by J Smith2000
The hardest lesson that salespeople have to learn about using social media to market their business is that they cannot sell " at least not in the conventional meaning of the word. Social media marketing is all about pull marketing. And the way you pull your ideal prospect to you is to give them valuable information that they need and can use. In the world of social media marketing, posting the correct information at the appropriate time is absolutely critical to your success.
The first step is to determine who IS your ideal prospect? You may even want to go so far as to sit down and write a paragraph or two about them. This will help you get inside the head of your ideal prospect. What do they need to know? What interests them?
Second Step: Go to Google Trends (http://www.google.com/trends). Check out the buzz for today. Pick a topic.
Once you have identified a topic, you can post something as simple as a brief comment on Facebook or Twitter. For example, Ramona S., one of our coaching club members, went to Google Trends and discovered that the First Time Homebuyer Tax Credit was a hot topic that day. She posted a brief comment on her Facebook profile about it and had 10 people write her back requesting more information about it. Of those 10, 3 were real buyer leads!
Having your topic on hand, you can either write an article or blog post. Then create a post on twitter or Facebook that links back to your blog.
Here are a few pointers for crafting a well-written article:
The Headline
The most important part of your article is your headline. Think about how newspapers and magazines use headlines just to get you to pick up the paper and read it. And so it is with your article. You may even want to start noticing headlines that catch your attention and keep them in a file that you can adapt and use for later reference. Be sure to incorporate your keywords so that your article gets found on the search engines. (Bonus Tip: The tabloids that you buy while waiting to check out at the supermarket are absolutely EXPERT at writing attention-getting headlines!)
The Body
The article body is the meat of your content. Be sure to sprinkle your keywords throughout the article so the search engines pick up your article. Pretend you are writing as if you are speaking to a friend. Keep the style conversational. Avoid technical language or a formal, stilted manner. The ideal length is about 400 words or so. Limit paragraphs to just a few sentences and be sure to use bullet point and subheadings. (Another Bonus Tip: You can outsource the transcription to www.elance.com.)
The Resource Box
To close your article, you will want to include a call to action. THIS is where you FINALLY are allowed to pitch your product. However, if you dont offer a compelling reason for them to contact you, they wont! Be sure youve included a link to your website so they are able to contact you and request additional information. Dont go through all the hard work of providing excellent information only to lose them because youve neglected to tell them how to contact you.
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