Internet and Technology

One of the first questions people ask me about social networking is how to find more friends. After all, a big part of social networking (when you’re doing it for business that is) is to find more prospects. And if you don’t get some friends and followers, you’re not going to accomplish that. (Not to mention the fact that the whole point of social networking is being social, and without friends or followers that will be tough to do.)

 

So how do you find friends and followers? Below are 3 general tips that will work on all social networking platforms. (In other articles I’ll talk about strategies on specific sites.)

 

1. Find people yourself. Yes this is as simple as it sounds. Go out and friend or follow people. Chances are they’ll eventually follow or accept your friend request, and then you’ll start building your list.

 

The downside is it’s time consuming for you. It takes more time than you might expect to search and check out profiles. (And you don’t want to do this willy nilly. You do want to make sure the people you’re friending or following are in your target market or you’re wasting your time and energy.)

 

Plus some sites, such as Facebook, have limits on how many people you can friend in one day, which makes the process take even longer.

 

So yes, this is a good strategy to get the momentum going, but I wouldn’t rely on it as a long-term strategy.

 

A much better way is to get your target market to come to you. How do you do that? Well…

 

2. Be visible. In other words, whatever social networking site you’re focusing on, log on and do stuff on it. Post updates, post comments, ask questions, tweet, etc. If people see you around, then they’ll start coming to you.

 

You can also use many of the automated tools to cross-feed the different social networking platforms into each other. So, for example, you can feed Twitter into Facebook, your blog into Facebook and Twitter, and Twitter and Facebook into your blog. All that cross-pollination means you don’t have to recreate the wheel — you can choose where you’re posting for maximum effect.

 

3. Be a friend. What does it mean to be a friend? Well, friends help each other out, right? So, make sure you spend some of your time helping out your social networking friends. Maybe you promote one of your friends’ products or services or free teleclass. Maybe you give a testimonial. Maybe you answer a question or give some free advice with no strings attached. Maybe you provide really great content. Think about how you can help someone else and do it.

 

So, do these tips sound familiar? They should. They also work in the offline world. If you want friends in the real world, what do you do? You go out and meet people. You’re not going to make very many friends if you spend all your nights holed up in your house on your couch watching Law and Order reruns.

 

You make yourself visible in your community so people will see you and introduce themselves to you. And the more you do for other people, the more that goodwill will come back to you.

 

This is really important to keep in mind. Social networking is just like networking in the real world. Yes, it looks different online. Yes the tools you use is different. Yes the etiquette is different. But if you come from a place of truly trying to be a good social networking pal, then everything else will fall into place. If you come to social networking looking for a shortcut to building real relationships, then you’re probably going to be disappointed with the results.

 

 

 

The idea of a social network is that it is a popular way of reconnecting with friends and making new ones as well. There are many sites which invite people with similar interests to build a community and to share their thoughts and feeling with each other. A site which aims to widen the social network of an individual is able to generate traffic thereby promotes the website which leads to huge profits. Online social networking allows an individual to publish their opinions and comments on anything under the sun. Their services are free of cost and one can make optimal use of it either for professional reasons or for personal interests.Online social networking allows one to invite friends and add them as contacts. It is not essential the friend invited is also a part or member of that service. The person who is part of the social networking will have the complete detail of the friend. People nowadays go that extra mile to make their profile appealing as well as interesting. They can either put attractive videos, pictures or backgrounds.Socialising is a process of making conversation and getting to know one another. One can do this by asking the friend whether he knows a person who is connected to both of them. Social networking helps in building lifelong relationships and before one realises he is already an active member of a particular community. Loneliness and boredom can be defied by keeping in touch with old friends. If a person is fond of a particular sport then he or she can invite people with same kind of interest and passion. With sites promoting social network the individual can track and reunite with their school or college friends.People can add fun element to socialising by sharing videos and photos or they can also go onto surveys. Those who are passionate about cooking can share exotic recipes with their associates. Fashion oriented individuals can update themselves with the latest trends same goes for movie maniacs, they can discuss the flops and success of the cine world with their counterparts. Another benefit of social networking is that it helps in promotion of business. One can build contacts in the business world which would open new opportunities for advancement. The interactive character of the social network prompts visitors to keep visiting the site time and again. Thus, there is no other way of putting forth your feelings, views and thoughts in front of people who want to know and meet you. This is an excellent medium of making new friends and connecting with them for life.

Today social networking is something that is occupying a very important role in the social lives of the common people. But what actually is this social network? Social network in simple language means to develop relationship with society members. However with passage of time, the definition of society has also changed a lot. Now society means a group of people having alike thinking. Also these days society not only exists near the home only, but it exists even on the Internet. Such community of the like-minded people that exists on Internet is known as the social network. The process of staying in touch regularly is known by the name of social networking.This mode of online social networking has become extremely popular in recent times, especially among the college-going youngsters, working class and not to forget the elderly citizens as well. The basic idea behind the creation of this social network on Online channels of interaction is that people can stay connected with their distant acquaintances without paying any significant amount in return. Some of these websites even offer the chance to send free text messages and even allow the users to call for free. So those who have high-end personal computers at their home enabled with high-speed Internet connection can certainly take the advantage of this remarkable facility. While those who doesn’t have one, can rush to their nearest cybercafes, and make the most of it.Even the big corporate houses have now recognised the importance of this online social networking. This type of business networking online reduces the expenditure that these big corporate houses incur on regular basis on effecting communication between the branches. This revolutionary method of communication also helps these corporate houses to channelise the savings (as a result of this investment) for the welfare of employees and business. It also helps them to monitor the performance and effect better coordination between the branches situated around the world. Some corporate houses having realised the potential of these online social networks are now willing to invest in this budding business. So as a user don’t be surprised if you witness a flood of these social networking websites in the near future.Of late social networking has become a craze among the people especially among the young generation people. Many famous websites that initiate these online social network such as orkut, Hi-Fi and new players are making the job easier for the people now.

Isn’t social networking fun? You get to meet all these people and connect with them and spend hours looking at their profiles and videos and photos and…

 

Okay, so clearly social networking can take an awful lot of time. The question is, is it worth it? Will spending all that time doing social networking lead to an increase in sales?

 

And the answer is, yes it can. But you need to be strategic about it — just like you need to be strategic with all your marketing. And one way you can do that is to have a social networking landing page.

 

So what the heck is a social networking landing page? Well, it’s a special page on your web site or blog designed specifically for your social networking folks. This special page continues the conversation you started on other social networking sites. (This is very important, you should always design landing pages as continuing the conversation started elsewhere, whether it’s your prospects clicking on a Google ad or followers intrigued by something you tweeted about on Twitter.)

 

You see, many people send their social networking friends to the home page of their web site or their blog. And while that’s not a terrible thing to do, you could definitely do better. You see, the home page of your web site or the first page of your blog is more general. It has to be. You don’t know how people are finding your site. They could be on it because they just heard you on a teleclass or read an article by you or someone referred you. You don’t know so you have to keep it pretty generic about the problems you solve and the solutions you provide (and of course, push them to give you their email address).

 

So by creating a landing page specifically for your social network buddies that continues the conversation already started in the social networking scene, you’ll be that much closer to transforming them into eventual customers.

 

Okay, so what do you put on this social networking landing page? Do you try and sell them there?

 

In a word — NO! Remember, social networking is all about building relationships and making connections. And, through those relationships people will naturally want to support you and become your customer. The last thing you want to do is send your social networking buds to a page and try to sell them.

 

(Now, that doesn’t mean your page can’t include a couple of links to some products so they can read more and buy, but no hard core selling.)

 

Instead, share more about yourself, your family, your interests and your business. Then invite them to give you their email address in exchange for a free gift from you.

 

By getting on your email list, you are now in a position to deepen the relationship. Along with getting your regular newsletter (you HAVE one, don’t you?) which contains great information and content, you can also invite them to your free teleclasses, which also contain fantastic content but also includes an invitation for them to become a customer, or you send emails to them also inviting them to become a customer.

 

See how this works?