If you’re asking the question, “How do I market myself on social media?” then this blog is for you. This will be the first of a series in which we teach you how to market yourself on the Internet while avoiding some of the more common pitfalls!

Use Your Social Management Tools, but don’t focus on Likes

Social Media success is not about how many people like your Facebook Page or your Twitter profile. There are bands out there who have 5,000 Facebook Fans on their page and still can’t sell enough downloads to buy gas for their tour. Alternatively there are savvy marketers with less than 1,000 Fans who make five figure returns on their products.

Flies in the face of traditional thinking doesn’t it? It used to be that advertising was a numbers game- if you could reach a certain number of people you could expect certain results. Well, not only is that horribly inefficient but its also marketing death in the social world. Why is that?

Because no one joined a social network to hear commercials.

Repeat: NO ONE joined ANY social network EVER to be sold things!

So, How Do You Sell Things On Social Media?

Well, the first step is to build a community. That sounds kinda tough, doesn’t it? You hear about people with job titles like “Community Developer” and “Community Manager” and you think its got to be a complex specialized field? Well, yes and no. An individual who goes here and there developing online communities certainly needs some specific skills and backgrounds, the least of which is the flexibility to understand an ever shifting demographic.

But if you’re a small business owner you happen to have one thing over a professional community developer. You are already both the most knowledgeable expert and most dedicated person when it comes to your business. So what’s the first step learning how to sell things through social media?

 

Don’t follow users for numbers.

Don’t follow users because you think you can sell something to them.

 

Follow-backs will come, don’t even think about them (yet). But start your community by developing 10-50 people with whom you can have daily discussions on Twitter & Facebook.

Remember, its who you LISTEN to on Social Media, not who listens to you, that REALLY matters. We’ll expand in this in the next blog and also talk about how Social Management Tool can help you find the best followers and how to listen effectively.

As always, we can be reached on Twitter at @kwiposts