Internet Marketing
Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and Pinterest
With all the new mediums for social interaction on the Internet I believe these are the 5 big ones. Of course, there are many who read this that will argue. That in itself shows you how they can use these programs to make their opinions known.
Never before have we had such easy of communicating with each other. Making our opinions known worldwide in seconds. Updating family and friends on all the important and not so important moments in our lives.
We build our own little circle of friends, peers and family. With amazement, we watch this circle grow to hundreds and thousands in some cases.
Think of how these circles can be great little places to advertise
Each group of people makes a nice little place to talk about your product or service. You can find groups of people that have all the needs or wants that you offer. Then you design a program that allows you to introduce your business to them in a personal way.
Build your own little community
You can build a business version for your account in most of these programs and then build your own little community. You can promote your business among each of these programs so that your customers join each of your social media programs. You invite them into your circle of friends. By doing so you begin to build a fence around your customers.
By getting your prospects or clients to join multiple groups you create multiple opportunities to sell to them over and over again. They learn the value of your friendship and business relationship.
People love to feel like they belong, by allowing them to join your group they build a trust with you. They recruit for you and eventually they help sell you to new prospects.
You are no longer just a business to them, you can become a friend and a trusted relationship. This builds the all-important relationship. Trust helps make sales, never forget that. When someone trusts you, you have a 100% better chance to sell them on your business.
Facebook is the grandfather
Facebook is not old enough to be a grandfather but in computer time it really would be close to that type of status. Many of the new social media programs are designed based on the same premise of Facebook.
Simply put you can design a series of small text ads or even in-bedded images or video ads and sell to very defined and focuses groups of prospects.
Facebook is a prefect test area when testing new products and services. Once proven you can further expand your Facebook ad campaigns to add more Facebook users to your campaigns.
You can start small and grow using your profits from previous campaigns. Then you can expand to other social media gathering places.
Twitter is a great business targeting media
Twitter is generally thought of as a gathering place for individuals. Gathering like-minded peers into some groups and helping to build your network.
Individuals can build detailed profiles of themselves and then share this information with followers. A follower is just someone that you invite to be part of your little network.
Twitter differs from Facebook in the fact that you can only do text messages and they are limited to 140 characters at a time. By this writing this too may have changed. This is where hashtags were introduced, to allow you to provide a few words to describe your situation, emotion or opinion in a limited group of words.
Twitter is an easy way to share information quickly and in a form that is easy to read and digest quickly. These days it is a great way to share news and announce new products and services.
At the time of writing, Twitter is seriously looking at building an advertising system along the same form as Facebook and Google. This has not yet begun but I suspect it will eventually begin.
Once this happens this will be a great place to advertise to people and professionals. If this is your type of business and you can benefit from this type of audience you need to begin preparing for this opportunity. You can copy your other programs such as your Facebook and Youtube ads.
If you can benefit from selling to your peers than Twitter is a great opportunity that you need to consider.
Linkedin is designed for business people
Linkedin is for business people. This is not a place for the general public. It is used to help promote your business experience to other business people.
You set up an account and build a profile that promotes your business, your abilities and your products or services. Once again you promote yourself to a group of peers and individuals. Your profile looks like a resume and in many cases acts like one as well.
Many employers are looking at social media in order to research potential new employees. The new reality of social media can provide a very private look into how you act outside of your day to day work life.
“Whatever you say on the internet, stays on the internet, keep that in mind as it can come back to haunt you”
Many people have some very embarrassing things pop up due to the fact that they fail to realize that anything they put on the internet can be seen by many people now and a long time back into your past.
Take this as a warning to always think twice before you post anything to a social network site.
Will you be proud of this what you are posting in 5 to 10 years from now? This is especially true of sites that allow you to post images. These images will stay on the internet long after you have forgotten that you even posted them.
The same longevity works for your business message
The immediate effect of your ad message may be seen only briefly to begin with but with time you eventually can have hundreds of your messages floating around the internet. Each time they are seen they can develop into a real source of business.
This is why you want to use multiple mediums to your advantage. Each medium has a life span and allows you to spread your message for years to come.
The longer you are in business the greater your presence grows with a regular use of internet advertising.
Linkedin is also working on an advertising program that will resemble Facebook and Google advertising campaigns. You can already advertise on Linkedin but they have a way to go before they are competing at the same level as Facebook.
I hope you can see a trend with all these new social media networks
They all are designed around building a community of similar likes and dislikes. Then building an advertising platform around these communities to allow business to profit from these new little communities.
People fail to realize that a small group of people that have the same interest in your business offerings is worth more than trying to advertise to the general public. When you can laser focus your advertising message to people who are already ready to hear your message, your chance of making a sale is greatly increased.
Instagram and Pinterest are image based social networks
“A picture paints a thousand words”, I am not sure who coined this phrase but it certainly holds true. Pictures can demonstrate so many emotions and bring to surface memories in people. People can empathize with pictures and immediately understand the situation and begin to feel the emotions in connection with them.
We see pictures everyday, both stills and in video. These pictures allow us to visually see the message and to gain additional feelings that the printed word or an audio recording can’t provide.
Now combine images with audio and written text
A combination of all three types of messages can be a powerful way to make your business known. Using a medium that allows you to access all three senses allows your prospects to digest your message using all their senses.
This may seem like something that matters little but the science of selling has proven that working with the senses can help you make more sales. The more you can make a person feel good about your business the better your chance to make them a long-term customer.
Selling to all the senses helps build trust faster and as we know trust is a key to all sales.
Instagram and Pinterest start with images and pictures
These sites use images and pictures to build community. The picture draws you in and then you can add test to the posting to help describe what people are looking at.
You add your website or landing page link to this section and lead the prospect into your little world. Here you make your offer to them to become a customer. Offering Free books. reports or samples to entice them to provide you their contact information so you can continue to try persuading them to become customers.
You can share many things using these websites. They are both intended to show images so you need to think about how you incorporate images into your sites. How can you use images to help sell your services and products?
An easy task with products, not as easy with services. It takes time to figure out how to use these new mediums and media. Spend time looking around these websites to see how others are using the program to advertise similar services.
Type in your business keywords into the search bar and dozens of ideas will pop up for you to explore and learn. Presenting you with ideas on how to profit from these new mediums. Take time to learn and study them. Figure out how you can use them to your advantage
Images sell everything
The advertising world is built on using images and sound to sell everything. In the past we used black and white pictures then came color pictures. Television soon followed and we were introduced to commercials on tape.
Commercials soon stretched into 30 minute and 60 minute shows. Shown normally late at night or in slower times they soon took over our viewing pleasure. The cost to make these mini shows ran well into the 6 figures for a good production. They could make well into the 7 figures if done right and the product fulfilled its promise.
Then the internet arrived. The world opened up to everyone capable of getting access to it. Your audience expanded beyond your wildest dreams. Yet you needed to know how to use it to help promote your business.
This book and website are devoted to helping you learn how to use the old and the new techniques in sales and marketing.
You can learn many of the old techniques used for direct mail and convert them to be used on the internet.