’t slip your new company brochure in their pocket.
   4. Don’t slip your new company brochure in with their BBQ plate.
   5. Don’t shout at them about what you do because you think they didn’t hear you.
   6. Don’t play “YMCA” or some other really cool music and explain what you do because you think they didn’t hear you.
7. Be polite some more.
   
8. Stay late.
9. Offer to clean up.
10. Make it easy for others to reach you for whatever reason interest them:
    1. Share recipes.
    2. Share Fantasy Football ideas.
    3. Go golfing together.
    4. Go to the gym together.
       
    5. Do business together.
11. Remain visible.
    

The idea behind social media is based on forming relationships, which is where the majority of online marketers go wrong! Most are impatient, rude and driven only by profits. Rather than taking the time to get to know others, most rookie and “experienced” online marketers embark on an annoying social media advertising campaign before attempting to get to know their visitors and prospects, which amounts to spamming in the hopes of making a nickle here and there. (Look for my article on “Twitter Spam: Why So Many (Stupid) Tweeters Do It). Needless to say, this is NOT how to act at the neighborhood BBQ nor is it how to leverage social media for business success!

So how do you meet people on Twitter to attract qualified prospects to you?

• Create a customized/personal Twitter page with a photo of yourself. Use accurate keywords in your bio and inlcude a link to your website (a blog is a better choice. Contact me if you need help setting one up.)
• Use software to automatically follow your new followers and include a personalized message.
• Follow others who are in your target market. An effective way to do this is to locate a Twitterer that has already used Twitter to grow a large following in your niche – maybe even a competitor – and follow their followers. You can also add followers through your website, blog and other social media sites such as Facebook.
• Personalize your friend requests with a friendly message. Let them know you’re a real person, not a spammer, and you’re looking to connect with like-minded professionals.
  
• The etiquette on Twitter is that those you follow will follow you back. You can delete/unfollow those that don’t.
• As your list grows so will your spammers but so will the good contacts that you want and need to grow your business.
  
• Cut your own fingers off before you consider sending spam!
  
• Send followers to your blog. This is how people really get to know you in our virtual world today. So write often and write for real.
  

If you remain real, true and strive to provide value first you will grow your business through social media. You will stand out from the crowd and you will soon be getting orders from people you never even met! That’s magic.

Conrad Murray Didn't Kill Michael Jackson. His Family Did. Who Is Responsible For Slowly Killing Your Sales?

So the “news” is coming out that charges will be pressed against Dr. Conrad Murray in the death of Michael Jackson.

How surprising. Is that really news? I mean, come on. Michael Jackson has been slowly mutilating himself publicly for well over a decade and nobody had the guts to stand up and stop him.

Did Conrad Murray have a role to play in his death? Yeah, a little. But so did his mother, his father, his brothers and sisters and even his fans.

Michael Jackson has been tormented by some serious demons for quite a long time and nobody close to him had the guts to confront him and get him some help.

What are your demons when it comes to marketing your business and selling enough to meet and exceed your quota?

Don’t tell me it’s your boss’s fault or it’s the economy or you have a slow computer or your gizmo doesn’t have the newest flux capacitor to help you compete.

There are people in your field, in your industry, in your territory KILLING IT right now, blowing out their numbers, making money hand over fist, dancing to the bank, singing that this is the best market for their business that they’ve seen in a decade or more.

So what’s your REAL excuse?

More importantly, how long are you going to hang on to it and let it drive you into a life of mediocrity? When will you get pissed off enough to get a big ol’ can of gray BEHR and paint that big white elephant sitting in your cubicle, blocking you from your office line, crippling you from setting appointments with decision makers and taking your business to the next level?

How long will you be satisfied with static Yellow Book pages and “brochure” websites and boring white papers and app notes that are never read and have no call to action?

How long will you be satisfied with not knowing how to generate leads and what pages of your website are converting and how to write a compelling sales letter?

How long will you be satisfied with not understanding and leveraging the power of Social Media with the lame a$$ excuse that you don’t have time or you’re too old or “only kids hang out there!”?

Michael Jackson didn’t die suddenly and neither is your business.

If his family loved him enough, Michael Jackson would still be alive.

Do you love your business and your sales career enough to take the hard right steps needed to turn things around and enjoy mad, crazy, stupid success? Or will you remain satisfied drinking “bowling alley beer,” eating day-old Doritos and kidding yourself into thinking there are actually “green shoots” in the economy and that “tomorrow will be better” just because you’re still in business?

If you’re ready to take your game to the next level click the “Inner Circle” link in the navigation bar above and get started NOW in changing your life. I offer a money back guarantee and you can cancel at any time…if I push you too hard and you can’t stand success.

Remember, Life is good. It’s “gooder” when you’re closing deals!

Jeff live on stage.

Jeff Schwerdt preparing 8/12/09 on the stage in Murrieta, CA. Covering video marketing and the power of social marketing.

I’m at Starbuck’s before a meeting and bust out my iPhone with my free WordPress app and jot this note that simultaneously posts to my blog, my Facebook and my Twitter accounts. All of which lead to deposits in my bank account. Gotta love technology.

All kidding aside. Who is actually CASHING MORE CHECKS because of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, MySpace, Digg, Delicious, Stumbleupon, etc?

I realize that it may be fun and it may help with some esoteric “branding” and “image” but who is actually making money with all of this friend / follower / fan accumulation?

What specific things are you doing? What have you measured and can prove is working for you?

Please post your comments below.

Thanks,

Wes