Hi Everyone,
I wanted to go over with you the research I’ve been doing on Social Networks, namely LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com and Facebook (www.facebook.com). I started this in January and now in April wanted to share this with you.
As I’ve mentioned before, an analysis of my income over the last several years made me realize that word of mouth marketing has been my most successful action.
For whatever reason, I have greater success with referrals than with gaining new customers from scratch so to speak.
Now, that doesn’t mean that I don’t use the services I sell to others to gain leads, just that half the job is done when we are referred.
About three weeks ago, I picked up this book called Jeffrey Gitomer’s Little Black book of Connections—6.5 Assets for Networking Your Way to RICH relationships and it actually was applicable to what I was endeavoring. (It’s an easy and interesting read, and I suggest it for you.)
Keeping that in mind, I joined Linked In and Facebook. First of all, Facebook is a blast. I did get back in touch with friends and old business associates I hadn’t been in touch with in years.
Facebook is much more personal. You post your own picture, bio, interests, and can interact by sending messages, playing a game, or giving virtual drinks, gifts and my personal favorite, throwing a sheep at someone…
Now, you’d think this wouldn’t have much of a business application, but I found out differently.
Thru my associations on Facebook, I gained the following:
A connection to old business associates,
A connection to three extremely influential marketers that I previously read their books, but never met,
Two clients and
I was booked as the moderator of the online retailing panel at Winter Music Conference http://www.wintermusicconference.com/events/schedule/index.php .
I just spent the week in Miami at the conference and then personally met over 100 people.
As far as Linked In goes, I again, found some business associates I hadn’t been in touch with in a while. I noticed that there is a function where you can answer questions in an area that you are expert and decided to answer some of these questions.
Well, as far as I can tell, this is the Holy Grail for business development. I have people e-mailing me, joining my network and I was asked to be a guest speaker on a webinar on Social Networking on April 17 not to mention the EVP for Marketing and Sales for a large corporation that I wouldn’t have been able to connect with without it.
If you are interested in attending this seminar, please go to Conference Call University and register using this link:
http://www.myeasyonlinestore.com/app/?Clk=2341074 . There is a nominal cost to attend, but the subject matter is about social networking for business.
Now, this is the kind of networking you can’t outsource. You need to be in the trenches yourself spending an hour or so a day developing these relationships. The other thing to note, (and info I got from Mr. Gitomer’s book) is that you need to add value to your connections and not approach this medium with what can they do for me. Now, I know we are looking for new business, but the fact is, you’ll get new business by being helpful in your chosen field. As a result you’ll start to be considered an expert and then you’ll get more business.
In addition to all that I have two blogs that are about business, life, etc. and people get a sense of who I am. People are much more likely to do business with someone they know. You might want to check out my blogs at www.laurabetterly.blogspot.com or www.laurabetterly.com to see what I’m talking about.
Anyway, that’s what I’ve discovered and wanted you to be able to do this too.
Shameless self promotion below:
PS. Do keep us in mind for all your marketing needs. We’ll give you a consultation on your current marketing strategy and in most cases we improve results dramatically. On one recent client we cut their lead cost in half, doubled their traffic and increased their conversion rate between 100-300% (e-mail me to get the case study.)