Entrepreneurs are using the newest Internet trend to meet and collaborate with colleagues worldwide. Professional social networks such as LinkedIn, Plaxo, Twitter and Facebook, can provide legal nurse consultants another way to promote and expand their CLNC® business.
Social media marketing is the systematic approach to using social networks and other “Web 2.0″ and “Web 3.0″ technologies as a part of an all inclusive marketing plan.
Step One: Define your goals, then match the network tool to your goal.
Goals vary from business-to-business and professional-to-professional, but the identification of goals is key to determining what characteristics are needed in a social network.
Step Two: Set boundaries and budgets that govern the efforts expended in social networking.
Most professional social networks offer a free, and one or more “premium,” membership. In most or all of those with “premium” memberships, it is possible to “earn” free premium upgrades by recruiting new members to the network platform. With these incentives, it is only necessary to spend money on professional social network membership if a specific paid premium membership function or service is needed to achieve the goals set in Step One. This does not mean that social networking is free. Most successful business social networkers agree that success requires a minimum of 40 hours per month spent building the network and communicating with network members and online contacts.
The biggest area of budget bloat for online networking is time. Time has a definite value in real dollars and time spent on social media marketing must provide a real and measurable return on investment.
It is all too easy to spend endless hours enjoying the many “features” of social networking sites. Whether answering posted questions and earning the tag “Expert” or racking up endorsements and testimonials, every minute spent online must have a purpose, must contribute to achieving your legal nurse consulting goals and must provide a return.
Step Three: Begin networking.
Once your goals, budgets and boundaries are set, it is time to begin networking. Whether online or in person, the most important tool of the social networker is dialogue. Online networking must include direct and individual communications with every member of the network.
Every time a new member joins your network, that new contact must receive a personalized email welcoming them to the network. This mandates that the new contact’s network profile be read and the contact’s interests be made the focus of the email.
The process of customizing the welcome to the new contact has a side benefit to the business because it forces the business to define its relevance to an ever expanding and ever deepening market demographic described by the online social network.
Step Four: Communicate and connect, don’t just collect.
The object of the entire social media marketing effort is to build a network with a personal bond and the ability to refer paying customers or become a paying customer. This means the network members must become raving fans even before they make a buy or referral.
Those who have been networking in real life for years know this is much harder than turning a satisfied customer into a raving fan. Unlike in-person networking, online networking limits the level of interpersonal exchange and thus “likability.”
A social network makes the transition to raving fans because of the personality of the network leader. Use the regular communication with network members as a “personality conduit.”
Step Five: Attract like-minded people, then lead them.
The key to becoming a leader in a market niche is to become a gathering point for other online professionals and their respective networks. All professional social networking websites have the ability to create clubs, or groups, or collectives. By volunteering to create and manage such a group, the leader becomes the point of convergence for everyone interested in the topic.
Step Six: Make it real in real life.
Depending on the local culture and networking traditions as well as the subculture of the online network, a traditional “dinner and drinks” networking event may be in order, but a “picnic in the park” or a “burgers and baseball” format may be more appropriate. The key is not the surroundings, but the opportunity for people who have built an online, but nonetheless real relationship, to put a handshake, or a hug, to the profile and prose.
Guest Blogger Profile
Brian Horn is an Internet marketing consultant who specializes in search engine marketing, site optimization, social media marketing, link building and web data analytics. Brian has consulted with Vickie Milazzo Institute for over three years.
Brian also speaks at seminars and conferences throughout the U.S. and Canada on how to use the Internet to improve business.
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