An Easy Way To Build Your Social Media Strategy

If you are a content creator who wants to get more customers, sales and income from friends you’ve already made on social media, then this article will show you how.

Here is the story:

A few weeks ago, I was thinking about how to effectively research a new business idea I had, and I decided to resume my 3 year-long social media hiatus and conduct a quick marketing test.

All of which went pretty well at first. So for a couple of weeks, I published and reacted to some posts, and I got to talk to some very nice people.

And then one day, I received a friend request from another entrepreneur.

Usually, I would just immediately accept the invite and proceed to establish personal communication and try to add value to the other person’s life and possibly even create real-life connection, depending on what we might have in common.

But this request turned out to be entirely different and one of those rare cases where something odd happened that prevented me from building that relationship.

It’s called “Facebook Friendships”

You may have already heard of it.

It may have even happened to you before.

I’m told it happens every day on Facebook, but I would bet it happens on a lot of other social media too, from Instagram to TikTok to LinkedIn to Pinterest to YouTube and more.

It’s inspired me to write this short article about relationship marketing.

So what happened is, almost immediately after receiving the request I accepted it and sent a quick thank you note for inviting me, and then I went about my day as usual.

More interesting was the response.

I hoped to receive a quick email from my fellow entrepreneur. I received a smiley!

At first, I was surprised.

I thought he or she didn’t have the time to build relationship.

After all, not everyone on Facebook is looking to connect with “friends” to whom they can promote themselves effectively and sell their stuff easily.

But right after that, something very odd started to happen.

My little Facebook friend started to “follow up” the smiley with lots of high pressure sales rhetoric.

And as it now appears he or she is actively trying to get more clients to grow his/her coaching business.

And rather than take the time to build relationship with potential customers, the way they decided to go about it is to use image type marketing.

What they do is, they rely heavily on hard-sell, self-serving messages where the “gurus” display their possessions and shout out: I am great, just look at what great things I have achieved—and how great all these other people say that I am. So buy my stuff if you want to be as great as I am—and buy now if you don’t want to end up a failure.

I can’t say I blame them for wanting to establish that they are qualified to help their market.

Everyone has to do this in their business.

Personally, I always try to credentialize myself in my advertising, marketing and selling efforts.

It’s a powerful concept. And when I tell my clients that it took me years to build my expertise—and learn the success and income-increasing strategies I share with them, they appreciate me and my work more.

So I always try to find a way to explain that I’m qualified to help them.

But I try to do it very delicately, because people resent boasting.

I know that boasting about my knowledge and achievements would help me feel good about myself (and maybe get a few likes, followers and sales too), but it isn’t the best way to sell.

And the reason it isn’t the best way to sell your stuff is because people don’t care about you. They don’t care about what you want or how great you are.

And my Facebook friend is making a huge mistake because he/she overlooks this obvious fact already trumpeted by old advertising masters:

Remember that the people you address are selfish, as, we all are. They care nothing about your interests or profit. They seek service for themselves. – Claude Hopkins

All that people care about is themselves, their lives, their problems.

All they care about is how are you going to improve their lives? How are you going to make their lives easier? Are you going to make them richer, smarter, healthier? More handsome?

They have nothing against you, they just want to know how you’re going to improve the quality of their lives.

And it took me many years as a marketer to truly understand that! But you can sell a LOT of your stuff very easily when all the things you do in advertising, in marketing, in selling are addressing what benefits you’re rendering the customer and the prospect … especially when you tell them how do they benefit by doing business with you instead of with somebody else — what unique benefit advantage, service or personal enhancement you offer them that your competition doesn’t.

So if you want to start making easy sales and using your social media marketing system effectively, here is what I suggest you do:

1. Be a friend. First, think of new prospects as your dear friends. Once they raise up their hand, contact them. Personally acknowledge them and their importance.
2. Be after the relationship (not the sale). If someone is interested enough to accept your invite, reply to your message or join your page, that doesn’t mean they are ready to buy. They simply warrant more information about you. Get to know them and let them get to know you. Build rapport and trust. Tell the truth. People like to do business with honest people they can trust. And once they exist, these customer relationships are the number one asset you have in any business. Existing customers are the best sources of future business you’ll ever have because it is so much easier to resell them than it is to get a new customer. In other words, your goal is to …
3. Build a long-term relationship. Delicately nurture the relationship with nonstop communication and gently convert friends into customers.

Here is how it works:

First, find out lots of details about your prospective buyer and their situation. Get them to talk through their desires, fears and motivations.

Once you’ve determined their needs, inform them that you can adequately fill them. And in order to help them believe in your ability to help them, continuously educate them to appreciate you, your business and your advantage – and increase the perceived value of what you offer as a result.

Finally, demonstrate that you can help them by actually helping them with your free material or offer.

And there it is.

My short article about relationship marketing.

This, then, is a quick, basic, practical introduction on how to promote yourself in the most friendly, attractive and appealing way possible—and make a lot of sales without repelling your social media friends.

You can find more in-depth information on my site homepage, Home – Corinne Essono’s blog Blog – Corinne Essono’s and in my newsletter, Newsletter – Corinne Essono’s. Please enjoy and share. Thank you.