Social Media Marketing for Direct Sellers
Laurie Fitzgerald and Karen Clarke
There is a lot of hype about social media at the moment.
In this interview you'll learn all about social media and how it can help your direct sales business.
Have a listen to his discussion between Laurie and Karen about how you can use social media in your business.
After all, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, blogs and social bookmarks are like the dot com boom of the 1990s, except they’re growing a heck of a lot faster.
Everyone’s looking for a practical way of using it to get traffic and generate new customers, but the problem is the approach most people are taking is dead wrong.
One thing that’s unique about the direct selling profession that lends itself quite well to using social media as a marketing tool is that we really are truly a relationship-based industry.
We are based on word of mouth.
The same I’ve found is true through social media and the internet marketing with our businesses.
I really think that it’s important to be aware of the fact that you really do want to treat people online the same way as you treat them in person.
Respond when spoken to, answer questions kindly, be interested, be curious, all those kinds of things.
Using these tools is really just a way to reach out and meet somebody, but then you take the relationship further by still picking up that phone and doing the follow up.
Following up with the phone call or arranging to meet for coffee or something like that can really cement the relationship, just like it would in real life.
It’s extremely important as a businessperson to always remember that anything that you do, say, or promote online reflects who you are as a businessperson and will be seen and shared by many.
A lot of times people who are considering doing business with you will go online and Google you, or they’ll go to Facebook and look at you.
All of that is a reflection of who you are, and that’s going to help them choose to do business with you or not.
Think about what you would do in real life. How are you going to go about your networking in real life?
Where are you going to meet people? You’re going to want to hang out where those people are.
The same thing is true online.
You’re going to find areas or groups online where your clients or your ideal customers are hanging out.
There are groups on Facebook that you can join, and there are fan pages you can join and participate in discussions there.
The next thing in real life you would do in a networking situation is introduce yourself using the same kinds of words that you would use in real life speaking to somebody, such as your 30-second or one-minute elevator pitch.
It’s just a brief glimpse into what you do and how you can serve somebody.
You’re not going to want to blatantly advertise your business, or very, very rarely like that.
You’re mostly going to focus on engaging with people on a personal level, maybe mentioning what you’re doing.
“I'm going to a meeting today. I'm going to train my team. They’re so excited.
I can’t wait to share our new product with them.” It builds curiosity and people will start asking questions.
It should be like an 80/20 split, with 80% conversational type non-business things and then 20%.
The blatant advertising should be a minimum, because you’ve got your elevator pitch on the sidebar and then there’s also an information tab where you can put in your website address.
It’s not true that you need to be on every single site and actively participating everywhere, but it is important to have a presence, and the reason is because your customers and your hostesses and guests are going to be looking you up, especially the more interested they get in your business.
You want to make sure that you have some kind of a web presence.
A lot of times we have a company website that the company provides and it’s not always something that we can personally edit very much to personalize.
Having something like a Facebook page or a blog or a Twitter profile is an additional thing that can be really helpful.
I know it’s very overwhelming when you hear about all these things that you can do for your business.
I recommend starting out with just one platform, trying it out, sticking with it for awhile and perfecting that before you go onto something else.
There are some tools you can use for time management with these things.
There’s a program that I use that you can download for free.
It’s called www.Seesmic.com.
It’s a desktop program that you can use to monitor your Facebook, your fan pages, and your Twitter.
It’s important to really treat this as a business tool. People want to know right away. “Is this going to be worth my time?”
This is something that’s very long term. You’re building a brand.
You’re building your reputation.
You’re building your presence slowly over time.
Don’t expect results immediately.
However, when you’ve got the right people following you, sometimes the right person is there at the right time at the very beginning.
People do need to see you and see your message repeatedly to be able to take that leap when they haven’t quite met you and gotten to know you yet.
Give it some time. I would say within a couple of months you’ll probably have some pretty loyal followers, if you’ve engaged with people and had some conversations.
What you want to do is create that sense of, “I'm your Tupperware lady.
I’m your jewelry lady,” so that when they have a need that arises they know, “Oh yeah, that girl on Facebook, she’s always talking about that jewelry.
I'll go contact her.” It doesn’t always happen right away. It depends on what their needs are and when and all of that
I think the most important thing is to get out there.
I know that the direct selling profession in general has been slower than some other industries on getting online, but I know lately there’s been a lot more effort out there. We’ve still got a long way to go.
When somebody’s looking for skin care, jewelry, or just about any product, it’s important that they find us.
It will help uplift our industry and our profession and help the businesswomen and men that are out there selling these products.
Get out there and do something.
Like I said, even if it’s just one thing and one focus, do that and do it well, but get out there and take those first steps.
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Karen Clarke is the new online presence expert. She lives in northern California and has been in the direct sales business for over 11 years.
