Do you know why most people fail miserably at Social Media Marketing? Because they don’t really get what it’s all about. They think it’s about promoting their companies. It’s not; it’s about MAKING FRIENDS.

“Really? Making friends?”

“Yes, really.”

See, people like doing business with their friends. If your toilet breaks and one of your friends is a janitor, you’ll ask him to fix it. If you don’t have any janitor friend, then you might ask your friends if they know a janitor they trust. People do business with their friends for two reasons:

1. They get a better service, price, deal, etc.
2. They give money to people they care about.

So, how can you apply this principle to Social Media Marketing?

1. Make sure your social media profiles say what you do and have links to your site.
2. Make friends. Discover your target market and start talking to those people. Don’t sell them anything; just make friends with them and check out their status updates. What are they doing? Is there anything you can help with? Are they asking questions you can answer or looking for something you can give them?
3. After a few interactions, something very interesting will happen. They’re going to ask you the BIG QUESTION: “so, what do you do for a living?”. Just tell them what you do but don’t make it sound like you’re trying to sell them something. This is where your elevator speech will come into play. In case you want to know what an elevator speech looks like, this is mine: “I help companies get thousands of qualified visitors for their websites.” Create an elevator speech and be ready to share it when people ask you what you do for a living.
4. People will add you to their “mental Rolodex”. It works something like this: “Joan P. – High-end catering services”, “Marty K. – Real estate agent”, etc.
5. When they need a real estate agent, they’ll call Marty. And, they’ll also recommend Marty to anyone who needs a real estate agent (assuming that Marty took the time to build strong relationships with his contacts instead of trying to sell them his services).

I can’t emphasize this enough: Social Media Marketing is about MAKING FRIENDS, not about selling your stuff. But remember: making friends is a great way to sell your stuff!

I believe that if we all understood the concept in this article, the Social Media Marketing world would be a lot more fun and efficient, so let me ask you a favor: spread the word. Send this to your contacts, re-tweet it, share it on Facebook, or share it any way you want. Thank you!

Author: Zeke Camusio

Zeke Camusio is a serial entrepreneur, marketing speaker, author of The Internet Marketing Bible and CEO of The Outsourcing Company, an Internet marketing agency based out of Portland, Oregon.

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4 Responses

1. 

   1

   mike 
   

   well put and i try to do that share thing in my entire life!

2. 

   2

   Melanie Kissell 
   

   Good points here, Zeke. And I totally agree. Pitching, pouncing, prodding, and pestering won’t get you anywhere on social media platforms. Relationships must come first … works the same online and offline. And no matter how you stack it up, word of mouth advertising will always bring the very best results!

3. 

   3

   Valerie 
   

   Very true about doing business with someone you like and trust. And trust takes time.

4. 

   4

   Iban Monje 
   

   You have your point Zeke, all that making friends thing makes sense. I have to put it in practice.