Dean Mercado's Marketing Minute
Dean Mercado's Marketing Minute
Dean Mercado's Marketing Minute
Dean Mercado will be speaking at the Transitional Services for New York fundraiser luncheon on Thursday, May 12 at the Douglaston Club, Douglaston, NY. He will present a seminar on mastering social networking. For more information, visit: http://bit.ly/i4T2EN
Social networking is all the rage right now and comes in a multitude of flavors… guaranteed to be something for everyone. There is one however that appears to be on fire right now… and that’s Facebook.
Millions are using it and thousands upon thousands are joining into the craze every day.
So the big question becomes… how about for business… does it make sense to use Facebook as a means to promote your business?
In one word… absolutely! And here are 10 great reasons of why you need to be on Facebook now:
1. Use It to Promote Your Brand
Dunkin Donuts has Facebook users passing out virtual treats from their menu… creating massive top-of-mind and brand awareness. Why not do something similar?
2. Use It to Do Highly Targeted Prospecting
Facebook makes it real easy to both locate and open up conversation with people with specific interests and commonalities.
3. Use It to Connect On a Deeper Level with Your Prospects and Clients
People buy from people, not businesses. Leverage Facebook to become more personable, human, and reachable. Write on your “friends” walls… add some photos of yourself… use Facebook’s “Groups” feature to build your own community within Facebook… the possibilities are endless.
4. Use It to Promote Your Specials and Events
Facebook provides a number of ways to automatically notify your “friends” on Facebook of any time sensitive special or event. For starters try a combination of Facebook’s “Events”, “Status”, and “Wall” features to let others know what you’ve got going on.
5. Use It to Drive Traffic to Your Web Site
Provide some links throughout your personal profile as well as create a page for your business that contains links that drive prospects back to specific areas of your business’s web site.
6. Use It to Improve Your Search Engine Rankings
As far as improving your overall search engine rankings, there is nothing like one-way incoming links from highly popular and trafficked web sites such as Facebook. According to Alexa.com, at the time of this writing, Facebook is ranked as the 8th most popular site on the web… that means out of all the web sites that exist on the Internet today… and there’s a lot of them… there are only 7 web sites that are more popular than Facebook.
7. Use It to Do Highly Targeted Advertising
Yes this one does cost money however because of the amount of information that Facebook knows about its members, it has the power to pinpoint where your ads are placed… thus giving your ads a greater chance at success than most advertising mediums.
8. Use It to Increase Your Credibility
Position yourself as an expert in your field by sharing some tidbits of wisdom on a regular basis and soon prospects will being seeking you out. Again leveraging features such as “Events” and “Groups” will set you well on your way to accomplishing this.
9. Use It to Obtain Easier, More Direct Access to Mentors
Outside of the Facebook world, what I’ve found is that it has become more and more difficult to reach mentors directly. Typically there is an assistant of some sort playing traffic cop. While in Facebook, at least at the time of this writing, I’ve found it much easier to reach the actual person I wanted to reach. They were actually managing much of the Facebook interaction themselves. Now what you do with that access is up to you.
10. Use It to Aggregate Feeds from Your Other Sources
Whenever I update my blog, a notification gets posted on my “Wall” for all my Facebook friends to see. Whenever I “tweet” using another Social Networking application called Twitter, again my Facebook profile is automatically updated. This stuff is powerful! Talk about working smarter not harder. Facebook, especially with the large assortment of add-in applications, has the capability to integrate some of your key online marketing tactics with your Facebook profile and pages.
So in closing, the name of the game is changing, and that game for right now at least is Facebook. In my opinion, Facebook is the epitome of where the Internet is headed. It provides an environment that fosters community, is experiential, interactive, immediate, unique, and completely addictive. And take it from me… these are all really good things for your business and Facebook.
Copyright 2008 Online Marketing Muscle — All Rights Reserved.
In Part I of this two-part article series, I shared five keys to increase your networking success online using Social Networking. To quickly summarize, they were:
Now there are tons of additional keys that we could talk about, however here are five more great ones that if you apply them diligently, only good things will happen.
6. Know Your “Why”
There’s that dreaded question again… you know… the one you know you need to ask yourself but you often hate to… what’s your “why”… What’s your “why” or your reason for social networking in the first place? And what results are you seeking for your efforts? Knowing your “why” is not only critical for your success in Social Networking, but for any marketing activity you engage in.
7. Wherever You Choose To Play, Play Hard
As much as you may like to, you just can’t market yourself effectively on every Social Networking site out there… there are just too many them. I’m not saying not to have a profile in a bunch of them… I’m all for free marketing. What I am saying is choose a select few to play hard in. These should be the ones that strategically give you the best chance at connecting with your target market. Go deeper than just creating a profile. Use these to connect with others regularly and build strong relationships… the kind of relationships that may eventually bear fruit.
8. The Power Is In the Follow Up
Just like in the offline world, it’s not enough to meet someone once, exchange business cards, and do nothing. If your objective was to do nothing, why waste your time, and theirs, in the first place… time is money. Have a plan for follow-up! Know “who” you’re going to follow-up with… by “when”. And know “how” you’re going to follow-up with them… and “why”. As you mine your contacts deeper by continually following-up, the real gold starts to surface. Remember it’s not only who they are that counts, but who they know as well. And people generally are more likely to introduce you to their network once they know, like, and trust you… so continue nurturing those relationships and watch new doorways open!
9. Be a Connector
Want to improve the quality of both your current and future contacts? Then make it a primary objective to continually find ways to add value to them. The Law of Attraction tends to kick in here as like attracts like. The more value you give, the more value you get as others tend to flock to and mirror those they respect and appreciate. The best way to add value to relationships, help others get what they want. Regardless of what it is they want, just about anything is possible through relationships. So who do you know that may add value to someone else you know? Connect them and they’ll both be grateful that you were thinking of them. And because of the “Law of Reciprocity”… as author Robert Cialdini shares in his great book “Influence”… those now happy contacts quite possibly will feel a sense of obligation to reciprocate and help you back.
10. Don’t Be Afraid To Ask For What You Want
It’s this simple… you don’t ask… you don’t get. In my observations, people are generally very willing to help others… they’re just not sure how they can… so tell them how… give them a little nudging. Be willing to ask for help and get others in the habit of helping you. No one should be above asking for help once in a while. Just don’t become a “taker”… you know… someone who’s apparently only concerned with their own well-being.
So in closing, Social Networking can be a tremendously valuable marketing strategy for both you and your business. I highly recommend that if you haven’t already, make the effort to test the waters a bit and see whether or not it makes sense for you. But remember, you’re likely to get out of it what you put into it, so if you’re going to play here, play hard. In order to really benefit from Social Networking or any type of networking activity for that matter, continually work at establishing mutually meaningful and lucrative relationships.
Copyright 2008 Online Marketing Muscle — All Rights Reserved.
I have hired Dean as my marketing coach. He possess a great deal of knowledge concerning marketing. He truly is an expert in his field. He is also a pleasure to work with. I highly recommend Dean as a marketing coach.
