Did you know that the 2009 Nielsen ratings showed the largest age group of people using on-line networking for Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter fall in the 35-49 year old age grouping with the second largest being 50-64 year olds?! Two weeks ago when I shared that information with a room of business owners during my seminar on Target Marketing I got many surprised looks. On-line networking is not going to go away just because you do not have the time to work it in to your business marketing plan or understand how to build a following on these sites. One solution for people who do not have many on-line contacts is to consider joining groups and being FANS of various different organizations that will connect you with people who may need your product or know others who could use your services. A quick way to find great local groups to join is to view the profile pages of your contacts and see which ones they have joined. Another is to use the search key to look for information about the topic you are interested in or find one of your competitors and look at their site. You want to be EVERYWHERE that your target market might be and be sure to post comments or questions and use your company logo or the same profile picture so people become familiar with you. Try to post comments on blogs and sites that allow you to link back to your own website. The more you create an on-line identity the greater the chance you have of reaching potential clients.
I do caution, though, that these sites are “social” sites and if you come on too strong with messages just about your business or you bombard your contacts with message updates that are not really important you may find that you lose your own following. The idea is to “connect” and build a relationship and not to try to constantly “sell” them. Since my husband and I met on a social networking site 6 years ago in which I was the moderator of a group, I know first hand the power of on-line networking and building relationships. The key is that you have to understand that social on-line networking is not a commercial or paid advertisement for your business. It is a place where people share ideas and connect and build friendships. Had the first time my husband posted to me on-line he proposed marriage I can guarantee that I would have been looking to drop him quickly from my network and I would have labeled him as “pushy and weird”. This is what you want to avoid. It takes time to develop relationships on-line and in person, but the number of people who use these sites cannot be ignored so create your accounts, look for on-line groups and FAN pages and be sure to make this as important as your other marketing projects by creating specific times during your work day that you check out these sites and post.
All my best to your success!
~Charlene
