So… is social media working for your business? In this video, business coach and co-author of #1 Bestseller “The MINDstretch”, Dean Mercado touches on how to increase your chances for social media success!
Social media is obviously here to stay. Many of you are dabbling around out there trying to find your way and figure out how to make this thing called social media work for you.
There are probably thousands of social media sites at this point. Just a small handful though are really relevant to you and your business. There are a lot of options out there.
No matter where you play in social media, it comes down to these three secrets. It comes down to these three things that must be a secret because we don’t see people doing them all that often and all that well.
Educate
First secret is you need to educate. Not sell. Educate!
And what I mean by that is you want to be able to produce content on a regular basis that teaches, educates and informs your audience. Think of it as a trail of breadcrumbs educating and moving them closer to being able to make proper decisions. Buying decisions preferably over time when they are thinking about what you do.
You want them thinking about the things that you offer and how you offer them and help them to make educated buying decisions. Educating is so critically important.
The majority of what my company does on social media as far as content is educational. We are always promoting and putting stuff out there to teach our audience and help them make better decisions.
Entertain
The second secret for social media is what we call entertainment. You need to entertain people.
We live in a TV generation, a visual society and people want to be entertained. It’s really that simple.
Now unfortunately for us businesses we may be thinking how does entertainment fit into what I do? What does entertainment have to do with selling insurance or what does entertainment have to do with what I do? I sell shoes?
Regardless of what you sell, there needs to be an entertainment value these days otherwise you know what? People will be looking the other way and going somewhere else.
Now when I talk about entertainment I mean you gotta have wit! You also need to perfect your timing. Don’t talk about something that is no longer relevant. If your timing is way off and you are talking about something that happened last week, that’s not wit, that’s not good humor. It’s not good entertainment any longer. So your timing on things is very critical.
Engagement
Then we’ve got the third piece of this pie. The third piece is engagement. This is the most important piece of the pie.
You have to engage people. Period!
If you aren’t doing that and you get out on social media and you are spitting out your message after a while it will start falling on deaf ears. People start ignoring you and tuning you out.
It’s just like when direct mail lost its luster years back. It was because people were just receiving too much junk mail. And then email had the same problem. Over the last several years you see a lot of people not opening your emails anymore. If you send out a newsletter you probably know what I’m talking about. Check out your open rates.
So we get that same thing going on in social media as well unless of course you are engaging people. We always say take a lead from the offline world and be interested in people. And in turn they will find you more interesting.
Do you follow what I’m saying?
Be genuinely interested in the people that you are connected to on social media and what you will find is that they will start to find you more interesting. They start reading your stuff or your educational materials. They start engaging and interacting with you when you are posting your humorous entertainment type social media posts. And then ultimately they are finding their way to refer you, buy from you, etc.
So again, the keys to social media success are to educate, to entertain and then to engage. And most likely you will see things change a bit with your social media. Hopefully for the better. Get out there! Play the game!
In my opinion social media works well for my business.
I think social networking is essential to all businesses now.
Social Media is the way to go in a world where people work and live off computer and smart phones.
I agree with the comment above. I think social media is not just an option any longer. Businesses will not be competitive if they do not use social media.
Yes I agree, social networking is a must for any business!
I thought social media worked ok for my site, but seems that I have a lot to learn 😀 Thanks ofr a great video!
I don’t think a business can survive without social media these days.
Social Media is pretty important for me as a blogger.
Yes, these are great tips! I could always improve though, and be more active!
Great tips, as a blogger social media is important.
Always enjoy the videos here! Thanks for the straight and narrow about social media. It’s easy to get lost in it all with so many options and angles!
Great tips! I think that social media is a must have for bloggers or any business. Sometimes it is hard to decide which medias to go with!
Social media is important and can work wonders for a business, but I must admit that it gets overwhelming at times. There’s SO much to keep up with, and clients expect you to know (and be GOOD at) all of it! There just aren’t enough hours in the day! But it’s fun, too.
Everyone needs social networking now.
I think it’s critical to success anymore.
Social media is a medium that can no longer be ignored by serious business professionals. It is important to get more social media savvy.
I agree with the others. You need social media to be successful online these days.
Thanks for the tips! I have so much to learn about using social media to my advantage.
Thanks for the tips… social media is such a big part of life now
Thanks Dean. As always great tips. Social media is definitely the way to get your brand noticed.
Stephanie.. Thanks for swinging by and commenting… You are using Social Media in an industry that has yet to fully embrace it… What has been most effective for you?
Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest work well for me but I can’t really understand Facebook. Plus half of my followers can no longer see my post. Its ridiculous.
Social media is a MUST – a business can not do as good w/out it these days.
I sometimes have a hard time thinking of blogging as being a business. I enjoy what I do and see it as fun! Social media is very important for bloggers
You can’t maximize your potential without it!
I think social media is one of the most underused marketing tools of small businesses today.
I agree with the above comments in regards to social media.
Even those who “know” all this can and should be reading up on books like this just to stay on top of things
It’s crazy how in the blogging world, social media is often more important than the writing part!
Social media is key, it is a great way to get your site noticed. Thanks for sharing!