Top Tips to Turn Your Social Networking Friends Into Customers

 Global B2B buy sell website: http://www.bytrade.com

 

Isn't social networking fun? You get to meet all these people and connect with them and spend hours looking at their profiles and videos and photos and...

Okay, so clearly social networking can take an awful lot of time. The question is, is it worth it? Will spending all that time doing social networking lead to an increase in sales?

Here are some tips:

 

• Create a place for people to “opt in.” This means they give you permission to send them business messages. So set up a Facebook Page. Write a newsletter to send out, and set up a form online where people can sign up for it. Provide some mechanism where you can capture email addresses. This is SUPER important.


• Invite people to “opt in.” If you can’t send them business messages, they’ll never know what you have to offer, right? So in the course of your conversations with people, let them know they can “like” your Facebook Page or sign up for your newsletter.


• Mention your business subtly in your non-business social media profiles. If you scrapbook, share your pages digitally. If you sell jewelry, share photos of yourself wearing what you sell. Put up photos of yourself at your latest vendor event. Talk about how much fun you had with your team at the latest meeting. Don’t beat people over the head with your business, but make it evident what you do by the way you talk about your own life. People who need what you have to offer will eventually ask you about it. (Need more info on how to do this? Read How to Write Status Updates that Don’t Cross the Line Into Spam)


• Listen. This is THE most important thing you can do. Pay attention to what your friends are talking about. When someone has a need, be there. Don’t just hurl your website at them. But offer solutions when people have a need. Reach out to them privately. Reference things you know based on your relationship with them. Listening is the key to making relevant recommendations when the time is right.

In a word -- NO! Remember, social networking is all about building relationships and making connections. And, through those relationships people will naturally want to support you and become your customer. The last thing you want to do is send your social networking buds to a page and try to sell them.