Popularity in Social Media, does it equal income?

Of course your business having some popularity or even yourself should be a good thing. My question to the popular ones, is your income equal to your popularity?

Do not get me wrong, I recently did a post about setting goals for your Social Media platform and maybe their goals is not to create income from Social Media.

Side note:

My personal take on popularity is to focus on quality not quantity. Tough I know because so many feel they need to follow thousands and have thousands follow them on twitter. Those I follow on twitter definetly put out good content or help my business in some form. The ones following me, I can say most are great people but I know, I have some spammers who just followed me in hopes they would get the ever so polite, follow back. Consider me rude, sorry not happening.

Time and time again I hear business owners saying, they are trying to utilize Social Media to grow their business. The truth is a lot of these businesses have no clue on what they are doing and sometimes feel they are wasting time, energy and resources to Social Media, all while trying to measure a ROI.

The key word in the title of this post is “MANAGE”. It is so common to hear people stumble over their words and give me a duh look when I ask the question, “What are your goals for Social Media?”. Social Media is a platform that can help your business but you have to decide first how you want it to help. If you are in business, setting goals is a no-brainier for the everyday tasks and it seems most have forgotten to set their goals for Social Media. Once you have your goals set, you can now start to “MANAGE” how you will use Social Media.

Keep in mind your goals can vary from one business to the next. Keep your goals realistic, specific and measurable.

Hi my name is ? Do you know ? Have you heard what happen to ?

How do you define your name. If you have not figured it out yet we are not talking about your actual name but the name that your business stands for. The more people in business I meet, the more I realize more than 70% of people in business know their name!

NETWORKING EVENT
How do you introduce yourself? I meet you at a networking meeting where people are all looking for new business. You introduce yourself as “Hi my name is John Doe and I do blah blah blah.”. How many people remember names? Not many, studies show most forget names. Next, you start off telling me what you do, do you even think I care? I understand you have to convey to me what you do, how else will I know if I can use your service. How are you going to earn my business? It will not be because you have a cool name (like mine Johnnie Firari). It is going to because of our relationship. If you start our relationship with a buyer, seller routine, do you think you are going to get my business. Start off our relationship with a natural even playing field. It might look something such as, “Hi my name is John Doe, how are things going? Do you know many people here? Then you may lead to talk about the weather or something you think we both can discuss. Leave business outside until I ask you what you do.” Doing something like this will allow us to build a relationship, once we have a relationship you are going to be more likely to get my business.

WEBSITE

Ok someone shows up on your website, do they see your name? What type of message are you sending? This is a no brainer but your website should reflect the proper message. Either you are serious about your business having a online presence or you are not. Come on do you think people are really going to buy something from your website if it looks like a 1996 website template that was done on a scrap budget? If they are not going to buy from your site, what is going to make them buy from you. Your website should reflect the image if your business. Get feedback from people you do not know, cause sometimes that template site you felt great about building, looks terrible and is not functional. Send me your link through the contact page and I will give you my honest opinion. If you can handle the truth!

FLIERS

You give me this flier, I am suppose to look at it and see what you do? Is this thing printed on cheap paper and missing your website address? Is the message the flier sending clear? Do not let your flier tell me you are cheap, unorganized and leave out important information. Design is a big plus. Colors, text, image texture and size are important for more than just visual reasons.

SOCIAL MEDIA

Make sure you relay your name properly within the social Media platform. For more information on Social Media I recommend reading my Social Media Blog. (click here)

It is tough to build a good name for your business. Make sure people want to get to know your name and come to like what your name stands for. Figure out what your name is and how to better market your name and your business will succeed.

After speaking to two business owners about social media I heard

“I need a tutor to figure this out!”
“I have all kinds of people saying they can help us and any idiot could do it but I just do not have the time.”

I am not the expert on social media but I do understand some of the right things to do.

So what is the right thing?

1. Find a mentor if you are new. Some mistakes can damage your brand name and you will not want to make them.
2. Content is king! You get what you put out. Put out good content, never mind put out the best content. Put out your own content!
3. The real use for twitter and facebook. Use the search functions and get involved in the conversations. (DO NOT POST COMMERCIALS. SEE VIDEO BELOW)
4. Realize how big this platform is!
5. You better be passionate about your business and the value you provide to your customers or it WILL show.

Video above by Gary Vaynerchuk – Awesome guy and new dad. He has a real grasp on how to build a business and his role in life.

Choose cable or the internet and we all agree, we would take the internet. We all love the internet.

This is not a post saying I hate the internet but just some ways of how it is hurting business.

I am not going into great detail, just some watch outs.

What you do to with the internet to kill your business.

1. You spend to much time leaving post and notes on all your social media sites.
2. You get lost in the news that is not important to your business.
3. You sign up for various things only to have way too many emails in your Inbox.
4. You get sucked into talking on an instant messenger.
5. You try to learn new software on your own.

What your clients do with the internet to kill your business.

1. They have access to all your competitors.
2. They research the heck out of you and your services/products.
3. Clients have a good idea of your cost.
4. Clients figure out how to do a project themselves.