Saturday, April 24, 2010

Social Media Marketing is Not Your Core Business

Nick's Note: Here's a great article by Jen Fong. It's true what she says, if you're spending more time trying to attract customers using Facebook, Twitter, etc than actually talking to your customers, you're doin' it wrong.

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Are you spending your life in front of a computer? 

If you’re a direct seller, I sure hope not.

You see, direct selling is, at its heart, a person to person business, and your main job is NOT social networking.  While it’s great to use social media as one of the tools in your overall marketing strategy, it’s important to remember that this is NOT your core business.

Your core business is making appointments (booking parties in party plan), selling products, and recruiting new consultants/distributors into the business.  This is what makes you money.  Your social media efforts should be focused on creating more opportunities to do your core business.

Don’t get so swept away with social media marketing, that you forget what your job is.  Otherwise, you may find yourself with a huge list of friends online, and nothing to show for it.

So how do you use social media marketing to provide opportunities for your core business?
  • Find people who may have an interest in your products or opportunity through targeted keyword searches, and word of mouth referrals from other friends.
  • Provide content-driven status updates and links to articles that answer questions your target market has, related to your product line or home-based businesses in general.
  • Build relationships with people through conversation and “small talk.”
  • Be helpful to your online friends.  Find resources they’re looking for, and answer their questions.
That’s how you start.  Later you can provide an online community/group for your existing customers to drive reorders, blog for your business, and more.

But to get started, simply begin connecting with people.  And then, when the opportunity presents itself, try to turn that relationship into an opportunity for a call or a meeting with them.  That’s how you use social media marketing to create opportunities for your core business.

At the end of the day, isn’t that what it’s all about? 

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