In order to grow your business and yourself, social networking has become an essential part. The first thought on your mind might be Facebook or Twitter but those are just modern tools produced by this generation. Networking has a long tradition. It is only now that the focus is shifting online.
While previously people would organize elaborate parties or meetings to get to know their peers and learn from them, now we do it while sitting in our rooms. You sign up on a site, find people with similar interests, and then things move ahead. But what if you could learn more ways to harness the power of social networking? How can it help grow your business? How would it profit you?
First things first. Don't sign up on every possible networking site you can think of. They turn overwhelming real soon. Start at the shallow end, dip your fingers in 3-4 places. See how things flow before you dive headfirst.
Like every good thing, building a potential network takes time and immense hard work. There is no use blindly following your idols or people you don't even interact with. You need to socialize too, within a limit.
Simultaneous Conversation
As you have all your followers just a question away, the conversations tend to flow. Be it asking for an opinion about your latest product or getting to know about the stuff others are doing in the business, social networking can come real handy. You can interact with your customers directly as well and gain their trust faster. All you need to do is reach out to the audience/consumer.
Leads
Many new startups take the help of social media to increase their leads. You can have your target audience available in the same place at any time of the day.
Optimize Your Search Engine Ranking
It is not enough to just have a website to put up stories of your company or display your products today. You need to actively reach out, instead of waiting for the audience to come to you. When you share your brand on multiple platforms, it's visible to your peers who already have a liking for similar brands. You need to tap into this potential. When they share your posts, they are promoting the name itself. This has a direct effect on how you are ranked in search engines. The more shares and visibility you have on social media, the better your ranking.
Get To Know Your Customer
Customers are the ultimate target when you set out for social networking as an entrepreneur. You want your brand to be known, your products to be known to your customers. But you need to know your customers in turn as well. This will help you better understand the demand and cater to it accordingly.
One of the latest tactics has been the presence of Influencers. You can create a network of influencers who promote you/your brand/products to their audience. Make sure you contact genuine and honest influencers. There are many with a huge number of followers but many of those accounts are fake. So put some effort to know your network and then exploit the potential of social networking. Thus, this middle person helps add more value (and some moolah!) to your brand.
Gigs Of Social Networking
Be it announcing a pop-up sale or arranging a giveaway, you can utilize social media to great lengths. Since you already have your audience following you, you can increase their interest in your brand by organizing contests, giveaways, or discounts. That way, your online followers get a sense of being special since only they are privy to such exciting events. This helps you expand your brand recognition since any good marketing strategy ought to focus on using this limited audience to share the giveaways multiple times. Your audience gets their discounts or freebies and you get better visibility via them.
Social media and social networking have immense potential. You just need to learn the tricks of the trade and invest adequate time. The returns will astonish you! So start networking and building your brand value today.
Starting your own business? You can join our academy and my friends Garrett, Marc, and Jara will guide you and push you to become an effective entrepreneur. With their courses and their videos, they can help you learn more about the basics as well as many other really cool and useful stuff about social networking!
You can also learn more about developing better social networking skills and adding value by watching this video.