Social Word-of-Mouth Strategies
I get the same questions over and over again from clients of our social web marketing strategies. “What should I say?”, “How can I do this without investing a lot of time?”, “How do I get people to actually do business with us?”. These questions are so common and they all demonstrate the problems of marketing on Facebook, Google Plus, Twitter, and Linkedin.
In traditional marketing, you rely on getting your message in front of strangers and hoping the strangers decide to do business with you. The common alternative to traditional marketing is “word-of-mouth” marketing, which is what many small businesses rely on. Word-of-mouth marketing relies on you and your existing customers to recruit new customers through testimonials and conversation.
The social web works more like word-of-mouth marketing. It’s critical to establish a working relationship with a smaller group and then grow that group through those contacts. As people do business with you, the core group grows and then the extended group expands exponentially.
Begin your social marketing strategy with serving existing customers, associates, and friends.
Expand your social marketing by communicating in ways that encourage your core group to share to the extended groups. A number of incentive ideas can help with this.
Finally, promote your products and services in the same fashion you would in a word-of-mouth campaign. Tell them about your events and specials, but tell them as if you already know them personally.
Become friends with your core network. Serve them well. Develop a credible reputation with your core audience and expand your circle of influence the way you would with real people. After all, these are real people. These are real relationships. Make real friends, do real business, and allow your network to grow from higher quality online relationships.
Of course this takes time and effort. But check for yourself. The top social web personalities are generous, helpful, and entertaining. Become a social servant leader and someday you’ll look back at this as the best thing you ever did.
Get your social marketing strategy off the ground quickly with Anything Internet. Call right now.
Visit the Steven Kay Live website
to listen to this radio show
Post comments on our Facebook page
