If you use social traffic channels and social networks like Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, it’s not uncommon to receive junky marketing message from strangers promoting acaiberry, dating offers, viagra, gaming and adult offers.
But what happens when friends send you these messages?
Granted, it won’t be as overt as a “Hi, I’m Natasha, I would like to chat with you
Talk to me now at: [Adult friend finder affiliate link]”
But still, some of the things that rankle my (more…)
You can’t escape social networks or social channels even if you tried to. Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Plurk, FriendFeed, Orkut, Bebo, LinkedIn – give access channels for strangers to meet and attempt to become your friends.
As a marketer, social networks or web 2.0 networks and services give you an opportunity to reach out to potential customers at significantly lower costs compared to search engine optimization or paid advertising.
In my opinion there’s greater finesse involved, because if there are another 100 marketers using the same channel to reach out the the person, you have to fight to gain the person’s attention, even as they are being courted by 100 other suitors.
So the $64,000 question is how do you get someone’s attention without becoming annoying.
Can you painlessly win the social media love dance, without getting your heart (and sales conversion) broken?
Here’s an example of what I mean:
My facebook “friend add” request queue currently numbers in the 450+ range.
How do I decide if I approve a friend request?
First step, I look to see if we’ve friends in common.
Second, who are those friend? Casual acquaintances, close friends? Business partners?
–
If there’s a personal note, it could gain a couple more bonus points…or be a major deal killer.
A reason like “I saw you on the network and I want to grow my friends list. Please add me” works well if you’re building a friendship profile, or looking for strangers to chat up on an instant messengers or IRC. It doesn’t work as well otherwise.
Another poor reason “I see you’re in affiliate marketing. Let’s be friends”.
Erm, my blog is listed there. I have videos up. Would it be too much to take a look at what I do, and invest a minimal amount of time and effort to find out more about me. And then decide if you want to be my friend?
The analogy would be, if you wanted to expand your circle of friends, would you find out more about someone, or would you go out in the street and randomly start talking to strangers?
I can’t say that talking to strangers might not yield results, but I’m fairly sure the hit rate is going to be significantly lower.
Yahoo! MyBlogLog has included a couple of updates since the last time I took a close look at the service.
For one, sorting through “followers” and considering reciprocal “friend adding” is easier because you can filter through the list of friends in a pretty speedy fashion (especially if you have a hundred or more pending followers).
A number of weeks ago, MyBlogLog community manager Miss Tilly mentioned the introducing of a Connector widget.
Social marketing has quite an organic flavor to it and the garden analogy applies well.
If tended well, your social marketing efforts can take off virally and yield a bountiful harvest with social goodwill being generated, credibility being established and the positive buzz grows at a quantum rate – everything having to do with having provided value to the community and becoming a key member of the community.
But like an good gardener, if you don’t watch over your garden – whether it’s a blog, forum or content website, it can be overgrown with undesirable weeds – spam, massively out-of-topic discussions and trolls.
The Chinese/Japanese art of bonsai culminates in miniature trees cultivated to aesthetic perfection – these same principles apply to (more…)
I had a great time presenting a session on social marketing and web 2.0 technologies for Jeremy Palmer’s Black Ink Project today and it fired off a couple of thoughts on how Internet marketers can leverage their brand to enhance their business.
Especially if you’ve been traditionally focusing on PPC or Search Engine Optimization to generate leads and sales, these strategies can give you a couple more tools for your arsenal.
Social marketing is all about open communication and visibility. (transparency and honesty are key too).
If you don’t already have an online presence, look at how you want to position yourself.
At the heart of it, a Dell computer, an Apple iPod or an Asus Eee PC is just a bunch of circuit boards and electronic chips soldered together and encased in an aluminum or polycarbonate case. It’s marketing magic that imbues these objects with the emotional associations of style, ease-of-use, prestige, etc.
In his book, “All Marketers are Liars”, Seth Godin mentions how consumers are actually the ones lying to themselves. They imbue products and services with these larger-than-life characteristics and spending their income on “driving machines” and believe that a computer can help them “think different”.
If you’re an online marketer and you aren’t already picking up these tips to up your game, you could be missing out on the massive leverage these strategies provide.
Pickup artists like Neil Strauss AKA Style, Erik Von Markovik AKA Mystery talk about creating personas or social avatars. I don’t see this as very different from a brand that a company creates.
One question might be asked “So, how do I create my identity if I’m new to this?”
Answer: Create your identity based on what you want to be (your outcome) and strive towards it. An avatar is your desired outcome, you build it as a goal you want to achieve.
Having it consistent with your personal thoughts, values and attitudes will help you market via social media and web 2.0 with authenticity and brutal effectiveness. Projecting a picture of yourself as something you’re not is going to be a fruitless exercise down the road.
The pickup artists have put a practical application to Robert Cialdini’s concept of social proof – the idea of DHV’s or Demonstration of Higher Value. In Internet marketer speak, that’s becoming an authority site in your niche. (ok, I’m extending the concept further from its original position).
More importantly, social marketing still represents a pool of huge untapped potential – something like the Excalibur buried in a block of stone. The secret here is that anyone can be the “King Arthur” that pulls it out and unleashes its potential – it’s a matter of stepping up and taking action.
This clip with one of Mystery’s lieutenants, JDog, address the issue of creating avatars. Read between the lines and the same principles of focus, rather than “peacocking” will equally apply in your business too.
