How to Use Online Social Networking to Market – Part 4

June 4th, 2009 by admin

What You Say When Writing for a Social Networking Group.

In the first 3 parts of this series we’ve covered:

What Is Social Networking and the 3 Benefits for Having Your Own Social Network

The Importance of Your Social Networking Profile and How to Stay Safe

When You Use Social Networking Here’s Where The Traffic Comes From

And today we are going to discuss what you say when you write something for a social networking group.

Remember in Part 1 when I said:

Marketing is the sharing of information to influence a consumer to purchase a product or service and is not social networking. However social networking can be an effective way to market a website, product or service.

Well today I’d like to extend that statement and say:

Marketing is the sharing of information to influence a consumer to purchase a product or service and is not advertising. Advertising is when you put what you’re selling in front of other people for the sole purpose of making a sale and it is only 1 part of marketing.

Confused and don’t understand what these statements mean or how they help you know what to write when you post to a social networking group?

I’ll explain.

First you need to realize that advertising is obvious. When you watch a television commercial, read most newspaper or magazine ads, or visit a sales page you and everyone else recognize it as an ad where someone is trying to sell you something. Marketing however is much more subtle, offers something of value for free and it is not immediately obvious to the reader that you are trying to sell them something.

Examples: Advertising Marketing

Second, you need to understand that advertising is used to exchange 1 product or service for something you want, usually money or someone’s name and email. Marketing however does not always require an exchange.

Examples: Advertising

Marketing – 1 of my Facebook items:

Susan Carroll Just did a Digg on “Barnes & Noble Launches Blog To Promote Child Literacy” but it looks like Facebook connect isn’t working right now.
Barnes & Noble Launches Blog To Promote Child Literacy | WebProNews
Source: www.webpronews.com
The blog called Letter Blocks offers advice, recommendations, stories about young readers and commentary from popular writers.

The third thing you need to remember is that people join social networking groups because they share a common interest and want to interact with each other for the sharing of news and information. That means there are thousands of social networking groups that don’t contain any advertising or marketing in the group member’s posts or comments. And although there are thousands of social groups discussing all types of hobbies, family news, political ideas, etc. there are also thousands of groups that have been set up to market a business.

Knowing the above 3 things will help you realize that advertising is only 1 type of marketing and marketing is only 1 type of social networking. However when you use social networking for your business you are always marketing.

Now when you leave a post or comment along with your link on someone else’s social networking site most would consider this a form of marketing however I consider this a form of free advertising. The reason I say this is because even though your comments may not be about any 1 product or service and it doesn’t appear that you are offering something in exchange for something you want, your post is actually doing both. When you take part in the groups interactions and include your link you are advertising yourself and exchanging your input for traffic to your site. And the more quality comments you leave the more recognized you’ll become and the more traffic you’ll get.

As for what you should say when you’re at someone else’s social networking site it’s really up to you. The things to remember are that you are selling yourself and you need to provide something of value. You can give examples of how the site owner’s advice worked or didn’t work for you, you can give additional information about the topic or you can even ask a question that others may also want the answer to. As long as you appear either as an expert or someone other readers can relate to it’s a good comment. If however you just say things like “great article” or “I liked this article and can’t wait for the next one”, then you’ve got a free link to your site but you won’t get any additional traffic from it.

Now when you’re writing for your own networking group you are still selling yourself however you don’t have to leave a link because your readers have already found you. To your own networking group you can provide quality information about anything your readers may be interested in, even things that may be off topic like when I gave information about the summer reading program to my Facebook friends. Sure you’ll want most of the things you write about to pertain to the groups main interest however you are allowed to write things that show you are a real person with real interests other than just your business.

Can you advertise to your own social networking group. Yes you can. However when you advertise to your social group it should be more like a recommendation rather than an ad. Remember you’re socializing and that means you’re giving information about something to online friends. If you’ve ever given a recommendation for a restaurant or a movie to a friend then you already have experience with how to advertise to your social networking group. When you gave your recommendation you probably didn’t give a long list of benefits. Instead you told them what you liked about it and emphasized either the things that either impressed you the most or the things you thought would interest them the most. And although you didn’t list all the benefits or expect any compensation if your friend ate at the restaurant or saw the movie, you were advertising.

The bottom line is, marketing is much more than advertising. Marketing includes everything you do and everything that’s a part of your business. So every email you send, every forum post you make, every blog comment you write and everything you share with your networking group is part of your marketing campaign. In fact, all the content you put on the web and anything else you do that’s related to your business is part of your marketing. And social networking groups give you a free place to provide good free information to market yourself and your offers.

To Your Success,
Susan

P.S. Want to be know as an active InternetMarketingTip reader and share something? Start leaving comments because that’s all it takes.

I see you've been here before. Would you like to subscribe to my RSS feed or follow me on Twitter?
If you subscribe with your email address you'll get instant access to my free membership site. Click here to see what's inside.

Thanks for visiting!