Business Social Networking | Business Networking Life

Stop Masturbating with Social Networking in your Business

Business Social Networking 34 Responses »

Jan 012012

beasts fuzzy dice2 Stop Masturbating with Social Networking in your Business

You must read on to understand why dogs are dressed in dice costumes...

That’s right! I figured out a way to combine two of the most popular online activities into a useful and enlightening post to help grow your business through social networking.

Let’s face it the internet and social media is where it is today partially because of all the porn sites that were some of the first sites making billions online back in the day.

Now let’s get to the topic of how the hell this relates to your business and your social networking.

I think it is pretty hard to argue with the fact that LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and social networking in general have become the technology de joure of the past few years, and will remain that way for the next few as well. Ten or even twelve years ago it was like “Wow! This internet thing is awesome I need to get myself a website.” Then everyone and their mother went and spent whatever it cost to get a website to highlight their business.

Now websites are more important and less expensive than ever, but if someone asks you, “Are you on Facebook?” and you say “No,” the only thing most of us can say to ourselves is “Seriously?”

Yes, for the most part every business that is planning on actually growing into next year is jumping on the social media band wagon, and rightly so. “Bandwagon Marketing,” is what I have termed this wave of businesses utilizing social networking for their marketing efforts. Why? Because everyone and EVEN MY MOTHER is all over it!

Back to the point of the post, how and why you must stop masturbating with your business social networking. Just because you have 50 social networking profiles set up and you got yourself a blog doesn’t mean it is time to sit back and watch the sales roll in or that it is time to alert the world to every product, service, special offer, coffee break, or bowel movement someone in your company has.

The purpose of business social networking isn’t to pleasure yourself, it is to make more money and grow your business.

6 quick tips:

1. Posts and status updates must provide a pleasurable experience of some kind for the audience whether educational, inspirational, or entertaining. “I just had the best cup of coffee ever!” does not cut it!

2. Learn how to optimize your profiles and websites with information your readers can relate to, that is useful, and has a call to action.

3. If you are getting a few hits to your website and either aren’t tracking things accurately or are just not converting anyone this is NOT the time to invest in SEO to get more traffic. Sharpen up the site, do some testing, make some sales, then work on getting more people to the site.

4. Spend your time wisely online. Set up your action plan and stick to it. You are running a business it is time to treat it like one.

5. Don’t post the same thing 15 times 15 different ways throughout the day. If people didn’t take advantage of your first crappy offer posting the same offer phased differently every 15 minutes for the rest of the day isn’t going to be any more effective.

6. Be unique. Just because you jumped on the bandwagon doesn’t mean you can’t throw some fuzzy dice on the rear view to make yourself a more noticeable. Do your best NOT to be like everyone else. Those who stand out make the most money.

Thanks so much for reading! Stay tuned as we are going to be getting into some of the “how to” behind the strategy and highlight some great case studies over the next few weeks.

Please share with our fellow readers the best internet marketing tip you have ever received, and how it helped you grow, monetize, or benefit your business.

Have an awesome day!

Professional Networking: Are you a Professional Meeting Attender?

Business Social Networking 14 Responses »

Dec 072011

There is without a doubt a surplus of professional business networking events to attend as well as an increasing number of trainings to help business owners with social networking going on across the country. But, take a moment to think about your actions… Have you become a professional meeting attender??

(Yes, I am aware attender is not a real word, but attending meetings for a living isn’t a real business.)

After hosting networking events and trainings for the last 5 years it is both exciting and frustrating to see the waves of people come in and out. Everyone is “trying” to grow their business, they go out and attend everything imaginable, which is the exciting part. However, it seems like a crazy high percentage of people never implement anything at all!

Whether you are at a professional networking event or are starting to take part in social networking for business purposes the philosophy behind your objective is universal; connect with and help as many people as possible and then you will make more money. This is not rocket science.

Surely those of you who have been to a live professional networking event have encountered those obnoxious people who walk in with a stack of business cards and their only objective is to get rid of all of them, because “that’s marketing.” Is this really so different than logging onto Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, or any of the other hundred social networks you are trying to use for your business and seeing the guy who thinks posting, “Hey, this is what I do! Check me out and let me know if I can help you.”

How self centered are we to think that anyone cares about who we are or what we do?

Whether live or online the interaction that will turn into a potential business relationship looks like this:

Introduction (Meeting and learning about one another, no pitching or looking at people like they have dollar signs shooting out of their head.)
Identifying ways to help your new friend accomplish something in order to get them closer to a goal that they have. (Helping other people may very well help us advance our business as well… WOW, who’d a thunk it?!?)
Then it is really all about staying on each others radar. Having a meeting every now and then, communicating online, checking in to see how everything is going. (You know, developing a friendship)

(Yes, I am also aware I am being very condescending. My objective is to show you how simple the process can be if you allow it, and also to save you hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars “trying” to figure it out.)

These 3 basic principals work, and they work at live professional networking events or online when messing with your businesses social networking.

How much time should you spend networking online and in person? Well that really depends on just how friendly and resourceful you really are.

Meetings, trainings, and events are great, but when do you get to the point where you stop “trying” and start “DOING!”

I wish for you the greatest amount of success with both your professional networking efforts and in your business social networking.

Have an awesome day!

How Disney and Your Online Presence Are Related

Business Social Networking, Internet Marketing 2 Responses »

May 232011

I recently went on the backstage tour at Disney World and learned some top secret Disney information that can help you with your online marketing!

Here is a quick review and recap of the tour before we begin: Six hour tour, $75 per person lunch included, lots of cool and interesting facts, it was cool to see all the backstage storage and employee areas, the efficiency is beyond amazing, and I saw 2 characters without their heads!

So Joe, how does any of this relate to my online marketing efforts?

I am so glad you asked!

Within the first hour of the tour our guide filled us in on how Disney makes all their decisions within the park regarding attractions, construction, and pretty much anything else that people see while they are in any park. The four things they evaluate, and this is in order of importance: Safety, Courtesy, Show, and Efficiency.

It was funny how my brain immediately related this into internet marketing. After thinking about each of these four evaluated areas here is how I interpreted into a successful web presence.

1) Safety- Most people’s focus on, once their site is “up,” getting traffic. Now obviously traffic is a critical component of your site, but when your site is not ready to convert visitors into anything that is going to benefit them or yourself, what good is traffic? It is important to aim at increasing traffic when it is safe to do so. Don’t waste all your ammo on setting up an amazing launch if you haven’t spent some time testing out conversions and what calls to action are going to be most effective. Do some upfront research on your industry and competitors to determine what will be most effective, then you can set up a safe, successful, profitable launch of your site.

2) Courtesy- How generous are you with information? Are you accessible to your followers? Is everything you blog about and have on your pages a blatant sales pitch? As a business marketing online, it is important to communicate and respond to your audience as quick as you can. More importantly, be courteous enough not to see every engagement as a sales opportunity. People enjoy and appreciate communication without solicitation, it builds confidence and a comfortable dependency on the easy access to your knowledge.

3) Show- This is really the “sales pitch” of your product. How well is it viewed? Is your pitch enticing and does it draw your audience into wanting to learn more about how your product or service can help them? If they aren’t ready to make a purchase today is there any kind of freebie or trial version they can take advantage of? It is the user engagement with not only your sales pages, but your site as a whole which is the “show.”

4) Efficiency- This is more of a backend necessity. You really don’t want to be scrambling daily or weekly to manage comments, sales, and social networking. This is why a routine schedule you create for yourself is imperative. I am sure at some point in your life you made a list of things to do and found it to be significantly more productive.

So there it is! You now know how Disney operates and how you can apply it to your internet marketing.

Let us know of an interesting situation you have been in that you found yourself relating back to the internet.