Social Networking Customer Acquisition 101
Spend Your Time Building Connections not Pushing Your Product
This is the most common mistake in social networking that almost 99% of all members of social networkers make daily. Never ever mention your product in your first email or comment.
This is the basic process that has a 10 fold greater success rate than anything else:
1) Send them a message or post a comment on their wall asking a question about their business.
2) Send out a friend request to each person that responds to your comment or message. 99 out of 100 friend requests will be accepted, and these are members that are actively checking their messages.
3) Respond to each message with a personal message and try to work in mentioning your business while writing about theirs. Once again, 99 out of 100 people will naturally take a look at your website as a courtesy and to see if you might be a potential customer for them. Now you have successfully added friends that will open your friend wide emails, and you have guaranteed that each member will visit your profile and website. Along the way, you will also find other members' products and services that will benefit you and your business. That is how networking creates customers.
Key points to remember:
+Do not blindly send out 100 friend requests every other day. If you are reaching your limit in requests, then you are wasting your time. Only send a friend request if someone has sent you a message, posted a comment on your wall, or posted a comment on a blog.
Take Care of Your Friends List
1) Do not abuse the “send message to all friends.” There is a reason why there is a limit to how many friends that you can send a message to at once. It makes it difficult to spam. Spamming on social networks does not make money period.
2) You should send only one message a month to your friends list. Make it a nice short to the point message that has some tie in to the network that you are on. Once a month messaging works. Anything more than once does not. Spend your time building your friend list, and then give them one phenomenal message a month.
3) If you are going to start a group or host an event, then the same rules apply. Once a month and focus your energy and efforts around one group or event.
Key points to remember:
+If you have more than one site that you are promoting, then you have one too many. Having 10 Ning sites, that you invite every friend to, just increases your chance of failing by 10 times. Do one thing with excellence, and you will be a success. Spread yourself too thin, and you will be lost in mediocrity.
The Right Way to Use Blogs to Get Customers
1) You should write blogs that ask questions that appeal to everyone on the site. All you have to do is put the question in the title, and then write a really good answer from yourself. These are the blogs that you want to use in site wide messages and in welcome comments to new members.
2) The goal of your blog should always be to generate comments. People that post comments are action takers and 8 times more likely to buy your product or service. Respond to each comment mentioning what you do while asking about their business, and then send a friend request the next day.
3) You should have a one really great blog that explains who you are and what your product or service does. You only give out this blog to the people that show an interest. This is the blog that you can use to close customers.
Key points to remember:
+Do not waste your time posting, sharing, or pushing blogs that are advertisements for your services. It does not work. You are wasting your time and destroying potential connections.
The Bottom Line
Social networking is different from every other marketing medium on the internet. What works elsewhere does not work in this realm, and it will not work here.
Each network is like the goose that lays the golden egg once a day. There is only one way to get the golden egg, and if you do it any other way then you kill the goose.
This is the only proven methodolgy to get a steady flow of customers via social networking:
1) Engage the member by asking them a question.
2) If they respond, then send a friend request.
3) Reply to the comment or message and politely work in what you do while tying it in to their business.
4) If they show interest, then close with a blog post that explains what you do with a link to your website and a phone number.
5) If there is no initial interest, then continue to send them one quality message a month to entice interest.
It took me two years before I learned the process, and gave in to the fact that this is the only way that works.
This is the most common mistake in social networking that almost 99% of all members of social networkers make daily. Never ever mention your product in your first email or comment.
This is the basic process that has a 10 fold greater success rate than anything else:
1) Send them a message or post a comment on their wall asking a question about their business.
2) Send out a friend request to each person that responds to your comment or message. 99 out of 100 friend requests will be accepted, and these are members that are actively checking their messages.
3) Respond to each message with a personal message and try to work in mentioning your business while writing about theirs. Once again, 99 out of 100 people will naturally take a look at your website as a courtesy and to see if you might be a potential customer for them. Now you have successfully added friends that will open your friend wide emails, and you have guaranteed that each member will visit your profile and website. Along the way, you will also find other members' products and services that will benefit you and your business. That is how networking creates customers.
Key points to remember:
+Do not blindly send out 100 friend requests every other day. If you are reaching your limit in requests, then you are wasting your time. Only send a friend request if someone has sent you a message, posted a comment on your wall, or posted a comment on a blog.
Take Care of Your Friends List
1) Do not abuse the “send message to all friends.” There is a reason why there is a limit to how many friends that you can send a message to at once. It makes it difficult to spam. Spamming on social networks does not make money period.
2) You should send only one message a month to your friends list. Make it a nice short to the point message that has some tie in to the network that you are on. Once a month messaging works. Anything more than once does not. Spend your time building your friend list, and then give them one phenomenal message a month.
3) If you are going to start a group or host an event, then the same rules apply. Once a month and focus your energy and efforts around one group or event.
Key points to remember:
+If you have more than one site that you are promoting, then you have one too many. Having 10 Ning sites, that you invite every friend to, just increases your chance of failing by 10 times. Do one thing with excellence, and you will be a success. Spread yourself too thin, and you will be lost in mediocrity.
The Right Way to Use Blogs to Get Customers
1) You should write blogs that ask questions that appeal to everyone on the site. All you have to do is put the question in the title, and then write a really good answer from yourself. These are the blogs that you want to use in site wide messages and in welcome comments to new members.
2) The goal of your blog should always be to generate comments. People that post comments are action takers and 8 times more likely to buy your product or service. Respond to each comment mentioning what you do while asking about their business, and then send a friend request the next day.
3) You should have a one really great blog that explains who you are and what your product or service does. You only give out this blog to the people that show an interest. This is the blog that you can use to close customers.
Key points to remember:
+Do not waste your time posting, sharing, or pushing blogs that are advertisements for your services. It does not work. You are wasting your time and destroying potential connections.
The Bottom Line
Social networking is different from every other marketing medium on the internet. What works elsewhere does not work in this realm, and it will not work here.
Each network is like the goose that lays the golden egg once a day. There is only one way to get the golden egg, and if you do it any other way then you kill the goose.
This is the only proven methodolgy to get a steady flow of customers via social networking:
1) Engage the member by asking them a question.
2) If they respond, then send a friend request.
3) Reply to the comment or message and politely work in what you do while tying it in to their business.
4) If they show interest, then close with a blog post that explains what you do with a link to your website and a phone number.
5) If there is no initial interest, then continue to send them one quality message a month to entice interest.
It took me two years before I learned the process, and gave in to the fact that this is the only way that works.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Paradise on -
Excellent information! Do you mind if I share this post with my network as well? If so, do you have a byline?
Shellye L. Lyons, Founder/Executive Director
National Business Women Enterprise Network
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Permalink Reply by Emmanuel Kennick on -
Thanks for your good admonishion. As a new guy in the business we like people like you that is willing to share there view point to others.
www.vivianjohn.myinternettour.com
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Permalink Reply by Urban A Local SEO on -
Great article! I am currently working on a similar post, Getting the cart ahead of the ox which is just another way to say social media 101. Most of what I see on these sites is what I would call me first marketing.
One ones that really bug me is those that contact you and say that they want to be friends but that they have exceeded their friends limit. As you know that means that they have 70,000 friends... Wow! So all that they are doing is asking you to ask them to be friends so that they can start selling to you.
I am a big fan of what I call "scratch my back marketing." This marketing method is about adding value to blogs and sites in exchange for links, or the opportunity to be friends. If we treated online relationships like real life ones we would all be much better off.
I will be referencing this site and article in the post that I referred to earlier.
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Permalink Reply by Carl L. Chase on -
These are the things I'm trying to learn. Thank you so much for the delineation and all of the efforts to keep the network clean. It means so much to those of us who are new to social networking, and I really appreciate the time and effort it takes to hold the line on spamming.
Thanks again
Carl L. Chase
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Permalink Reply by Kuesta on
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Great post !!It´s very interesting to heard this of a expertive persone.
Thank you.
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Permalink Reply by Cheryl Morrow on -
Hi,
Very informative article. I do have a general question. When you belong to 3 or 4 networking websites, it appears that this approach will be pretty time consuming. I am finding it challenging keeping up with each one. How many social networking groups is too much?
Cheryl
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Permalink Reply by Nancy L.Gaines on
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Friends are one of God's gifts to us. We all have our problems, our agenda, and our happiness. We need to care for and preserve the treasure of friendship. It has been said that we have 2 ears and one mouth for a reason. So listen my friends and help each other out of the love that our Heavenly Father gives us every day. Success to all with happiness. Remember "Do unto others as you would have them do to you." Great information. Thank you so much.
Nancy
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Permalink Reply by Janice Little Placide on -
You provided a lot of insight on how to use social networking to build a customer base. I will incorporate a few of your principles as I build network.
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Permalink Reply by Konrad Fischer on -
Thank you, Brandon, for your so well written and urgent advice to make sth better!
Since my beginning here and in other platforms I wondered a lot about all the biz spam there. Ok, you can delete this, but: How poor in mind, heart and soul must all the spammers be? And how many here try very hard to sell things which they would never buy and which has nothing to do with what they once really learned? In which bad situation must those many, many people be?
I feel compassionate with them. They are all God's beloved beings and abused by the Lord of Darkness, to say it in religious terms. How to help them? If they are willing to read your article, can they take use of all your helpful information? Or will they try even harder to make some money by advertising their sh** to dummies - and will now use your "better tricks"?
The main problems are many, and one of them is trying to sell products and service following the money-money-money-ideology. It's ridiculous how many articles and posts follow this poor thinking and are assuming this fallacy everywhere in the audience. Maybe they're right but you can catch so some little fish but never a whale.
I wish your fishing all the best!
Konrad Fischer
Germany
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Permalink Reply by Bob Trower on -
This is the best post I have seen thus far on this network.
I am leery of making 'fake friends' to promote your business. I am not sure how to work around that. I think your advice is sound, but I will have to muse upon how I can be 'up front' about what I am doing.
I *do* think that although your advice will work, a lot of the people following it have products that do not act in their customer's best interest. There are more MLM schemes on this system, it seems, than anything else. Any MLM is essentially *poison" and even if your technique works, it will ultimately not end well.
This is a fantastic time, believe it or not, to be in business. The fact that things are shifting so dramatically opens many opportunities. If you are reading this and in an MLM (or the equivalent by any other name), I hope you will open your mind and do some searches on Google. to get the real scoop. It does not matter what the MLM is selling, it is a matter of mathematics. MLMs are pyramid schemes (by their very nature) and pyramids always rest upon a very large base of people who lost money.
You do *not* need to be in an MLM to be in your own business. This is a time of fantastic opportunity and you should be able to find a niche for yourself that will really provide value to your customers and income to yourself.
Anyway, like I say, this is the best article I have seen to date on this network. The advice will likely work better than any other I have seen here.
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Permalink Reply by Walter L. Jordan on
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Thanks, I can really use this information.
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Permalink Reply by M. Rita Metts on -
I agree with this advice. I went to my first marketing seminar last year and it totally changed the way I approach networking.
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