How You Can Turn Social Media into Dollars for Your Business

It seems is all the rage these days and the goal of using it is to ultimately make more money. You do this by getting more clients and building your list. What I’m hearing over and over again is “how do I really turn those Facebook followers into money?” and “how do I get my hundreds or thousands of Twitter followers to buy from me?” And another one, “what are some other ways I can use social media to turn all my efforts into real money?”

Well, these are the questions I’m getting asked on an almost daily basis from my clients and colleagues. So I set out to find some answers and to give you some concrete things that you can do to turn your social media into real money for your business.

Here are the basics, the core of how you can turn your followers into paying customers. This is a formula that I’ve used that’s helped me tremendously over the years. This formula not only helped me turn prospects into paying clients, it also helped me to get in front of people that I wouldn’t have been able to reach without using the tools of social media.

Here’s my formula:

Have a clear goal of what you want to accomplish using social media. For example, I want to grow my Facebook followers to 5k people, and you can go even further, I want to communicate real value, increase my followers, and eventually have them buy my products, services, etc.
Communicate on a daily basis using social media. I’m going to be brutally honest here, I’ve actually slipped on this one the past few weeks and it shows. So, do as I say NOT as I do! (How many times have you heard that?!) I’m back on it again, and the main tool I use to help me is www.ping.fm This is a terrific tool that actually ties my Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn accounts. So I go to ping and put my 142 characters and it goes to all three sites, and it’s a beautiful thing. The other cool thing about ping is that it has a tiny URL built into it, meaning whatever URL you put into it, it shortens it automatically so it will fit into your 142 characters. I basically spend about 20 minutes a day on this in the morning and I’m done
Make your communication VALUABLE, and entertaining, and connect with your followers. Be interesting, fun, and entertaining, and give away ideas and things of value. Ask yourself these questions — Is this something I’d talk about at a party? Is this interesting enough to tell other people? And my favorite: would this be something I’d tell my mom? (There are some things you just shouldn’t put on social media, in my humble opinion.)
80% of your communication should be about you. 20% should be about your business. People don’t want to be “sold” anything. So being yourself, and connecting with others on a personal level first, THIS is the key to having people eventually buy from you. We want to buy and work with people we know and care about, who have the same interests, values, and sense of humor as we do. So just BE YOURSELF.

That’s it, it TOTALLY IS that simple.

And here’s one more question that I thought might be helpful to answer for you:

“I don’t really think I’m that interesting, how in the world can I come up with things to say?” If you don’t know what to say, how about asking a question of your followers, this always works. Some ideas – – “What was your favorite holiday as a child?” “What do you love the most about…?” “What’s your biggest frustration right now in your business?” Here are some places to go to find some content ideas too: check out Alltop.com (Guy Kawasaki’s site of top popular blogs on almost every subject) or PopURLs.com – tons of topics and ideas.

Ok, I hope these tips have been helpful. If you’re hungry for more information, you can also check out a colleague of mine, Don Crowther. I’ve heard him speak many times on social media and he’s THE expert. He’s got a new free video series and in the first one, he tells you bluntly why social media doesn’t work.

And a heads up for all you product launch folks, I’d opt into this one just to check out all his free content and to see his launch. Some good friends of mine are working behind the scenes on this one. Let me know what you think!

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