Five social media groups you should be talking with
When talking to business owners and marketing people about social media, often the stated primary objective is “more sales”. This is of course understandable but your audiences on social media are not just people who might want to buy your services or products directly but which are just as important.
So who are these groups of people, the ones you want to converse with in such a way that they might be of some benefit to you, your business or your organisation? It’s no surprise that these groups are the same as those that might benefit your business in the real world. The difference with social media is that you can talk with these people without moving away from your PC, laptop or PDA.
Also it’s worth mentioning that it’s a good idea to think about what you can learn from these people and very importantly, how you can help them. By helping others they might want to help you. The following groups are by no means comprehensive but are worth thinking about.
Informers; the level of knowledge and information on most good social media platforms is impressive. There are literally millions of people out there who know about pretty well everything. Most people get that warm fuzzy feeling when asked “how do I…?” or “where can I find…?” and they can provide the answer. So when you need to know something just ask. You can become an informer yourself by helping people out who ask questions in your particular expertise. They will thank you for it and maybe tell their friends and contacts about you thus leading to enquiries, sales and business.
Big Networkers; these are the people with a large established and broad network. They’re like the people you run into in real life who seem to know everyone in your local community. However on the web these people can sometimes have a network running into the hundreds of thousands. Usually they don’t know most of their network personally but when major networkers say something, others listen. If you get in their radar and they like what you’re doing and tell people about it, the results can be spectacular.
Journalists; if you’re good at what you do or your products are good at what they do then it’s a good thing for journalists to know this. Many social media platforms including and in particular twitter have many active journalists on them. A journalists’ job is often to know what’s happening in their chosen area and then write about it. If you can catch their attention preferably without ramming something down their throat they will thank you for it, write about it and that’s a very good thing to have happen.
Suppliers; if you need to find anything then just ask people. Someone will probably reply and you never know, they might need what you’re selling or might know someone who needs what you’re selling. At the very least you might find a new and better supplier for what you’re looking for and save your business costs.
Partners; Finding potential partners is a breeze in the social media space. It’s good to partner with other people and businesses. It happens all the time and as long as there is honesty, ethics and good communication, partnerships work very well. Let’s say you do something in a particular location and someone else does the same thing somewhere else. Then a simple agreement to pass any enquiries while being passed enquiries can work very well. Or maybe you want to able to broaden your offering without the cost that entails. Find a partner and resell their services and thus broaden your own offer.
It’s important to think about these groups and talking with them. There are many benefits to using social media properly that go way beyond the simple “achieve more sales” concept.
Many of us are trying to build our businesses and if done with care, social media can be a very effective way of talking with and being noticed by the different ‘groups’ of people you want to be noticed by.
