Five Items To Do For Success At Social Networking Sites

This is a post by my friend Ken Kinstle. It is excellent

Five Items To Do For Success At Social Networking Sites

by mrken777 on Dec.08, 2008, under Business, Success

Number One- Always greet your new followers! Depending on how many people start to follow you, that will determine whether you do it manually or use a program like Tweetlater to welcome new followers. Tweetlater is nice because as soon as they follow you a message goes out introducing yourself and thanking them. Resist the urge to post a link in this thank you message! How would it be when someone shook your hand for the first time they then tried to sell you something in the next sentence! A lot of people do post a link or a give away or anything, but I say be friendly, say hello let them come to you. This is far more effective than blasting a new person before they have heard a word that you have said…

Number Two- Be sure to post valuable information, interesting articles, photos, video links, music links. Give something of value to keep people interested. Insert links, affiliate links, the things that you sell sparingly or what the community will absorb. Keep them wondering what you will come up with. Google news reader is what I use mainly for this. Set it up to receive different RSS feeds from news, blogs or what ever might be interesting and apply to their lives. Its not always about what we like, I am the worst at this! My followers do hear a lot of motorcycle related stuff, I try not to over do it. Give them something of value for listening to your posts.

Number Three- Keep the personal stuff to a minimum, there needs to be some real life stuff that relates to your readers and prove you are not a post generating robot. My goodness not many want to know that much, I stubbed my toe, oh I put salt on my eggs, Come on.. Use discretion, be personal, and share when asked but don’t blog every breath the new puppy takes. I think you get this!

Number Four- Double check your posts for spelling, grammar, accuracy and by all means make sure the link works! You don’t have to be a scholar, or have perfect English grammar. I know mine is really rough! Do your best though, what you say and how you say it is all people have to judge you by. Not many successful first grader marketers out there. What I am saying is be a professional, if you want people to take you seriously! Double check the link after you have posted it! I am telling you, we all have posted bad ones and it looks very slip shod. Who wants to hook up and buy something from a third rate marketer. OK enough on that, one of my pet peeves.

Number Five- In this list anyway, answer your messages as quickly as you are able. Strike while the iron is hot! I do not mean just answer those that look like customers. Some of the people I spend the most time on messaging and the phone never really make a bunch of sales. People just want to be heard, answer your phone calls, messages and your messages posted as soon as possible. Do not try to evaluate the person asking right away, or wait if you can reply. To be a professional we must answer all reasonable questions and be polite.

Treat people with respect. Treat them like you want to be treated and enjoy great success in your social networking adventures.

Just wish I was riding,

You can link to Ken's blog by clicking here, and you should. He offers a lot of great information for home business owners.

How To Use Social Media To Grow Your Network Marketing Business

What is Social Media?

Social media is a large group of tools and applications available on the internet that allow you to interact "socially" with a very large diverse group of people.

According to Wikipedia, " Social media are primarily Internet- and mobile-based tools for sharing and discussing information among human beings.[1] The term most often refers to activities that integrate technology, telecommunications and social interaction, and the construction of words, pictures, videos and audio. This interaction, and the manner in which information is presented, depends on the varied perspectives and "building" of shared meaning among communities, as people share their stories and experiences. Businesses also refer to social media as user-generated content (UGC) or consumer-generated media (CGM)."

Social media is part of the Web 2.0 explosion and the cutting edge in New School methods for growing a network marketing business. In this post we will briefly cover a variety of tools and methods for utilizing social media to grow your MLM business.

Attraction Marketing is the Key to MLM Online Success

If you have not yet heard about attraction marketing, then you must take time to do so. The idea of attraction-based marketing has been around for awhile, but it was not until Mike Dillard synthesized all the information and created his Magnetic Sponsoring course, that the majority of people knew what it was or how to use it.

The idea behind attraction-based marketing or Magnetic Sponsoring is that you use social media to create an strong online presence. You offer value, information and the uniqueness of you in a form that people can grasp. As you develop yourself online and your leadership abilities in the real world, you will attract others to you. This is how you grow you business. People come to you and want to know you, work with you and join you. This is the opposite of old school network marketing where you went after them. It is powerful, clean, refreshing and fun.

The best place to learn about Attraction Marketing is by getting your hands on Dillards Free 7 Video Boot Camp. Once you've worked your way through that the next thing to do is to set up an account on a website called Better Networker. This will be your first step in using social media and also the best introduction to attraction marketing in action.

Get onto Better Networker and just look around for a few days. Read the forum posts and the replies. Read some articles. Watch some videos. Take a good look at people's profiles prior to creating yours. They had a profile contest a few months back with a great tutorial..watch it. As you are finding your way around this site you will be beginning to understand how people present themselves in the social media world without pitching their product or biz. Better Networker is social media. It is a social networking website devoted to network marketers. In many ways it is similar to Facebook or MySpace (also social networking sites), but the audience and participants are hightly targeted.

You can also become a student of Renegade University. Renegade U. is an online "school" where you learn all the aspects of attraction marketing from a philosophical perspective. Then you have a vast selection of online videos that teach you everything that you need to do from a technological perspective, step-by-step. You'll also learn how to use Social Marketing Etiquette, which is as important to know as the techie stuff.

Twitter (and Social Bookmarking)

There are presently hundreds of sites on the internet that you can use to present youself to your target audience. I use a variety of social bookmarking sites that I post to every time I write a hub or a blog post. Some examples are: Digg, Propeller, Reddit, Stumble-Upon. The list is almost endless. Visit a site called Social Poster.com and you can see a long list of social bookmarketing sites and learn how to post yourself on them.

My favorite place to hang out online these days is Twitter. Twitter scares people initially because it is fast and live. I like to think of it as a big, world-wide online cocktail party/chat. When you first approach twitter it is hard to know what to do. So first (after you creat your twitter profile) visit twitter search and put in a keyword that interests you. Read what comes up and then click on the name of the person who posted(tweeted) click on "follow" under their name. Now whenever you log onto twitter you will see whatever that person has written, appear on your screen. Generally, if you follow them, they will follow you back. This is good.

When you create your Twitter Profile, make sure that you enable direct messaging and email notifications. When someone follows you, follow back and say thanks in a direct message. Soon you will log onto your page and see a flurry of different tweets and conversations going on. This is good. Join in once you feel comfortable. Don't pitch. Don't spam. Don't sell. Just be a real person and interact with the people who are tweeting. Once you get the hang of this you will see that there is a time and place to include links to your blog or website. (Watch the video above for a great analogy explaining twitter and blogs).

Twitter is the fastest growing social media on the internet. It can now even interact seamlessly with Facebook if you set it up that way. Many people do a lot of business on Twitter. You should be one of them if you want to grow your network marketing business using social media.

OK..I'm Totally Confused!! What Do I Do Next??

Total confusion is often the reaction to all of this information. Do not worry. You are not lacking in brain cells. Using social media is very confusing initially and only gets clearer as you work your through it, step-by-step. This is where a good coach/mentor comes into play and a training system. Luckily a man named Mike Klinger saw how confused people were getting and sought to remedy the situation. He created the best social media training that I have yet to see in this industry. It is appropriated called a " University".

Renegade University is an amazingly complete online classroom. There are step-by-step video tutorials for every aspect of using social media to create your online presence and grow your network marketing company. The beauty is that you can work through the training at your own pace AND do the steps on your computer while Klinger is walking you through them in the video. It is almost like having a teacher sitting next to your computer with you.

Renegade University did not exist when I began my social media journey. I learned each step by trial and error and honestly it took months to really feel a conceptual and practical understanding of the whole thing. By using Renegade University, if you put your mind to it, you can have the basics of your social media system up and working for you in a month. But remember..it is like going to school You have to learn, study, and take action.

Social media is changing the face of network marketing. You will never need to sell to your family and friends again. You will meet people from all over the world. You will be amazed at what can happen..if you are diligent and patient. Growing you network marketing business using social media is a process. You start at the beginning and add on over time. The results start slowly and increase faster and faster as you become more and more competent. This is a New World. Welcome!