Social media…are you buying or selling?

social media at danwrites.caLately it looks like every guru in the marketing world is trying to sell a course or program on using social media to generate leads and make sales.

A short version of what they say is…

  1. Friend everybody
  2. Compliment your new “friends”
  3. Lurk on their pages or comments
  4. Like their “page” or “posts”
  5. Post about the results of your product or service

The premise is that if you make enough “friends” you will generate leads and sell your product or service.

  1. If everybody is posting or liking or lurking how do you get any work done?
  2. Why would you compliment a stranger?
  3. Are they trying to sell you as hard as your are trying to sell them?
  4. If everybody is selling who is buying?
  5. Is everybody on social media your target market?

Hmmm…

Why not be real instead?

Why not build relationships with people who you can see and talk to?


I confess I am not a social media guru. I am a writer and I use social media to share my writing with people I know and have met.

I don’t friend everybody who asks me to be a friend. I unfriend people when I realize we don’t have anything in common.

I like real relationships with real people.

When it comes to selling my product or service I will use it to generate leads.

I prefer direct mail, networking face to face, telephone calls and even door knocking to spending time on social media.

Yes I push my blog to my business Facebook page. I don’t push it to my personal page.

Tuesday Thoughts

social media at danwrites.caA large social-media presence is important because it’s one of the last ways to conduct cost-effective marketing. Everything else involves buying eyeballs and ears. Social media enables a small business to earn eyeballs and ears.

Guy Kawasaki

I have been asked is a blog social media. My answer is; it depends. Are you posting and sharing your blog or are you just posting your blog? If you share it’s social.

 

 

Why blog?

blogging

Why blog?

If you do an online search you will find thousands of sites with a number of different reasons to blog regularly. When you stop and think about it there is only one reason for a business to blog.

TO GENERATE MORE LEADS!

 

As a business owner you know that without leads you won’t have anybody to sell your products or services to.

Now that we’ve covered the only reason for your company to have a blog we can talk about the 5 main reasons you need to blog regularly.

  1. To get a higher ranking with search engines. Why? If you show up on the front page of a search engine people will see your business. Many of them will go to your website. If your blog is set up properly they will go to your blog to learn about your products, services and your company. When you blog regularly the search engines crawl your website more often. (This won’t happen over night. It takes time.)
  2. To educate your existing customers or clients about different features of your products or services. By educating your customer or clients you will build a better, more loyal relationship with them. They will trust you. Why? People do business with people they know like and trust.
  3. To be seen as an expert in what you do. Every business has a competitor. The experts are the people who share their knowledge and help potential customers or clients achieve their goal. Remember…people don’t buy your product or service they buy the result of using your product or service.
  4. To improve your websites search engine optimization. Search engines focus on key words or phrases when looking for websites. If you use the right keywords or phrases you will optimize your website. (Be careful of word stuffing. Overusing key words or phrases will lower your optimization score and your ranking will drop.)
  5. To answer questions and get people to contact you. Many people today would rather request information by filling in a form or responding to a blog than by calling you. Many businesses today operate on different shifts and in different time zones. A blog is on 365 days of the year and operates 24 hours a day. A blog gets traffic when your office is closed. You may not be available personally when people need you but by having a blog that educates and entertains you will be able to help them and generate leads.