Social networking can be a blessing or just another annoyance. Used properly, it’s a wonderful tool for heart-centered, soft sell salespeople and marketers because it shows you as a person. Prospects and customers want to come to know, like and trust you. When they discover you’re a person too, it can help you to connect with them. Done wrong it merely shows you’re a twit and will hurt your chances. Remember, social networking is about being social and interacting with people. Which brings us to today’s social networking tip: If you’re writing me to become my friend or connection, then write to me.
LinkedIn and Facebook as well as most other social networking sites have marvelous tools for inviting everyone in your different mailing lists to join you on their sites. If we’ve never met, then I would appreciate knowing why you want to be friends. What do we have in common? If creating a new friendship isn’t important enough to jot a very short note as to why you would like to be friends on Facebook or connect on LinkedIn or any of the other social networking sites, then you don’t really want my friendship. You are just trying to attract numbers. That’s all right. It’s just not what I want in a friend or a [...]
This past week, I watched a video of our youngest granddaughter that Ian posted on Facebook. He captured her as she made her first efforts to stand. What a treat! She was so proud of herself and excited as she wobbled trying to learn balance. She had a good grip on the pole she’d used to pull herself up. She’d let go with only one hand just pleased as could be. Naturally, daddy heaped praise on her too.
I often think about the parallel in sales and marketing to infants learning to stand, walk and talk. It fascinates me that infants are risk takers. Survival demands it. When we learn to stand and then to walk, we spend more time falling than we do standing or walking. Yet somewhere along the line we forget that all life’s activity takes failure to succeed at new skills. This is true especially true in sales and marketing. The more complex something is, the more failure we’ll have to deal with. Good sales ability involves numerous skills, each of which we must master. [...]
The first time I heard about the concept of viral marketing was in Malcolm Gladwell’s fascinating book, The Tipping Point. He described the elements necessary for a product to take off and catch the public’s imagination like a virus. The impression I got was that while you can know what elements are necessary, you can’t guarantee that you can get the mix right when you deliberately try to make a product go viral.
This remains true about social networking. Some things are so well done that they capture the imagination of a few people who are influencers, and those people spread the word. If they’re respected and their followers or audience agrees, they too tell their friends. Suddenly your product or service goes viral. At least that is every marketer’s dream. What you have to say should be entertaining or informative. Though important, video is not the key. Slater’s 50/50 is an example of a business doing well in its first months thanks to raving fans who use the Internet to tell others about their restaurant. [...]
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Social Networking Tip: If you’re going to write me, write to me
Social networking can be a blessing or just another annoyance. Used properly, it’s a wonderful tool for heart-centered, soft sell salespeople and marketers because it shows you as a person. Prospects and customers want to come to know, like and trust you. When they discover you’re a person too, it can help you to connect with them. Done wrong it merely shows you’re a twit and will hurt your chances. Remember, social networking is about being social and interacting with people. Which brings us to today’s social networking tip: If you’re writing me to become my friend or connection, then write to me.
LinkedIn and Facebook as well as most other social networking sites have marvelous tools for inviting everyone in your different mailing lists to join you on their sites. If we’ve never met, then I would appreciate knowing why you want to be friends. What do we have in common? If creating a new friendship isn’t important enough to jot a very short note as to why you would like to be friends on Facebook or connect on LinkedIn or any of the other social networking sites, then you don’t really want my friendship. You are just trying to attract numbers. That’s all right. It’s just not what I want in a friend or a [...]