The days of in-person networking are quickly being overpowered by connecting on the internet. In the past five years, connecting on social networking sites has rocketed from a niche activity into a phenomenon that engages tens of millions of internet users.
According to Nielsen Online, a global research company, “member communities” are now visited by nearly three-quarters of the global online population, which includes both social networks and blogs. It has become the third most popular online category—ahead of email—and it’s growing twice as fast as any of the other four largest sectors (search, portals, PC software, and email).
Throughout this social movement, this new approach to networking has continued to be overlooked as a marketing vehicle for business owners. Now, instead of connecting at an in-person event, you can reach hundreds, even thousands, of potential customers online. Social networking can help you reach new markets and enhance your customer service.
High-Level Networking
In today’s networking space, you need to be efficient with your time and even more effective in regard to whom you choose to connect with. It’s important to know how to choose whom to connect with online. There are two different types of networkers online—the posters and the seekers. Your business is a poster, which means you actively post valuable information, resources, tips, and offers. The seekers are your customers—they’re actively seeking your products and or services. You’ll find seekers in discussion areas, forums, groups, and engaging on fan pages.
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Check out Meetup.com, an online networking site that facilitates offline networking. Members can create and join groups of people with similar interests who live in their area, and they can easily organize real-life meetings. It’s a great way to meet potential business partners and clients. It’s usually free to participate in monthly meetup events, although some events come with a nominal organization fee or participation cost.
When searching for quality contacts to network with online, start with connection sites, such as LinkedIn or Xing, and look for high-level networkers (HLN). You’ll know an HLN when you see one; they’re active online, have at least 500 connections, and have powerful profiles, which means that their profiles are set up completely. Make sure these contacts have at least one of the three criteria before you connect with them online. Some examples of HLNs would be decision makers, executives, the media, and the movers and shakers in your industry. Don’t let the fact that you don’t yet know the person hold you back from sending an invite to connect. Simply be transparent, and let them know why you’d like to connect with them online. Whether you’re offering your help, sending them a resource, or introducing them to one of your connections, make sure that you make it about how you can help them and not how they can help you.
Target Market Connections
Target market connections (TMC) are a group of consumers at which your company aims its products and services. They’re found by using keywords in the search section on social sites as well as in groups and discussion areas in your area of interest or focus. TMCs are mostly seekers that chat and seek out information by posting questions online. In the most basic terms, they’re seeking you. The key is to join in the groups and discussions where your target market is talking and engage with them. You can also send them an invite to connect and let them know that you sent them the invite because you have similar interests and you’re looking to expand your professional network. You can also find these groups in sites like LinkedIn. Search for groups that match what you have to contribute and then check to see which have not just the largest member numbers, but also the most active discussions.
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If someone is looking for house cleaning services in Orlando, Florida, you should know what he or she is likely to type into the search engine. You can find out this information by researching how people search. Good Keywords (goodkeywords.com) offers some great keyword-related software for brainstorming, researching, analyzing, and managing keywords. Free trials are available.
Another way to find your target market online is to investigate competitors’ marketing methods. See where another business that offers the same or similar products and services advertises their links and posts on social sites. Be sure each location makes sense and has a large contingent of people in your targeted market. Searching in your field will often turn up places where your audience goes when they’re looking for something in your industry.
The top three social sites to get started with or choose from are LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. These sites are massive online communities filled with potential high-level networkers and target market connections. To get started, set up your profile and navigate to get familiar with the sites’ offerings. To stay informed on any social site changes or updates, be sure to bookmark Mashable (mashable.com), the leading source for all social networking news and updates.
Groups and Discussions
Even the most unsociable entrepreneur can interact on message boards and blogs. Groups and discussion areas on social sites are all over the internet from LinkedIn and Xing to Twitter and Facebook. Most social networking sites have community areas for people who have similar interests to gather and connect (even Twitter has groups, or you can join people in discussions around # hasthtags on a topic—or create your own). It’s important to find a dozen or so of these groups and discussion areas and not only join and monitor them but engage in the conversations as well.
Blogs are another type of discussion forum on the internet. A blog isn’t just a type of website; it’s quickly becoming a place to interact with your target market. Technorati (technorati.com), a site focused on helping people find great blogs and content specific to their industry or topic, was recently ranked as the fifth largest social media site by comScore, an internet market research company. Technorati manages a list of the top 100 blogs, which is a great place to find the world’s most popular blogs on subjects you’re interested in. Not only can you find connections and blogs on this site, but you can also list your own blog so that people can search and find you.
Blogs are a great way to find HLNs to connect with online as well as partner with. For example, if you’re a restaurant, you could connect with food and review writers, vendors that are blogging, or food enthusiasts, and share their posts and content on your site or blog. This not only builds relationships but can expose you to their markets, followers and fans.
Keep It Separated
It’s critically important, in most instances, to keep your personal social media accounts separate from your business accounts. Many people do blur the line between professional and personal, but when you own a business, it’s more important to be concerned about offending a professional contact with your personal photos or posts. It’s best to keep separate Facebook and Twitter accounts, in particular. And if you are a heavy YouTube user, keep your accounts separate there, too. LinkedIn, which is professional in nature to begin with, can be the exception, if you keep your posts related to your industry or work.
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When looking for groups to join, search for groups that have at least 500 members, unless they’re industry-specific. Most groups that are under 500 might not be as active or updated and visited frequently enough for it to be worth your posting time. If you find a group with fewer members, be sure to keep an eye on how active its members are before you spend much time on involvement.
Fan Pages
With any social media platform, you need to be creative and find ways to provide value and engage your target market. One of the best ways to accomplish this and position yourself as an industry leader is to build and launch a Facebook fan page. If you’re an entrepreneur, you can’t afford to ignore this powerful tool. Fans are enthusiastic, and if they like what they see and read, they’ll connect with you, become loyal supporters, and tell their friends. This is how word-of-mouth will grow. The Social Media Industry Marketing report showed that 54 percent of respondents find Facebook their most valuable social networking platform in 2014. That was up dramatically from just two years earlier, when only 40 percent said the same.
It’s very simple to set up a fan page on Facebook—just a few clicks and you’re ready to go. You can either create a fan page from your homepage on the Facebook site or there are tutorials available in the help section on the site. Once you get your fan page up and running, pay attention to your analytics, or what Facebook calls “Insights.” You can view specific demographic information, such as where your fans are from, their gender, and their age. Monitor who’s becoming your fan, how they’re interacting, and how often they’re posting. This will help you figure out who and where else you should be targeting online.
To enhance the look and brand image of your fan page, use a horizontal image that covers the top of the page invitingly. You should use a smaller logo or image for the inset image that will show up as your page profile photo in fan newsfeeds. You can also set your fan page to have a vanity URL, which is a personalized web name. This will take your fan page URL from facebook.com/#/pages/brandnamehere/180746308742 to facebook.com/brandnamehere.
warning
Be aware of “trolling” (aka trolls) on the net: A troll is someone who posts inflammatory or off-topic messages in an online community, such as a discussion forum, group, or blog, with the primary intent of provoking other users into an emotional response or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion.
One of the main differences between a Facebook profile and a fan page is you can send bulk messages to all your fans. You can also “Suggest to Friends” that they join you on your fan page. Obviously, this is a feature you need to use wisely, and be careful not to annoy your audience. But it’s a great way to connect with your target market, especially since these are connections that have opted-in to become a part of your community. They want to hear from you and talk with you.
After you have your fan page published live, you can use the little ads you see in the margins on your profile page to increase your fan base, mostly to kick it off at the beginning. Facebook advertising is very affordable; you can set up campaigns of any size and on any budget, and they’re highly targeted. People usually assume that advertising is expensive, but don’t let that scare you. Give it a try.
You can boost a few posts and promote your page—and gain hundreds and even thousands of fans, not to mention expose your brand—for a few hundred dollars, sometimes even less. Facebook keeps track of the success of your campaign and you set targets for viewers and interactions. So you can quickly see the ROI of any post you’ve boosted or the value of the page promotion parameters you choose. Because ads and post-boosting are able to be finely targeted, you can also be sure your target audience (all the way down to location and age range) sees your page and posts.
“A terrible thing happens without publicity . . . nothing!”
—P.T. BARNUM
Media Connections on Social Sites
The media is an effective conduit for delivering your messages and story to the people you want to reach and can be vital to gaining word-of-mouth online and off. A majority of journalists have switched to social sites because they don’t have the time to read lengthy email pitches and press releases. With the help of social networking sites, you can search for media contacts on sites such as LinkedIn and reach out to them directly. You can also pitch journalists on blogs and Twitter, and get up-to-date information about a media outlet and what it’s looking for. Look for trending topics in your area or industry and use the prevailing hashtags to get your expertise or product in the conversation when it comes up.
Fan Page Workout
Social media news site Mashable suggests the following tips to enhance and build out your fan page:
Twitter integration. Link your fan page to Twitter so every time you post, it will automatically be posted to your Twitter account as well. (For more on automating your content, see Chapter 35.) One caveat: If you find your Twitter audience has different interests than your Facebook fans, you might want to consider turning the auto-feed to Twitter off, so as to not alienate those followers.
Fan page blog widget. Add a fan page widget to your blog to help drive blog traffic and connections to your fan page. Facebook provides you with the necessary code. (For more details on widgets, see Chapter 35.)
Blog promotion. Take your blog to the next level, and add your blog to your fan page. Blogging networks, such as NetworkedBlogs (networkedblogs.com) or Blogged (blogged.com), allow you to integrate a feed and give your fans a little taste of your blog. At the same time, your blog is now part of a network and that can translate into some additional traffic and followers.
Facebook apps. There are many great applications that you can integrate into your page to help promote audience interaction. Some of them, like the video app, are already a default on your page. Be sure to browse through them, and you’ll most likely find something great for your industry or business. Don’t be afraid to test different ones; you can always remove them. Consider polls and questions as a good addition—Facebook users like to interact and you can use the polls to gauge interest in everything from products and services to events.
Start by identifying the media outlets you want to target, and visit the website for each one to research it thoroughly. Keep your list brief so follow-up is manageable. Once you’ve built your list, search for key contacts at those outlets on LinkedIn. LinkedIn is a great resource for finding professional journalists and segment producers. With LinkedIn’s new search features, you can dive deeper into user data to find contacts that fit your criteria. For example, you can create a search to find contacts with “reporter” as their professional title within a 50-mile radius of your ZIP code. You can easily narrow each search by limiting other fields or adding a keyword, such as “business” or “features.” LinkedIn also lets you save a certain amount of searches so you can be alerted to new contacts that join LinkedIn matching your criteria.
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The number of PR and marketing people on Twitter is astounding. Use their collective wisdom and networks to create buzz and support for you and/or an event.
Media Matters
To find media outlets in your industry or topic area, check out the following sites:
ipl2 (ipl.org/div/news/) is a merger of the Internet Public Library and the Librarians’ Internet Index. It includes a list of popular magazines and newspapers organized by their respective subject area or geographic focus. Each listing includes a brief description of the outlet’s coverage area, along with a link to the website.
Yahoo! News and Media Directory (dir.yahoo.com/News_and_Media). You can search news and media by format (newspaper, magazine, blog, etc.) or by subject. This site also lists how many outlets are available under each category.
HARO (Help a Reporter Out) at helpareporter.com is a free service that connects journalists with expert sources. Each email (there are three a day) includes reporter queries you can respond to (provided you have a relevant pitch or expert to offer).
Key media contact titles include:
Editor
Segment producer
Journalist
Reporter
Assignment desk editor
Center of Influence List
One of the fastest ways to build referrals and relationships online through social networking is by reconnecting with past friends and family members or simply by reaching out to the top people in your center of influence that respect and admire you. This could be friends from grammar or high school, college, past co-workers, family members, bestselling authors, media contacts, etc.
eMarketer.com, a digital marketing and media researcher, reports that more than half (53 percent) of internet users have visited websites referred by friends or family members in the previous 30 days. People trust people that they already know, and your friends and family will most likely recommend you if the situation is right. Referrals have always been an extremely powerful way of gaining customers. With the web, trust levels can be very low for new visitors. In this environment, a referral from a trusted source can make all the difference in converting a contact into a customer.
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Twitter is a great site to meet media contacts from around the world. Once you build a following, try to attend a local tweetup. A tweetup is an event where people who use Twitter come together to meet in person; they’re great for walking away with a lot of contacts and leads. At a tweetup, you meet the people you might only otherwise know virtually, plus the media often attends.
Forget Me Not
It is vital that you create a powerful “stay connected” plan to keep your brand at top of mind with your contacts. Set aside half a day to reach out to your connections at least once every three months by using one of the following approaches:
Send them an email once a month to announce something new in your business and simply to touch base.
Phone (or Skype) them to say hello. Ask them how they are first, and keep notes so you have a point of contact for the next call. You can close with an event or big announcement about your company, product, or service.
A personal note works very well for developing this type of relationship. Notes take time, which shows that you value this relationship. SendOutCards.com is a great site that can help you automate card sending—and we’re talking real printed cards, not e-cards.
Don’t tell them, show them how important they are. If this relationship doesn’t include reciprocity, it will degenerate into a “what’s in it for me” situation that won’t stand the test of time. Send them thank-you gifts or online gift cards (a small amount will do just fine) to let them know you’re grateful for them and any referrals that they’ve sent your way.
Develop that trusting relationship with people who are well positioned to help you. You must earn their referrals. When you do, your marketing will become supercharged with what’s clearly the best form of advertising—positive word-of-mouth.
Facebook is one of the best sites to connect with friends and family as well as past co-workers and your online center of influence. Once you’ve determined who these contacts are and connect with them online, you need to not only reach out to them but keep in touch with them. Have you ever had someone you know buy what you sell from a competitor because they just didn’t know you sold it? That means that you’re not at the top of their mind.