Why is social media so significant to our marketing? Because of the quality of connection it allows in a virtual environment.
Social media increases the potential size of our companies. Business is based on relationship. The better able we are to create relationships with our prospects, the more successful we will be. And the larger our "prospect pool" is, the more relationships we can form. Where we may be able to connect with 20 or 30 in our local area through in-person interaction, we can connect with hundreds through the Internet and social media.
On a different note, here is another reason to pay attention to social media: Conversations are taking place in your target market whether you participate or not. If you aren't there, competitors are stepping up to answer questions and provide information (whether it's accurate or not), and gaining credibility as the "go to" people among your prospects. Establishing a social media presence is key.
A big advantage of social media is the ease with which you can gather market intelligence. As you participate in and listen to conversations among members of your target market (and your competitors), you can get a good feel for the issues and topics of importance to them and how they want to address solutions. The ability to gain insight into our markets through social media is a valuable marketing tool and something we have never had such easy access to.
Tips for Best Results
Your participation in social media contributes to your market's perception of you and your practice-also known as your brand. The more value you bring and the better you are able to make authentic, personal connections, the more you will earn trust and respect and, hopefully, business and loyalty.
No matter which types of social media you participate in, the approach you take will influence your success.
Participate as a person, not as a marketer or sales person It's fine to make pitches for your products and services, but avoid having all your communications be promotions. A good rule of thumb is to keep pitch-oriented messages to about one-third to one-half of the total.
Be helpful and bring value to the conversation Take the opportunity to demonstrate your expertise and build thought leadership in your target market. Give away your knowledge as "free samples" with no obligation or strings attached.
Be transparent Share about your life as well as your business. Tell the truth rather than trying to spin your communications to make you "look good."
Target your participation. While it can be fun to follow celebrities and spend time chatting about your pet hobby, keep that kind of activity to a minimum. Target your social media initiatives toward your market. It is easy to find the right groups in any of the social media types, so you can focus on the social media types and the kinds of conversations that will be most advantageous.
Focus, focus, focus. Said another way: Slow and steady wins the race. Avoid the temptation to blanket the social mediascape with your information. Simply creating profiles on Facebook and LinkedIn and an account on Twitter, then uploading videos to YouTube and images to flickr is not "using social media." Observe the various sites and platforms that you are considering, decide which ones you want to pursue, then prioritize them. Get set up with priority A and participate in the conversations there; then, when you have traction on that platform, move to priority B, and so on.
One caveat: That age old maxim "If you don't have something nice to say, don't say anything at all" could have been coined specifically for social media. Keep in mind that social media is very much a public forum. Everything you upload, tweet, comment and post is indexable, which makes is discoverable through traditional search engines. It is important, therefore, to assume that anything you contribute to the conversation will influence how people will think of you and your practice. Use this assumption as a filter for anything you upload or enter on a site.
Trish Lambert's shortest bio is on Twitter, where she is billed as "Fervent champion of solo biz owners who want to stay solo and successful, woman of high, unmodulated energy, sometime couch potato." Trish started 4R Marketing (http://4rmarketing.com), a home-base marketing and copy writing consultancy, in 2005 and built it into a 6-figure business in less than two years. In addition to running 4R Marketing, Trish now works with other at-home service professionals through Success in Sweatpants (http://successinsweatpants.net), her coaching practice whose tagline is "It's all about freedom-no excuses!"
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