Marketing with Social Networking

In February, CompassPoint Investigations joined the robust world of social networking. Today, we are linked with hundreds of investigators, bail enforcement agents, attorneys, customers and friends. Establishing these important online connections has become an extremely rewarding experience with valuable gains for our business.

Social Networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook are not just for the kids anymore! There is an enormous presence of businesses using these sites to promote who they are, what they do and why they do it. So, my point being this…if you want to survive in the ever growing world of “virtual life” then you MUST have a strong online presence. Your online presence pertains to your blog, your website, websites you’ve registered to, your Email and even your Content and Multimedia files. And yes, they all involve social networking.

Having a professional social networking site is an opportunity to platform, promote products, attract attention, and generate leads for your business. If you use these sites properly, the visibility and credibility will most definitely generate results. The next prospect could just be an “add to friends” or “send comment” away.

Develop a social marketing plan for your business for the right reasons:

1. A social networking plan is a very easy, affordable way of managing and maintaining traffic. Contrasting to most conventional marketing plans, social networking does not involve a huge marketing department or a costly budget.
2. Social networking assists in developing interactive relationships with your customers. We all know that having customers is crucial to the success of your business.
3. Social networking attracts traffic to your site, gives potential customers an open forum to interact with you, the seller, and it allows customers to voice their thoughts and preferences.
4. Social networking allows your customers to mingle with your online community, giving them some real advantage on collective knowledge.
5. Search Engines LOVE social marketing! If you blog and post about particularly keyword-rich topics then you will attract search engine gate keepers.

Getting Started

To get you started with the networking tool of social marketing, follow some of these suggestions to assist in the process:

1. Establish a Relationship Building Mindset
   Network before going for the sale. Build credibility and visibility. Leave the glitter and glamor “get rich quick” banner ads for others. Cultivate name recognition and trust.
2. Be Professional and Courteous
   Apply your daily code of ethics, your code of conduct or your mission statement to the principles of networking in cyberspace.
3. Show up to your sties
   Social network success doesn’t happen by itself, just creating and putting up a page isn’t enough. Select a few social networking sites and make the most of them; Social networking can be extremely time consuming. When utilizing these sites it is a requirement to register, submit and edit a lot of content to many different directories. Commit a few hours a week to perform the necessary maintenance and “upkeep” of these sites. In order to sustain continued interest in your site, update blogs, posts and keep a steady stream of interesting, relevant information available to your network.
4. Link your pages
   Links create huge visibility and are one of the biggest reasons to utilize social networking sites. Post links back to your business website, where people can learn more about you. Promote your blogs, and other social networking sites on your pages for an extra dose of visibility.
5. Add friends
   Mix and mingle! Take the initiative and browse through search engines to mix with the online community. Use the “piggy back” technique to make reputable friends. Share your comments, posts, and ideas. Generate reciprocity with all that you do. Remember, the basic business principle, it should be about the Quality not the Quantity!
6. Balance the Personal and the Professional
   Relationships are built by connecting to others. Achieve this in a genuine way. Share things about yourself and your company that people may otherwise not know. You can post pictures, favorite musicians, favorite books, and heroes. Use these available components to reinforce trust and likability with your customers. You will be surprised on how many client relationships began on our Pursuit Magazine MySpace page simply because people liked the song we posted.
7. Delegate the task
   Yes, the task can be a lot sometimes and it does add extra work to your already busy case load. If you have a trusted assistant, then perhaps assign the tasks of maintaining and growing your social networking presence to him/her. Don’t let “I don’t have time” keep you from enjoying the benefits of this fantastic marketing opportunity. Use your assistant and reap the rewards.

Here are a few of our social networking websites:

• CompassPoint Investigations on MySpace
• CompassPoint Investigations on Facebook
• Pursuit Magazine Social Network and Forums
• L. Scott Harrell on Naymz
• CompassPoint Investigations on Squidoo
• L. Scott Harrell on LinkedIn

Tags: marketing, social networks

Category: Marketing