Business Social Networking | Business Networking Life

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.

3 Tips for Getting More Traffic

Business Social Networking 19 Responses »

Jan 252011

Have you ever thought to yourself “I am delivering great content and consistently at that, where is all the traffic?”

Well, as the saying goes “It takes a village to raise a child,” it takes a following to grow web traffic. But Joe, don’t I need traffic to build a following? Which comes first the chicken or the egg?

Here are three strategies that I have seen work for myself in the past, and will be reinstating in my own site for the foreseeable future.

1. Guests Posts- This is an easy and effective way to leverage other peoples following. Find other sites with a similar message to your own, begin commenting in order to build a relationship with the author, then request if you can do a guest post for them. You want to make sure the site you are building a relationship with has a decent Google page rank of 2 or more.

This strategy is going to work on two levels:

You are building backlinks on relative and credible sites
You are creating a relationship where you can get guest posts to post on your own site (which is the primary objective.)

2. Interviews- This is a fun, slightly more time intensive, but powerful credibility enhancer. You can use some of the same strategies of getting guest posts so you can build solid relationships before asking for the interview. I encourage you to identify the best in your industry locally, nationally, and internationally and set yourself some targeted people to interview.

Much like having guest posts this allows people to share, with their network, how they have this awesome interview on your website.

3. Create a promotion strategy with friends- Write yourself an amazing post then find a few friends that have a little bit of a following then get one person to start a discussion or make a statement in the form of a status update. Once that is complete have everyone else standing by to participate in the communication sharing and validating how your post is the most useful and relevant answer to the discussion.

These are 3 very powerful techniques you can put into place immediately. What has been the most successful strategy you have used that you noticed a significant grow in traffic?