Using Social Media to Sell

Social Media and The Internet – Marketing Available to You.

When I started my company the first thing I did was build a website. Within minutes of launching I was talking to the entire world for about $30/month. Since then some great tools have been introduced, allowing me to interact, create content, publish, reach out, collect names…and it continues to grow. Many of these tools are free to me as an individual…

By using the right tools, I can reach millions of people no one knows about, reach into countries I’ve never been to, automate interaction, schedule ahead, and broadcast live, and go global. And the great news is, this is nearly free. The key is, figuring out exactly who I really want to reach, and building my program to reach them. Just because the entire world can see me, doesn’t mean they will, or that I want them to. As a sales person, you can also narrow this down, targeting a special group in your region. While the entire world can see you, your content is highly dependent on search criteria, which means you can refine your search-ability or become Google-able (this will likely be in the dictionary before too long) to a niche group simply be setting your content up with your target market in mind.

Now, marketing depends on changing your mindset. Forget about oldschool marketing, and having your marketing department write, print, publish, and somehow build your brand. Online, it’s all about you and the content you push out. You are the thought leader here; the person people buy from because you solve problems. Online you can promote that single-handedly. This kind of marketing is not putting out HTML and banners, or pop-ups that annoy websurfers, but rather content that is searchable, using key words and phrases that people will find as they research problems online.

Becoming the adviser now means something new. It means:

– Moving from advertising to content

– A willingness to put intellectual content online for free

– Believing content will draw new prospects

– Being real – people want you, not some vanilla website

– Participating in blogs and forums

– Writing things that help people – providing real answers

So start writing – interacting, and putting out content that matters.

4 thoughts on “Using Social Media to Sell”

This is a great post and right on the money. I am 1/3 of the way into a great book called “UnMarketing.” I think you will like it. PS. This is going out on my twitter feed.

Thanks

Dave Stelzl's Blog says:

July 26, 2011 at 5:19 pm

Thanks Tom – I’ll check it out!

Reply

Interesting post, Dave.
However I still regard social media as a tool we should use to complement our sales efforts with. A tool we should use to interact and communicate with customers and peers. A tool to position a product or even a business. A tool to spread information.
To me that makes social media a “marketing/ content tool” rather than a “sales tool”.
What do you think?