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List Building Part 5: Social Media, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and blogs
Rick Henkin
In part 5 of this series, we'll examine the following list building methods: Social Media (including Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn) and blogs. Social MediaThere isn't any one precise definition of social media, it's interpreted in different ways by different sources. According to Wikipedia, "Social media is information content created by people using highly accessible and scalable publishing technologies." Basically it takes us from being just readers of content to publishers of content. While traditional forms of content publishing including magazines, newspapers, books, radio, television and film require a significant investment, the cost to publish content online through blogs, podcasts, videos, forums, email, instant messaging and other avenues is minimal or free. All of a sudden, the eyes and ears of the world are reachable by anyone. Building your list with social media works differently than the standard opt-in box, give away free valuable information in exchange for their email address, follow-up with an autoresponder scenario. Because social media applications like Twitter and Facebook are primarily social tools and not business tools, your approach needs to be different. Even LinkedIn, which is a social networking site geared toward business professionals, has to be approached differently as well. However, your goal is to eventually lead people back to your website or landing page and your opt-in box with autoresponder. There are many other social sites as well, but our focus will be on these 3 because of their potential to help build our lists. The first way to begin building a list of followers on Twitter is to to follow others in your niche. You can find them by going to search.twitter.com Just type in keywords or phrases pertaining to your topic and you'll find others who are interested in the same subject. See who they follow and reply to. The second way to build your list is to read their tweets and join in the conversation. What this means is adding value to the conversation, not just plugging your own products or website. There will be time for that, but first you need to build a relationship with those you follow and who follow you. You have to build trust and you do that by answering a question, posting a helpful tweet or link to an article or blog post that may be generally relevant and helpful to those in your niche. If one of your followers tweets something that you think would be valuable to your followers, give them credit and retweet the post. It's the ultimate form of sharing. If all of your tweets are self-promoting with links back to your website, blog or product page, before you know it, you won't have any followers. Don't allow more than about 15-20% of your tweets to be about your business and don't tweet dozens of times each day. As you gather followers and become respected as an authority in your field, more and more people will travel over to your blog and website and become customers. Also, if they retweet valuable posts of yours, your tweet may eventually come across the screen of someone in a position to be extremely helpful to your business. Keep in mind that all of your Twitter posts will be indexed by Google, which means you need to tweet responsibly. Once you've created a profile and added friends, consider joining or starting a group centered around your niche. If you already have a blog, you can place your blog in your profile through RSS. Facebook also has an application allowing your Twitter posts to show up on your profile as well. You can also create Facebook pages which are public profiles that let you share your company and products with other Facebook users. These are separate and apart from your personal profile Facebook page. You can also purchase targeted ad space, post in the Facebook Marketplace for free and promote marketing events or product launches in Facebook Events. Here's a great resource for you listing 30+ Apps for Doing Business on Facebook. Just like Twitter, your success is based on the value of the content you share with others. If all you do is self-promote, a lot of people will just tune you out. LinkedIn is a social networking site geared towards business professionals. You don't build followers, you create connections. The power of LinkedIn lies not so much in your network of connections but in your network's connections. Let's say you have 20 connections and each of them have 20 connections. You're now effectively connected to all 400 people. Once you've created your profile, which can includes links to your website and blog, you can search out and join groups that fit your target market. Participate in the group by asking and answering questions. The new and active discussion questions are emailed to the entire group which means your name gets placed in front of them even if their not checking in on LinkedIn's website. Aside from groups, there's a section called LinkedIn Answers where people post questions on a variety of topics. You can also post questions or post answers to other's questions. Your answers are then rated and by providing the best answers, you earn expertise. Experts are then featured on the Answers home page and in each category of questions. One thing both Twitter and LinkedIn make easy to do is market research. You can ask the people you're connected to, questions about their interests, needs, wants and anything else that might help you develop a more effective product or service. If it's a brand new product, this can even help you gauge the demand. Blogs A blog as defined by Wikipedia, is "a type of website, usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events or other material such as graphics or videos...A typical blog combines text, images and links to other blogs, web pages and other media related to its topic." Most blogs, like the 2 connected to this website, AttractMoreVisitorsblog.com and CreateMoreCustomersblog.com will have an opt-in box. The box offers valuable free content in exchange for the visitor's email address. Like everything else discussed above, it's great content on the blog that will influence a person to actually give you their name and email address in exchange for your free content offer. The common threadThe common thread in all of the social media applications from a business standpoint, is to be helpful and offer quality content. Be seen as an authority in your niche. Don't push your product or service, let people come to realize how valuable your information is because of the help and advice you're offering for free. It takes time, but costs very little if anything at all, and the affects are much longer lasting. The four topics discussed above- Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and blogs represent only a portion of the social media applications available. Our next article will discuss podcasts, videos, viral campaigns and WOM (word of mouth). ARTICLE DATE: 2009-04-27 REVISED DATE: Share this Article as a Tweet on Twitter
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