Climbing the Social Ladder

January 21st, 2010

A number of years ago I started travelling around the world and ended up living on the other side of the planet. I was always relatively confident but wasn’t quite sure if I had made the right choice living in another country without friends, family and of course the good weather! I was never one for emailing and attaching photos so people back home never knew where I was or what I was doing. I was finally convinced, after many months, to use a brand new networking website called Facebook which made it easier to stay in touch. A few years on and there are now hundreds of social media websites and online tools that individuals and businesses are using to communicate via the internet.  Not only are these very cost effective but they
are powerful tools for creating and maintaining relationships.
Being an active user of video and online marketing, I am often asked by people how social media can help grow their business online and what social media tools are available to them, that can help drive traffic to their website and hold consumers long enough that they have the ability to convert them into customers. There is a huge buzz around the topic of social media and online networking sites at the moment. Millions of people all over the world surf the internet every day gathering information and researching products and services. Two thirds of the global internet populations visit social networking sites and visiting social networking sites today has now become the fourth most popular online activity ahead of personal email.   Twitter has seen
a staggering 1382% monthly growth rate in the number of users with three million ‘tweets’ a day and more than five billion people using Facebook. So you can start to see why a lot of businesses have tried and are still trying to sell and promote their products through these very powerful online media channels.

The million dollar question is how can I make money off Social Media?

Try and Imagine each social media website like Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, YouTube is like going to a party.   What do you do at a party?  You socialise right?  Trying to sell something to a person you have just met at party is not gong to get you anyway.  You talk about your personal life, friends, family and general interests.  Right?

Now imagine your house as your website or blog where you store all of your ideas, thoughts, videos, photos, news clippings etc.  When you enter someone’s house for the first time you often get a good representation of who they are and what they like by the items of interest that hang on their walls. (i.e. design of their website)

When you start to make friends at these parties you attend you will most probably invite them back to your house for a meal.  This is generally the best time for people to understand a little more about what you do in your business.   After you tell them that you own a beauty spa or cosmetic clinic they may or may not show any interest.  However just because someone has no interest in what you do, does not mean they don’t like you as an individual.

Lets say you have a cosmetic clinic and you specialise in fat removal.  You meet Bob at one of the parties.  You invite Bob and other friends to have dinner at your house.  Although you know that Bob does not need fat removal, something extraordinary happens?  Bob goes to another party the following week and meets someone that is interested in having a fat removal procedure?   So you can see what happens next.  Bob tells his friend about how great your house is and that you are a trustworthy person to deal with.

The main point of this is story is consumers don’t like to be sold to on websites that were designed for socialising.  But what it does show, is people like Bob that go to an actual party may know 20-30 people, but when they are socialising on Face Book, twitter and You Tube they generally know hundreds and thousands of individuals who are happy to spread the good word and tell others about your great products and services.

Social media is not a short-term gain but is a very powerful tool for generating business and strengthening your relationships with existing clients. If you remember to use social media as a medium for meeting people, developing relationships and building trust. You will find that people will want to be invited for dinner at your house every night, where they will become your loyal customers.

Social media is a very powerful tool in drawing consumers into your website, but without the right content on your website
you will still struggle to turn that traffic into real customers. What some business owners have not understood is that the consumers have become moreintelligent and much more demanding in terms of what they want from a service provider. You need to find web tools that create interest, excitement and make consumers feel that they are in charge of their own decision when visiting your website. There are two social media tools that have proven to be very successful: blogs and videos.

Contact us today if you want a free consultation on the best options for your business regarding social media marketing, video content and blogging.

Source: Cosmetic News Magazine written by Director of Handi Productions, Stephen Handisides