I’m not alone on this one. In fact, the best of the best heavily emphasize this on many of their keynotes and presentations: use your social media to offer value and information and, then only after doing so consistently and frequently, ASK for the sale. More and more, I’m seeing small businesses selling their services – over and over and over and over – and not providing their local community or following any value.
At a recent presentation I did, my stated marketing purpose of social media was to “position yourself as a leader in your industry and local community”. Eyebrows rose and many had a light bulb go on over their heads. Let’s take a some things into consideration if you’re trying to continuously sell your products/services on your social media:
- People will tune you out and will do so quickly. This is especially true if you’re using both your business and personal platforms to sell. You may see some results in the beginning, but over time, you will fail.
- You’ll be the car salesman everyone wants to avoid. Think about it, who wants to be badgered continuously to buy from you? And what do you do when that salesman approaches you at a networking event? If you always sell on social media, you’ll become the salesman everyone avoids at the networking events you go to.
- Take the advice from social media experts, not “coaches” or “business experts” who don’t practice what they preach. Think about it. Most of the businesses I see that continuously sale have received their advice from those with little or no presence on social media. So, if THE expert like, oh say, Gary Vaynerchuk, writes a book on how to present value and then, and only then, ask for the sale, shouldn’t you listen to someone who has built a multi-million dollar business doing so for his clientele?
- And to piggy-back from the last point, why would you take social media advice and direction from a social media company who rarely posts themselves? This drives me crazy as I see small businesses waste money and time on classes for social media direction from companies whose last post was over a month ago. Would you take advice on how to properly cook a great Mexican dinner from a Taco Bell employee?
- Always selling on your social media is, well, just kind of lazy. I can post all day and night trying to sell my services. That’s pretty easy. Find content. Create content. Challenge yourself. Tell your story. Share your ups and downs. That’s real content and not easy to do. The best thing that’ll happen is that people will either love it or hate it. Either way, they’ll remember it.
Okay, it’s Saturday night and I’ll get off my soap box. I hope this reaches some businesses that needs to make some changes in their social media marketing. At any rate, it does feel good to get all that off my chest. 🙂