People want content - not commercials. Unless the commercial is entertaining. The way we communicate to deliver sales messages has changed so much - but the number one rule to remember is to provide VALUE. Share good information. Don't talk about yourself (too much) and let people inquire about your product/services. Don't force feed it down their throats. Don't sell where you should be socializing. Sell on your website or Amazon not Twitter and Facebook!
Essential Rule #1: Social Media is Relational, Not Transactional
It's hard to not over-sell and hype up online. Too many companies are looking for the right words to say to their prospective customers. Remember this, provide information about the BENEFITS not the features of your product/service. Talk in the language of who you are trying to target - and you will build relationships and eventually customers will become LOYAL and share the good news about you. Share and show you care. ENGAGE.
We can help if you're trying to figure out how to talk to the multicultural audience. Your resource: www.socialmediaprsolutions.com
A few years ago, I began to experience an annoying occurrence when visiting local bookstores in Grand Rapids. Professionally dressed individuals, who were total strangers, began approaching me randomly and striking up conversations. I wouldn't have minded the conversation so much, if it hadn't been for what followed.
As it turns out, these people hung around the bookstores for much of the day, scouting. When they identified a good prospect, they'd move in. Some would wander into the same aisle, pulling books off the shelf, looking them over, then putting them back, all the while inching closer to me. Inevitably, they would break the ice by commenting on the book I was holding. I always seemed to be holding the magic book that they had been looking for all day. After a brief discussion on the book, they'd ask questions: What do you do? Are you happy doing that? Are you satisfied with your income? Finally, they'd close with, “I don't normally do this, but I have a high-income opportunity that you're perfect for.”
They were network marketers.
Each encounter was unique - some approached me in the bookstore, others in the coffee shop, some were slick in their approach, and others acted as poorly this guy.
But each followed the same prescribed format: quickly develop an artificial relationship by showing interest and asking questions, then leverage that relationship to sell a product. The net result was always the same, by the end of the conversation, I was offended and my time had been wasted.
After about a year, most of the network marketers had left the bookstores in Grand Rapids. Their method did not work, they were spending more money than they were making on mochaccinos and lattes, they were likely exhausted from the effort of furiously creating so many fake relationships, and they had been marked for extermination by the bookstore staff.
How often do we see the same methods being employed on social media? Overt and subvert pitches to buy a product or service. Furious but futile attempts at building empty artificial relationships.
In my first of ten rules for developing a profitable social media strategy, I define the paradigm, or lens through which social media platforms should be viewed: social media is relational, not transactional.
Social media produces the highest return-on-relationship, and the lowest return-on-salesmanship.
It is perfectly acceptable to sell on transactional platforms (your website, Amazon, eBay, etc), because that is where people go to buy; they expect to be sold. However, it damages your brand if you ambush on relational platforms (social media, forums, etc) and there is very little return with those tactics. Just like the network marketer in the bookstore, you will burn out quickly.
Success is determined by your ability to move people from the relational platform to the transactional platform in an authentic way.
Here are 5 ways to do that:
- Tell a story. Too often updates sound like they were developed to scroll across the bottom of CNN. You will find little engagement if you don't develop your narrative and become a master storyteller.
