Spend Your Time Building Connections not Pushing Your Product

This is the most common mistake in social networking that almost 99% of all members of social networkers make daily. Never ever mention your product in your first email or comment.

This is the basic process that has a 10 fold greater success rate than anything else:

1) Send them a message or post a comment on their wall asking a question about their business.

2) Send out a friend request to each person that responds to your comment or message. 99 out of 100 friend requests will be accepted, and these are members that are actively checking their messages.

3) Respond to each message with a personal message and try to work in mentioning your business while writing about theirs. Once again, 99 out of 100 people will naturally take a look at your website as a courtesy and to see if you might be a potential customer for them. Now you have successfully added friends that will open your friend wide emails, and you have guaranteed that each member will visit your profile and website. Along the way, you will also find other members' products and services that will benefit you and your business. That is how networking creates customers.

Key points to remember:
+Do not blindly send out 100 friend requests every other day. If you are reaching your limit in requests, then you are wasting your time. Only send a friend request if someone has sent you a message, posted a comment on your wall, or posted a comment on a blog.


Take Care of Your Friends List

1) Do not abuse the “send message to all friends.” There is a reason why there is a limit to how many friends that you can send a message to at once. It makes it difficult to spam. Spamming on social networks does not make money period.

2) You should send only one message a month to your friends list. Make it a nice short to the point message that has some tie in to the network that you are on. Once a month messaging works. Anything more than once does not. Spend your time building your friend list, and then give them one phenomenal message a month.

3) If you are going to start a group or host an event, then the same rules apply. Once a month and focus your energy and efforts around one group or event.

Key points to remember:
+If you have more than one site that you are promoting, then you have one too many. Having 10 Ning sites, that you invite every friend to, just increases your chance of failing by 10 times. Do one thing with excellence, and you will be a success. Spread yourself too thin, and you will be lost in mediocrity.


The Right Way to Use Blogs to Get Customers

1) You should write blogs that ask questions that appeal to everyone on the site. All you have to do is put the question in the title, and then write a really good answer from yourself. These are the blogs that you want to use in site wide messages and in welcome comments to new members.

2) The goal of your blog should always be to generate comments. People that post comments are action takers and 8 times more likely to buy your product or service. Respond to each comment mentioning what you do while asking about their business, and then send a friend request the next day.

3) You should have a one really great blog that explains who you are and what your product or service does. You only give out this blog to the people that show an interest. This is the blog that you can use to close customers.

Key points to remember:
+Do not waste your time posting, sharing, or pushing blogs that are advertisements for your services. It does not work. You are wasting your time and destroying potential connections.


The Bottom Line

Social networking is different from every other marketing medium on the internet. What works elsewhere does not work in this realm, and it will not work here.

Each network is like the goose that lays the golden egg once a day. There is only one way to get the golden egg, and if you do it any other way then you kill the goose.

This is the only proven methodolgy to get a steady flow of customers via social networking:

1) Engage the member by asking them a question.
2) If they respond, then send a friend request.
3) Reply to the comment or message and politely work in what you do while tying it in to their business.
4) If they show interest, then close with a blog post that explains what you do with a link to your website and a phone number.
5) If there is no initial interest, then continue to send them one quality message a month to entice interest.

It took me two years before I learned the process, and gave in to the fact that this is the only way that works.

This was originally posted by the COO of Sta.rtUp.biz. Sta.rtUp.biz is a Social Network for Small Businesses and Professionals with over 40,000+ members.