Tom’s Mini Me – How Social Media is Taking Leading Role in Sales and Marketing

I’ve said it before: Minds On gets new customers because I’m on Facebook,  LinkedIn, and Twitter. We’re a small company with big ambitions and these social media tools help us make connections and win business that we might never have known about. And it does it by making our networks much more powerful.

If you’ve been to any sales training or marketing seminars in the past twenty years, you have heard about the value of networking. You know about joining associations and participating in local gatherings. You know how to approach people and you know how to deliver your “elevator pitch”, that short and enticing description of what you and your company does.

But you can’t do that 24 hours a day. You’d need a clone. Actually, you need an army of clones that could carry your message and exponentially expand the impact of your network.

I use my personal LinkedIn profile and Facebook page to talk about our business.  As my network of friends and connections grows, people I don’t know find their way to us. It’s those connections that make that happen. It’s as if I had a mini-me, working twenty-four hours a day shaking hands, delivering my elevator pitch and getting introduced to new people: people who I ordinarily would never meet, people who my mom knows, who work with my cousins, or those old business colleagues they are connected with.

But it’s more than just connecting. You’ve got to let people know what you do and how passionate you are about it. And you have to show that you’re interested in what they’re passionate about as well. Your social media posts, the things you talk about on Facebook, and the things you tweet about, have to let people see your passion, your drive, and your interests.

How many times have you heard, “It’s not what you know, but who you know”? It’s always been true, from finding employment to selling a product or service. The best way to connect with someone you don’t know is through someone you do know. It’s about trust and credibility. Facebook and the other social media tools are making that possible in new and exciting ways.

Any sales situation is based upon a level of trust. If you’ve ever bought or sold something on eBay you know how scary it can be to try and make a transaction with an unknown stranger. So, when someone you do know and trust can say, “I know and trust this person. You can do business with them,” it allows you to relax and find out if there’s a fit between you and this person or business that is no longer a complete stranger.

And my Facebook, my mini-me, is making those connections.

Let me share something else I’ve learned: You can’t put all of your marketing eggs in one basket, even one social media basket. You’ve got to be constantly experimenting and measuring EVERYTHING. Each method, each marketing tool connects and reinforces the others. My Facebook page is fed by this blog, by what I tweet, and by other content on our website and our email newsletter. If you are doing direct mail, you want that to connect to everything else you do. It sounds complex, but it doesn’t have to be. You just need to let people connect with you the way they want to.

Drop me a line or give me a call. I can show you how we’re helping businesses, like Dominion Homes, integrate social media and Facebook into virtually everything that they do.