Theme 7: Ask for Help
Your seventh theme for social media marketing (and the last in this series) is to let people help you.
When you ask people for small favors – that they can easily do – you are helping them feel good about themselves. And then they also feel good about you.
I know, it sounds odd – ask for a favor and people will like you better – but that works.
So ask for favors!
Just make them extremely simple and painless to do.
It’s even better if you can ask a favor where helping you makes them look good too – where they can both help you and show their own knowledge and experience.
For example, if you ask for a suggestion for a restaurant in Boston, people get to show that they know Boston and have knowledge of the good restaurants there. That’s pretty cool!
If you ask for suggestions about whether to get an iPad or one of the newer tablets, people get to show that they have a lot of knowledge about the products.
So ask for advice.
You can look for business help:
- Vendors
- Tools
- Services
- Consultants
- Equipment
- Methodologies
- Techniques
- Coaches
- Seminars
- Training
You can also ask for personal recommendations and advice:
- Restaurants
- Shows
- Hotels
- Gadgets
- Tours
- Gyms
- Camps
If there are only a couple of choices, it can be fun to set up a poll and let people vote.
A couple tips… Only ask for one favor at a time, and keep it simple to do. Ideally it should be something they can do in a couple seconds – it shouldn’t require a lot of thought. You also don’t want to ask them to put themselves on the line in any way. It shouldn’t be risky.
But do ask regularly. People love to help, and if you make it easy you will find that you can grow your circle substantially. What are some ways you’ve asked people to help?
Theme 6: Show a Bandwagon
Everyone wants to be part of a success. So use social media to let people see that what you do is working – that others are excited about what you offer and are jumping on it.
You don’t have to wait for big wins to do this – share the small triumphs too.
Talk about what a great response you are getting to your marketing or advertising.
Be excited about milestones as you achieve them. If you just landed your 40th customer or exceeded your revenue target for the month or hired your first employee – yay!
Share quotes and testimonials. You don’t need to have formal quotes – simply forward nice things people say about you in social media.
Tell anecdotes about your customers’ successes. You don’t have to name the customer – you can say “a big hotel chain” or “a mom of two” or “a high-school track star.”
Talk about new partners, new deals, new customers, new hires. Introduce them if you (and they) are comfortable with that. If not, just say you hired someone or got 2 new customers.
Tell stories about how your business is expanding and growing. If you need more space, are joining a coworking group, need a bigger garage to store your merchandise, talk about it.
Thank people for referrals – always! Public thank-you’s are wonderful. They show your appreciation and validate for everyone else that you have people referring business to you.
How can you show that more and more people are buying your products and services, getting involved with you, and supporting you?
Theme 5: Show That You’re Connected
Your fifth theme for your social media marketing is to show who is connected with you. This is the whole point of social media!
If you can show that other people – particularly people your prospects respect – have checked you out and decided to get involved with you, then it’s easier for them to make the same decision.
So find ways to let people see that you have important people in your network, great customers, talented people working with you, respected people who refer business to you.
On Facebook, make your featured likes people your prospects will recognize and respect.
Retweet what influential people say.
Comment on blog posts of influencers.
Interact with customers or partners (especially those who are well-known and respected).
Talk about employees and subcontractors – if they have impressive degrees, I’m sure you can find a way to work that into the conversation from time to time.
Mention your board, advisors or investors.
Talk about really good sessions at conferences or webinars you attended.
Quote people your prospects respect.
Be grateful for any honors or awards you receive (or are nominated for).
Think about who your prospects and customers respect, and look for ways you can show connections with those people.
How do you build credibility by showing that you are connected to people your prospects recognize and respect?
5 Ways to Use Fiverr
If you haven’t heard about Fiverr you need to check it out!
It’s a website all about things people will do for $5. You can search gigs – people who have posted what they will do for $5 – or submit your own requests, saying what you would like to have someone do for $5.
Of course there are lots of weird things, lots of useless things. But there is a lot of cool stuff there.
Here are 5 ways you can use Fiverr in your marketing…
Buy inexpensive gifts for clients
If you want to find low-cost gifts you can send by email to your clients, you can find an amazing array of options on Fiverr. For example:
- Have your client’s name written in the sand of a New Zealand beach (I bet that becomes their new desktop background)
- Have a poem written about your client
- Get their photo turned into a cartoon (I bet that turns up on their mobile phone)
- Have someone sing Happy Birthday to them in a video
Get better known throughout clients’ companies
When you want more people inside your client’s business to know about you, one way to do it is to have something unusual done with their business logo. For example:
- Have someone put their logo on an umbrella and take a video of someone walking in the rain with that umbrella
- Have a video of a parakeet walking across a page with their logo
- Have someone do speed coloring of their logo
- Have the logo put onto a picture of a pumpkin (like we did here)
- Have a bunny eat the logo
- Get the logo stenciled on the foam of a capuccino
Seriously, you can get all of those things on Fiverr right now for $5. And you just know those videos are going to get forwarded throughout the company.
Add funny videos to your YouTube channel or Facebook page
There are a fair number of people who are offering to do a video for $5, and a couple who are offering multiple videos for $5. You can do all of the same things listed above for clients for your own company instead – those are funny, quirky videos that will engage your visitors and get them to comment on your posts.
Get feedback on your website or blog
If you want a man-on-the-street opinion from someone you don’t know, want it fast, and don’t want to spend a lot, try Fiverr.
Buy opinions from 5 or 10 people and you’ll have some interesting feedback for a fraction of what it would cost any other way.
Buy Facebook fans
If you have just launched your Facebook page and you want it to look lived in right away, buy a couple hundred fans for $5.
They won’t interact with your posts or buy your products – all they do is like your page – but that’s enough to allow you to get a branded URL for your page (Facebook currently requires 25 likes before you can get that).
Check out the site – I’m sure you can come up with dozens more ways to use Fiverr to promote your business. If you’d like to share them, comment below.
Theme 4: Share Who You Are
People do business with people they know, like and trust.
So let people get to know you better. Let them see that you are a nice person – the kind of person they would be comfortable doing business with.
Show some of your personality – you don’t have to share everything with the whole world, but you can pick and choose a few things to let people feel like they know who you are:
• Like your favorite sports teams
• List your favorite singers or bands
• Quote from your favorite books
• Mention a TV show you are addicted to
• Do you do yoga, pilates, rock climbing or zumba? Share that
• Talk about visiting your favorite restaurants
• Show photos of cute things your pet did
This helps people connect with you – it gives them topics of conversation, ways to interact with you online and in person.
You can also use social media to show your character and your ethics:
• Share links to causes that you support
• Ask for donations to charitable events
• Apologize when you mess up
• Stand up for people who have been wronged
• Be helpful and give advice where you can
• Show that you support your friends
Let people identify with you. Even if you’re the CEO of a huge company and wealthy beyond most people’s dreams, you probably have issues. Right? (Please say yes.) Talk about your efforts to lose weight, quit smoking, exercise more, get healthier, find cute shoes.
And just be nice.
• Send holiday greetings.
• Thank people at every opportunity.
What are some of the ways you let people get to know you? Share them here…
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