disappointing results comes down to one simple thing: lack of activity. . A
lot of people carry the misconception that all one needs to do is sign up for a
social media site, and the floodgates of self-promotion will open wide. But
nothing could be further from the truth! You must be active on your social
media site in order to attract attention to anything you may be promoting.
Otherwise, the site’s members will have little or no information about you,
which will render your exposure all but non-existent. The best way to avoid
falling victim to this problem is to simply take the time to log in each and
every day, and take advantage of the site’s features by searching for people,
topics, or articles that you find interesting. Additionally, it’s important to
post updates about yourself as often as you can. This practice helps to ensure
that you maintain a level of interest about you among the site’s members. By
staying active in this way, you magnify interest in you, right along with
awareness about the product, service or concept you are promoting. Be active, or risk being invisible!
using a social networking site. You must have friends, and you must have
connections. Without friends and connections, it will be impossible for
people to learn about you. You know, the best way of marketing is almost
always through word of mouth, so the more friends that you have, the more
popular you look and by association, your message can be distributed far
more effectively. In fact, I have seen many social networking sites where
people may have thousands of friends, and because of their connections, they
are spreading relevant information about themselves throughout all of their
friends on their social sites whenever they send an update. This makes for a
much broader awareness of what is going on with whatever company or
service you are trying to market. Being active is crucial as we pointed about
above, but if you are active and you have no friends, then you might as well
be talking to yourself. So you want to make sure that you are bringing on new
connections as often as possible, that you’re sending friend requests, and
once you send those friend requests, that you grow your relationship with your connections as much as you can. After all, having a friend that doesn’t know about you is the same as not having a friend at all.
marketing, you’re likely to find it beneficial to include a profile picture. Not a
cartoon image, not a flyer picture, or any kind of thumbnail image. You need
to have a picture of yourself. People like to converse with people they can
see, and having a picture of yourself posted helps site users to feel the real
person behind your social site profile. Once you’ve made the decision to
include a profile picture, make sure that it is going to be equal to whatever it
is that you are marketing. If you are a lawyer, you want to make sure that
you’re dressed for the part by wearing a suit in your photo. If you are a
teacher, a business casual look may be more appropriate. If you are
somebody that works from home, then your style of dress should reflect a
work from home atmosphere. Most importantly, make sure that your picture
is tasteful and looks professional. There’s nothing like a bad profile picture to
turn somebody off very quickly from one of your friend requests. It is
important, important, important, to include a profile picture, and if that
picture is going to do its job for you, it has to put you forward in the best possible light.
the information about yourself. Taking the time to do this immediately makes
you more sociable and relatable. People like to know your likes and dislikes,
from your favorite movie, book, or hobby, all things that are especially
important if you are marketing materials that you might produce. If you are
promoting a book, you would want to say your favorite book, of course, is
your book! These approaches bring more awareness to the products that you
are marketing. If you fail to include information about yourself, you are more
likely to be rejected when you send out friend or connection requests. The
more information that you provide, the better, in as concise and simple a way as possible.
you’re not linking back to your personal website, then what is the point of
being on the social site? Make sure that you provide website links within
every social site that you sign up for. Do it wherever the opportunity exists,
including (when you obtain permission) on your friends’ home pages or
where status updates are posted. Always include your website link, no matter
where you are on that social site. This will create a better listing for you on
search engines, and it will also create a buzz to encourage people to visit your site.
the image of your business will suffer. The best way to encourage feedback
on your own social site pages it to leave comments on other people’s pages
so that they can respond back to you, thus creating increased communication
involving you. You might try complimenting others about what you learned
from their business when you met them at a networking event, for example. It
is always important to have feedback on your social site pages, if for no other
reason than to ensure the best word of mouth advertising you can get. So,
when somebody comes to your social site and sees that you have wonderful
feedback from an event that you attended, or something that you have done
or sold, it elevates your credibility in their minds. This advances the
confidence people have in your products, as there are few endorsements more
powerful than seeing a little bit of positive feedback from somebody else. So
remember, always stay active, and be sure to leave many comments on the social sites of others so you can maximize feedback to your own site profile.
your I’s and cross all your T’s. It’s very important to ensure that your social
site is well put together. For example, on many social site outlets, you are
able to create your own backgrounds or even your own custom layout. If that
kind of flexibility is available to you, make sure that you use it wisely to keep
the look of your pages clean and tasteful. Avoid the tendency to overdo it by
having too much going on with your backgrounds or “busy” themes, and go
for the uncluttered look (you might try “thinking Google” in this regard).
Less clutter means more readability, which ultimately brings more attention to your social site and therefore, to you.
marketing their business make one central and often-repeated mistake: they
mix too many social site features with the business elements on their profile
pages. If you are using your social site for marketing your business, then
make sure to show your visitors that you are a business minded person. Don’t
confuse your message by signing up for things like trivia games such as
Mafia Wars or The Dating Game. You want to make sure that you are
keeping your look as professional as possible, keeping in mind that people
will clearly notice what it is that you do on your site. So, if you’re trying to
market that you’re a lawyer a doctor, or a network-marketing expert, you
want to be careful about overusing the non-essential social site features that
you join. Again, you want to show that you are very professional, that this
is your business, and that you excel in your field of expertise rather than
social site pastimes or contests. Too much mixing of business and pleasure
can serve to turn someone off immediately, so do your best to keep it simple
and keep it all about business. If you want to take advantage of the
entertainment aspects social sites offer, then consider having two separate social sites – one strictly for your business, and one for your personal use.
But be careful, because some people may be of the type to research both your
personal site and your business sites, so be cautious about what you post.
Personally, I favor keeping everything that I do on my social sites completely business related.
back to back. A better approach is to ensure your communication is specific
and related directly to you, such as pointing out something interesting you did
during the day or something relevant about your business. You always want
to be sure to reinforce the fact that there is a real person behind this social site
and not just some robot creating random or irrelevant things. Make sure that
your site gives your visitors a feeling of comfort, so that when they come to
your site they see a real person doing real things. This helps to keep your site
personable, and thus enhances the likelihood that people will want to return for updates about you on a regular basis.
to facilitate freely spamming people with your idea, your event or your
business. Be careful to avoid the appearance of spam with your marketing
efforts so that your visitors don’t get the wrong impression about what it is
that you are trying to accomplish. Spam is a big turn off factor, as social
networking sites are designed to create relationships and promote networking
rather than becoming an overwhelming, 24-hour source of nothing more than
commercials and sound bytes. Accordingly, your mission should be designed
to create relationships, maximize networking opportunities, and foster new
friendships, so that down the line your status updates and site activities will
come to be positive things that people associate with about you. There is no
need to add gimmicky lines, or any kind of false information, to bring more
attention to your social site. In fact, these things only serve to leave a sense of
distaste with your visitors, so work hard to set yourself apart from the
gimmick masters and spam producers. You will find that your thoughtful and
expressive site will be a refreshing break from the day-to-day avalanche of
advertising spam people have to contend with. And that break may be just the one you need to put your business firmly at the front of your visitors’ minds.