Social networking is taking the world by storm at the moment, with everyone from Sony to Microsoft and IBM leaping on the social networking bandwagon. Sony have introduced the online social networking site for Playstation 3 owners. Microsoft have a similar platform for X-Box owners and IBM have one focused on businesses. Even Nintendo have introduced a social network for owners of the WII. This illustrates the importance being put on social networking – these companies are spending millions of dollars on this technology.
Social networking is an incredible marketing resource and one that you can tap in to. You may not be spending millions
developing a social network, but you can use some of the many social networks listed in Appendix B to generate business and establish yourself as an expert.
Before we start discussing social networking, let me warn you against spreading yourself too thin. The temptation is to jump in and get involved with many of the social networking sites, but you will struggle to do much with any of them.
If you are going to use social networking (which you should) then you must use it properly. Pick no more than three social networks to get involved with for your business. You will find that they take a lot of time to use properly and if you are trying to use too many social networks then you will struggle to do any actual work on your business and spend all your time networking.
I would also recommend separating out your business and personal social network accounts. You will quickly build up thousands of friends on your business account and you will find that any information from your personal friends will be lost in the noise from all your marketing friends. Plus, you don’t want your personal friends to constantly be receiving your marketing messages.
These two points of advice will help you to enjoy social networking and get a lot out of it.
Now, how do you use social networking effectively?
Your first mission is to get lots of friends added. The easiest way to do this is to look up one or two of the big marketing names and start adding people from their friends list to yours.
Most social network sites have a limit to how many friends you can add in a day, so this will be an ongoing project. Once you get up to a certain number of friends, you will find that people will start to add you because they are finding you online.
You need to create a group, or groups, on the social networking site relating to your interest / niche and actively promote them and work with them. Keep the group active, write lots there, encourage other people to post and join in and mail them often. You can get a lot of highly targeted leads this way. If you are in any doubt, join a couple of the groups that you are getting messages for and see how they operate.
Keep an eye on people’s statuses and messages on your social networking site too. It is possible to make some very valuable contacts just by seeing someone post they have a problem and offering to help them solve it or providing feedback on their website or something similar.
It is very easy to get sucked into any social networking site and lose yourself in it. It is important you keep your focus on why you are there and remember to keep working on your business. I know marketers who have spent weeks playing with Facebook and let their business fall to pieces, so watch out!
Social networking is an excellent way to meet people and make contacts with other people in your niche or other marketers. It can take a lot of work so be aware that you may have to outsource other forms of traffic generation for you to focus on this.