Recently, I attended a great webinar hosted by one of my mentors Jeffrey Gitomer and the world-famous Jennifer Glucklow as they shared the importance of social selling in today’s marketplace. I’ve been teaching classes on social media repurposing, using Facebook Live, and LinkedIn to promote businesses, and am really surprised when I enter rooms to find so few attendees using social media to build influence. When I watched Jeffrey and Jen’s webinar today, they solidified the value of a social media plan to promote your business.
The benefits of social media marketing are phenomenal for your business, and as Jeffrey said you can implement a social media strategy for no monetary investment, however, it does involve the investment of time. Yet, many business owners are frozen to do anything because there are 1000’s of choices to make and they aren’t sure what is the best and most valuable use of their time.
Here are 5 ways using social media can up your game.
1. Helps differentiate you from your competitors. If you’re giving value first, in the form of articles, shared updates, and posting others relevant information, you establish yourself as a resource for your current and future customers.
2. Allows you to get noticed beyond your immediate sphere of influence. Increase your followers on a platform such as LinkedIn and you reach people with a bigger megaphone than your immediate connections.
3. You create engagement with your audience. When people comment on something you post, you can reply and begin to develop a conversation. You can get involved in groups associated with your target audience, comment, share their work, and develop rapport.
4. Shows you’re innovative when you are an early adopter of new tools, such as Facebook Live. Video is king. You can appeal on multiple levels of emotions when using video because you have sight, sound, color and motion.
5. Builds trust with your audience. Every real estate agent I ever met has their face on their business card. Why? Because seeing your face is the first step to creating trust and they are about to help you with the biggest purchase in your life. They must establish trust first.
If social media marketing seems too big an undertaking, start small with just mastering a few of the giants like Facebook and LinkedIn. Determine goals about how often you will post and what you will post. Or, get some help from a professional. Just get started. Please do not miss out on this opportunity to promote your business where people are spending more and more of their time every day, and did I mention it’s free?
Keep an eye out for my free webinar, Social Media Repurposing for Professionals coming soon where I’ll give you even more detail on how you can utilize these platforms to build influence, engage with customers, and provide value to set yourself apart from the competition.
Want to learn my #1 way to build influence? Visit my website to get your free gift!
About the author: Jennifer Darling is your Positively Successful Sales Coach. She has worked with 1,000’s of businesses in strategic planning to increase their revenue. She provides sales, marketing, personal development and business consulting for small to medium businesses, corporations, nonprofits, and groups. Jennifer possesses 20 years experience for companies such as NBC, CBS, FOX, and Comcast. She holds a Master’s Degree in Management and a Bachelor’s Degree in Advertising & Promotion. Learn about upcoming events on her website.