Okay. Let's move on to number two, which is engaging customers. So number one was attracting customers, meaning you're getting people into your world. So in social media that means they're becoming a fan on Facebook, they're following you on Twitter, they're connecting with you on LinkedIn, they're joining your site, whatever that is for you, that's number one. Number two is to engage the customers and this is where we're really building that whole know, like, and trust, right?
There's the old saying, "People buy from people they know, like, and trust." I absolutely believe that to be true. I base a lot of my marketing advice around that principle. Engaging customers is the phase where you're making people who don’t know you, people who are just coming in from somewhere on the internet, you're making that relationship go from a stranger relationship to a know, like, and trust relationship.
So this phase is where you really want to move more from broadcasting to dialogue. So by broadcasting I mean messages that you're just sending out to everyone and there's no back and forth. That's part of engaging customers, but you also want to have that more personal conversation where you're having a one-on-one dialogue on Twitter or you're leaving a comment on someone's blog or you're responding to a comment left on your blog or you're even emailing people one-on-one. You're kind of taking it to that next level as part of your mix of engaging customers. This is Twitter conversion. It's supposed to say Twitter conversation, for the record, which will hopefully lead to a customer conversion later.
So this phase is where you really want to move more from broadcasting to dialogue. So by broadcasting I mean messages that you're just sending out to everyone and there's no back and forth. That's part of engaging customers, but you also want to have that more personal conversation where you're having a one-on-one dialogue on Twitter or you're leaving a comment on someone's blog or you're responding to a comment left on your blog or you're even emailing people one-on-one. You're kind of taking it to that next level as part of your mix of engaging customers. This is Twitter conversion. It's supposed to say Twitter conversation, for the record, which will hopefully lead to a customer conversion later.
So in the old advertising marketing world we might say that somebody has to see our TV advertisement 7 times before they buy or we have to send them 10 pieces of direct mail or whatever the old marketing mix was. It's the same thing on social media. We just have this kind of incredible really easy way to scale that. So people still need to hear from us multiple times in most cases, which is why social media is just really no different from any other marketing tool. Sometimes people will get frustrated saying social media doesn’t for them quickly, but often I find they're not really taking the patience and they're not communicating with people frequently enough or giving people enough opportunities to receive those touches.
So you can do that via blog post. You can do that via posting on your Twitter, sending out a newsletter, updating LinkedIn, whatever it is. You're getting in front of people, you're communicating with them so they have a lot of different opportunities to get to know, like, and trust you, get to know your unique philosophy on how to do business, and get to know why your products and services will benefit them.
So what you really need to remember in this phase is that it's no different from anything else. You're going to have to get in front of people multiple times. Social media is a really easy way to do that. I want to just jump to this example. My friend is an interior designer here in L.A. and he does a lot of work with realtors. He does a lot of homes that were -- I don’t even know what you call it, a home that you build just to sell.
He'll do the decorating for them. He told me that he used to have to drive around L.A. just to do a little kind of stop by and chitchat. Basically, just to stay in front of people, check in; see if they have any new projects for her, all that kind of good stuff. It took a lot of time. It took a lot of energy. He told me that He does a lot of that through Twitter now because what he does is this piece right here using social media is part of your organized follow-up strategy.
So what my friend does is when he meets a new realtor or a home stager or a contractor, whatever it is, somebody that he can maybe work with or who can refer him some work. He asks them if they're on Twitter and if they are, he finds other name and then he follows them there. Of course, they usually follow him back. And now all the people who are following him on Twitter read his Twitter updates regularly. So they're staying in contact with him. They're staying in communication with him. So no longer has to drive around L.A. because he's getting to do that virtually instead. It's really cool and that's a big overlooked opportunity, and selling in social media is making these easy touch points part of your follow-up strategy.
So whatever ways you bring people in and whether it's meeting people at a networking event or maybe speaking engagements or maybe even using some direct mail strategies, once you find those people who are good prospects, find out if they're on Twitter, friend them on Facebook, connect with them on LinkedIn. You're providing places that make it really easy to get yourself in front of people because of course you send out that one update on Facebook and LinkedIn on Twitter. You don’t have to go make the rounds, calling every single person. You send out those updates and they're automatically put in front of everybody.
Of course, not everybody sees everything. We don’t sit around in front of our LinkedIn account, going through every update that every person sends which is why tic's so important to have those multiple contacts in multiple places. You want to make it really, really easy for people to hear from you.
- Profitable Relationship Through Social Media
- Chapter One: Attracting Customers
- Chapter Three: Sales and Prospects
- Chapter Four: Prosects
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