May 07, 2014

Who Else Wants a Quick Sales Fix?

"I need to create buzz around an event - should I promote it on Facebook or Twitter?"

Wouldn't it be lovely if we could have immediate success? Unfortunately that is as rare as me not ordering a dessert at the end of a meal!

Social marketing is not a quick fix, but then what is? The clue is in the phrase 'business earnings'..

Any business worth gaining, is business worth earning. 

And earning means doing those hard yards. Hard yards is another way of saying

"giving to the market - consistently, constantly and with commitment"

Social marketing is NOT for everyone. If you like to control who sees your content, if you want to dip in and out of social marketing, if you think about what YOU need first....then social marketing is not for you! And that is fine. That is OK.

You can still find a way.. it may need a larger budget to persuade people to buy from you...by buying attention or investing in others to talk about you...but that may be the best way for you.

But if you want to make use of social marketing then you need to commit to social marketing. Commitment needs you to focus on relationship building and with any building it needs...

  • A plan. A blueprint of what the ideal relationship will look like....know thyself, know thy customer, know thy market!
  • Foundations. It needs consistent commitment over the medium term. It needs you to give more than you receive, it needs you to think about what is your 'shareability' factor.
  • Structure. It needs focus. Focus on which tools to use, focus on valuable content, focus on consistency over time.
  • Humanity. Buildings are just bricks and mortar, what makes them wonderful homes are the people....your social marketing needs to be human. It needs you to speak, share, create in a human voice not business jargon.

Social marketing is not a tap that you can turn on when YOU want a platform....it is a platform built over time from which you can show the world why they should connect with you. 

The questions for today is

"Are you building a shack from spare wood in your garage or have you created a blueprint, put in place the foundations...to support the structure and made it THE home that your customers want to visit?"

Why not try the 30 day challenge to Business Super Powers?

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7 May 2014 12:07:27 | Customer Service, Entrepreneurship

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Anna Farmery

Social Marketing Architect, Speaker, Author and in spare time completing PhD on the future of the social business model

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