What is the value of social networking sites?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Frankie

Do you participate in local business networking? Online social networking is a softer side of this kind of networking. I say softer because if you go in gun slinging, it's a similar result you get in your local community: people will come to know you as only wanting to sell something.

Online you connect with people who might be able to connect you to whoever you want, might be your customers, might want to interview you (for work or the press) or connect with people for strategic alliances, and more.

If you participate in some of the online websites, go with a similar attitude as the most successful networkers in general: be a hub or a connector - give and you'll get; get to know people, give of yourself or your time or resources. Take this softer approach not being a hook - try to grab, immediately sell without knowing your audience or people and you'll likely regret.

Regards,

How many of us have gone to pubs, made friends who became customers and advocates? For me, I would say not much...though I know of friends who have been pretty successful in that area. Being at a virtual venue like this Forum, or Facepages etc is like that. When I visited this forum today, I saw a message from Mr Blackwelll say..."Hey Alex You haven't been particpating often". The pub owner tells me that same...and that is why I have not made too many useful contacts.

This is an awesome thread.

There are so many useful ways to use social networking to help build your brand, protect your reputation, encourage change and to foster life long relationships.

The uses are unlimited.

I did a blog post about it and here is a list I gave there:

Here are some simple tips on how to maximize online networking:
Build your network before you need it. Make contacts and offer value in your association without asking for anything in return.
Became a giver in online public settings. Offering, advice and opinion without it being solicited. Do so tastefully and diplomatically.
If your opinion disagrees with the status quo be able to give the why, making sure to add value to the conversation.
Do it often!! Don�t be a passive contact. Stay in touch and keep adding to and growing the conversation. Usually the small minority will influence the powerful majority.

Just figured this is the right place to add this..

Rest of the article is here.

Paul Rushing
912-266-1629

I would think the value of social networking sites is growing a network of people who like you and want to help you succeed not finding customers.

Niche social websites get very targeted traffic. If you develop a positive presence in your niche community you're exposing your comments and shared content to this targeted traffic and who knows what that will lead to.

Some people understand this and most don't. This is a sales training community right? How many sales trainers do you see responding to posts? Not many right? It stands to reason that if most sales trainers understood the value of social networking sites they would haunt this place but they don't. What does that tell you about most sales trainers?

I haven't found any business value yet but maybe I don't do it well. I know many say they find much business value in social networking online.

For the past few years anyway I've often asked directly: how much business have you done social networking? and I usually get vague to no answers.

Likewise, I get lots of people saying: I'm making friends, I'm making connections, I'm creating a network of connections to help one another, things like that.

I've met people over the years who talk like that and one day I discover they have high hopes and lots of positive affirmative envisioned business activity they expect to occur and are still waiting for that day.

So putting my limited experience together I haven't found it to work for me but it may be that I am inept at it, and I haven't found many people who have convinced me social networking has great business value for them.

MitchM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MitchM

I've met people over the years who talk like that and one day I discover they have high hopes and lots of positive affirmative envisioned business activity they expect to occur and are still waiting for that day.

Maybe they aren't doing it very well.

I mean that. If networking really doesn't work then salespeople should be told the truth so they don't go on wild goose chases.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jolly Roger

Some people understand this and most don't. This is a sales training community right? How many sales trainers do you see responding to posts? Not many right? It stands to reason that if most sales trainers understood the value of social networking sites they would haunt this place but they don't. What does that tell you about most sales trainers?

That would tell me that the sales trainers at SalesPractice are way ahead of their peers.

Hey all,

I guess I'll weigh in here, just because I do have a fairly decent web presence and I use social sites like facebook and others to drive traffic and generate leads for my business.

I've found that there's a synergistic effect when you use these sites well, because not only do you build your network, your websites rank higher in the search engines because as your network grows the power of your activities within it grow in proportion.

What do I mean? Let's say that I have a Facebook account, a Digg account, and a Squidoo account.

I write an business related article on Squidoo and send it out to my internal network there (within the Squidoo community).
One of those people in my network then submits my article to Digg, I then take that Digg submission and "shout it" to people within my Digg network, who then in turn Digg that article, linking their respective accounts back to my original article on Squidoo.
When I Digg my article on Facebook, the Digg module on my Facebook page updates letting my network that I've Dugg that article.

So what is the result of all this? Quite a bit really, not only can I generate immediate traffic to almost any webpage that I want, mind you I wouldn't want to send traffic to a sales letter as this would be against social networking rules. But I can send people to an informative article that I've written, that then links to a salespage.

Using this method I generate a consistant flow of leads and sales for my business. This is the quick and dirty version of how I do it, but you get the point.

Hope it helps,
Be well,
Jesse

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thomas

That would tell me that the sales trainers at SalesPractice are way ahead of their peers.

You phrasesd that in a better light than I would have.

As with anything, the results vary wildly with which social network you are on.

If you are targetting consumers, then Facebook is the place to be.

If you are targetting large corporations, then LinkedIn may help you identify who you should be speaking to (although it discourages members accepting invitations from people they don't know unfortunately).

If you target smaller companies then we have launched WeCanDo.BIZ into this space.

Find yoruself on the wrong network and it is like selling to the wrong market. You won't see the results. But get it right and it can be an inexpensive route to leads.

IH

What is the value of social networking sites?

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