Does promoting your business on this site and others really result in sales?

I am new to the social networking arena, and have been putting a lot of time and energy in getting my companies name out there. I was trained in the old school of cold calling, and it has worked wonders for me thus far. Now, I hear about this new technique, and I have decided to give it a try. I have joined this group, facebook, twitter, linked in...bought face book ad space, updated our website to include social bookmarking along with making the site much more functional for online ordering. So with all this will I increase my sales?? What are your thoughts?

Jennifer Foley
Vice President of Sales and Marketing
Foley Business Forms & Print Solutions
www.foleybf.com

Tags: networking, printing, products, promotional, social

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Permalink Reply by John Workman on March 17, 2009 at 8:42am: Thats a very good question. I sometimes wonder if its just a case where everyone is promoting but no one is creating business. I do try to keep my eyes out for things that would enhance my business but sometimes it can be difficult with so many different things comming at you.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Judith Beltz on March 18, 2009 at 8:44pm: The purpose to blogging is for the presonal connection. I resent when so many just come my way to sell not even knowing if I care to hear, need or desire their product. Everyone wants the fast buck. Warm markets always produce more business.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Ralph Delly on March 19, 2009 at 5:59pm: Very good question, I've been in all of them and I haven't gotten one single sale since november. I wonder if social network works for good or if they are just getting more members to get advertisers on their side. If there is an expert who's reading my reply, please provide me with a good answer. Once again, I am all over the internet. If you google my name you will see me and my site www.electronamic.com
Not only I do not get the thousands visitors marketers are talking about, but worse...not a single sale. What's the problem then?

Ralph
www.electronamic.com; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Reg Charie on March 24, 2009 at 1:17am: Hi Ralph,
I went up to your site and found it to have excellent prices.
However, nowhere on your site do you give a physical address or the name of a contact person.

IMO you need to establish a degree of trust before people will buy.

You also need to do some SEO but that is another story.

Best of luck.
Reg; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Ralph Delly on March 19, 2009 at 6:00pm: Hi Jennifer,

Please share your secret with me. PLEASE.

Ralph
www.electronamic.com; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by vlakh01 on April 1, 2009 at 9:33pm: My experience with Social Networking has been ok. You have to spend a ton to time and resources to get the word out online - bottom line this is a slow process so don't bank on just marketing. If you are used to marketing old school - make that your first option. Having said that, its good to have an online strategy which you have. Good luck.

Vivek L
http://www.smallbusinessplanresources.com; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Ralph Delly on April 17, 2009 at 1:14am: Hi! Jennifer,

Just like you, I am new in the social networking area as an entrepreneur as well. Yes promoting your biz on social networking sites generates sales, depending how you do it. I have learned a lot in social networking, and it has helped me tremendously. The good part is you are making your business known by thousands, if not by millions of people. When it comes to sales, it's a different ball game. You have to find a way to keep your visitors coming and make them buy your products. Traffic does not necessarily generates sales, but it's good for people to know that you exits, and whenever they are looking for things that you sell, they will check you out. I realized lately that if you want to get response in sales, there are other ways, some quite affordable, to do it. Email campaign does work and does result in sales. Flyers do work as well. I do believe in flyers which I pass out at the subway, the airport, bus stop, and schools areas. Beleive it or not I didn't have one single sale for 3 months, and suddenly I start getting customers one after another. My guts feeling told me one of my ways has worked. I am not promoting anything, but google ad words work big time.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Muriel Holladay on April 17, 2009 at 4:33pm: Marketing on social sites requires a lot of patience and talking with lots of people. It is through building relationships and sharing with others what you know that builds their confidence in you. Once they know who you are they will likely look to see what programs you are in and even to follow you, maybe.
Blogging, forums and just chatting. All avenues lead to the same destination. Hope this helps.

Muriel Holladay
http://vur.me/Success-Now/22lc; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Amy on April 17, 2009 at 7:38pm: I use online social networking sites as supplements. Does your target audience use them? I wouldn't totally rely on them, but having a presence doesn't hurt either. Use Google Analytics to track your site's traffic, then you'll know which is more effective.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Ced Reynolds on April 18, 2009 at 12:56am: Love the discussion. Good old face to face networking and selling has taught me a lot over the years. What I've done is adapted what I do when I meet potential prospects offline to online. Often I'll schedule a face to face meeting when I meet someone in a networking meeting. Now when I meet someone online who shares a similar interest, I'll give them a call. Email used to be fine. But these days we get so much I don't take a chance that my message will reach the people I'm trying to reach. So for me it's getting on the phone that has produced sales results. There's nothing like talking to a real person. I have had some business come as a direct result of SEO. Most often I try my best to find a way to connect with these people to give them live representative to be able to communicate with. Some people just don't want to have anything to do with people. Oddly enough these have been the ones who have canceled or become complainers about our product. The purpose of me connecting is two fold. One is to let them know I'm available to help them and secondly to educate them on the best way to use our product based on their particular need.

Ced Reynolds, CITRMS
CedReynolds.com; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Reg Charie on April 20, 2009 at 2:02pm: Social networks are more for helping one another than for outright promotion.
If your methods are not working, consider changing your MO.

My main SN is on Ryze where I run 2 support networks http://thinktank-network.ryze.com/ and http://tis-network.ryze.com/.
Using this and making myself available in instant messenger has literally brought me to the point of being able to pick and choose my clients.

If anyone wants, I will gladly spend some time with you in IM.
Yahoo IM add vre_crash (My online racing name)
MSN is msn-mess@DotCom-Productions.com
AOL/AIM is dotcomproduction
and Skype is vre-crash; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Keith Tacla on April 21, 2009 at 12:28am: It's a hard thing to do social media for the long-run. Building relationships online is a hard feat if you don't follow these important tactics:

*Be Transparent (You will be tested as an expert and once they notice you offering something in the professional world your relationships will test you and, if you are a fake they will find out online)

*It takes time (Gaining website traffic takes time and you need to interact with these people to a TRUST point before even talking about a business relationship)

* Considerate on Branding (Build up your products or services up to a certain event or get phone together will phone conferences for Q&A)

A company may know how to make friends in the real world but, online it's completely different, it's a science. This can be VERY time consuming that is why companies are outsourcing the time needed for these campaigns to companies like mine.

With close to 1 billion users online it's starting the be more then just one person can handle.; ▶ Reply to This