Social Networking for Business

Social Networking for Business

By , Oct 07 in blog with 5 comments

An example of a social network diagram.

Networking and Social Media

The questions I get asked the most when talking to business owners about a social media strategy, are “Do I need a Social Media Strategy?” or “Is it valuable for my business?”, and these are questions that you as a business owner should ask, because there are ramifications on you and your staff when you embark on social media.

Your office culture is a big factor in the success of a social media strategy, because social media in itself is about sharing, and if any of your staff are not willing to share information, then it makes it a lot harder to get buy in from them, it also impacts on their time, and if you run a busy office, this can be a real issue in getting your strategy off the ground. There are also other priorities that come up, but that is a different story for another time, so let’s get back to the original reason for this post.

There’s a great quote from Seth Godin that I’d like to share with you about  social networking.

“Networking is always important when it’s real and it’s always a useless distraction when it’s fake. What the Internet has allowed is an enormous amount of fake networking to take place.”

One of the biggest mistakes that most businesses make when they start a social media strategy, is to self promote.It’s very tempting to push your service and product or tell everyone how good you are straight away. You suddenly have this new marketing tool available to you and you’re going to shout out your strengths from the rooftops.

That’s what we’ve done in the past, but not today, your focus with social media really should be on building relationships and less on self promotion. When you think about how this applies in real life, most of us would spend time building relationships with our clients and gaining their trust, and this is exactly the same for social media.

Focus more on building your network one fan at a time and work on relationships not on self promotion. Business is built on relationships, and so is your social media strategy.

Mike Andrew owns and operates an Internet Marketing Consultancy on the Gold Coast in Queensland

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About the author

mike Mike Andrew has been working with the Internet and small business for over 12 years. Mike has been a keynote speaker at conventions and seminars and conducted social media training sessions all over the world. Mike has an extensive media background having worked in electronic media for over 30 years. Mike specialises in social media and Internet marketing strategy, SEO techniques and search engine marketing campaigns. His articles appear on numerous blogs around the web as well as national magazines.

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Comments

  • Social Media Networks and the Impact on Small Business | Best Social Media Marketing Tips says :

    […] when it comes to using these tools to grow their business, you might find my previous post on Social Networking for Small Business interesting reading about the lack of commitment to social media amongst small business operators. […]

  • Social Media Networks and the Impact on Small Business | Business Advice Blog says :

    […] when it comes to using these tools to grow their business, you might find my previous post on Social Networking for Small Business interesting reading about the lack of commitment to social media amongst small business operators. […]

  • Social Media Networks and the Impact on Small Business · SALION.com says :

    […] when it comes to using these tools to grow their business, you might find my previous post on Social Networking for Small Business interesting reading about the lack of commitment to social media amongst small business operators. […]

  • Social Media Networks and the Impact on Small Business | SESSOES says :

    […] when it comes to using these tools to grow their business, you might find my previous post on Social Networking for Small Business interesting reading about the lack of commitment to social media amongst small business operators. […]

  • Social Media Networks and the Impact on Small Business | Business Feras.co.uk says :

    […] when it comes to using these tools to grow their business, you might find my previous post on Social Networking for Small Business interesting reading about the lack of commitment to social media amongst small business operators. […]


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