Business For Life Blog » Direct Sales

Direct Sales & Home Party Plan Marketing Information : How Can Social Media Benefit My Business

admin — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 07:35:57 +0000

The astute and very pleasant Direct Sales Consultant, known by the handle The Traveling SalesWoman, asked the following question of me? You were the person who encouraged me to join Twitter, and I’m so grateful for that! Can you share some further thoughts about Twitter and why home party business owners should join in that conversation?Are you are brothers and sisters fan? If so you have not missed the obvious connection between Sarah Walkers’ Greenotopia company and its’ many references to social networks and social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter!And if you don’t know by now, you are no-one if you are not on twitter. I was amused to find that my vocabulary has changed considerably over the past year!I am Youtubing, plurking, Facebooking, tweeting, blogging, linking, MySpacing, texting and a host of other things too! All these are some of the most popular social media sites and as you can see things can get pretty hairy, so I definitely recommend that you have a social media system.Direct Sales Home Party Marketing Tip: Any task you do more than once NEEDS a procedure, system or checklist!Before Bill Gates, no one had a personal computer! One man single handedly revolutionized the world with a dream…his dream was that every home would have a computer! His dream was to provide value to every single household in the world!Even after Bill Gates created such an incredible tool, that gave rise to the Internet, Easy Online access & E-Commerce; it STILL amazes me just how many people refuse, are afraid and/or have not taken advantage of the power of the computer and the Internet! Computers as far as I am concerned are the best social media tools (of course for the obvious reason without one you cannot access social media ?, yep)!I told the travelling saleswoman that social media and social networks are all about relational capital. And like any thing social media marketing is an art form. The question I often get asked by home party consultants and direct sales reps. Is why don’t they buy my product. The answer is simple, you have written a check, which came back with the red stamp mark, insufficient funds! (thanks Martin Luther King Jr. for that one).You see people buy because:i) they know you,ii) they trust you iii) they believe that you have the solution the problem which the face andiv) for statusPeople don’t buy a product, nor do they buy a feature and the benefits are as they are decided upon by the story they tell themselves. Your juice drink mwy help me loose weight. But the story I am telling myself is that I am going to look sexy, finally that size 0 pair of jeans that I have seen on display for a year will be mine. I am going to get hit on by men….you get the picture? So if your pitch is not in line with my story…How does all this fit into social media and social marketing? Simple, you are building relational capital, by depositing in the bank of getting to know you, getting to know all about you! And you are not only doing it with one person, no you are reaching out to many in one shot!There are people on these sites that follow you, there are those that interact with you and those that want to see what you are about. The cool thing about social outlets is that you are King and Queen of your own little internet real estate King/Queendom!Social media and social marketing is all about building that relational capital that gives you the all access pass to make your direct sales pitches to those who are ready, able and willing to hear what you have to say, and have the money to spend on what you have to sell. Do not under-estimate the power of relational capital! How else do you think Pres. Barack Obama did it? I will be holding a special in a week or so about “the Pres. Obama Social Media Effect : How You Too Can Go From Zero To Hero!For more on social media, and how to use it effectively, just google “social media blog!”

Direct Sales & Home Party Plan Marketing Information : How Can Social Media Benefit My Business

admin — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 07:02:51 +0000

Have You Considered How You Will Position Yourself In Social Media?

admin — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 14:07:11 +0000

If you dive into social media without making a plan, you’ll make more mistakes than you need to. After all, you don’t want to go through a social media identity crisis in front of all the world to see.Before any social media marketing campaign, and online presence, is launched, you need to decide what it is you want to project. How will you position yourself? What is it that you want to say? Who is the audience that you’re trying to reach? Since social media functions at its best when used to create relationships, think about the community that you want to engage, and how you want to present yourself to that community, before you jump in.Now this is NOT license to take 6 months to get involved with social media. Honestly, with the pace this is all moving, the rules will have all changed again in 6 months! But it does make sense to take some time to plan out who it is you’re trying to reach and how you want them to perceive you.When I began my journey into social media, I had some very clear objectives. I wanted to connect with direct sellers and direct selling executives, and provide a forum for the discussion of how to integrate social media marketing into the direct sales industry. I believe that social media will revolutionize the way that direct sellers do business, and I want to have a voice in the conversation. Knowing that, I created a social media strategy that took advantage of social media tools to reach the people I wanted to reach, and made an effort to provide useful information to these people.So here’s how I did it. 1. I was already on Facebook. I had built a group of friends, colleagues, etc., and once in a while I posted status updates and notes about my business. Most of the time, however, I just engaged the community through the sharing of information, pictures, etc, developing relationships and reigniting old connections. 2. On Facebook, I also set up a fan page for my business, set up and publicized an application where users could send virtual gifts of our products to one another, and created “flair” with our company logo that I sent out to friends. We publicized opportunity calls through our fan page, and highlighted our charitable work here too. I taught our distributors how to use these tools to build their businesses. 3. I began checking Google Analytics for the traffic our company website received from Facebook. We are able to see where web traffic is coming from, and to see how long those visits last, what pages they are looking at, etc. As I’ve mentioned before, Facebook began to consistently rank among the top 5 referrers to our website, with a visit length of 3-5 times the length of any other referrer. The pages that were most visited were our product and opportunity pages. 4. I enhanced my professional profile on LinkedIn, since I was going to begin actively using it. I joined groups on LinkedIn that were relevant to my industry. 5. In January 2009, I began this blog. I researched on the web the discussions going on about social media and direct sales (there isn’t much, unfortunately) and began to add my voice to the discussion. I published all posts to my LinkedIn profile, to my Facebook profile, and to LinkedIn groups that I had joined that were relevant to the direct sales industry. People began commenting on my blog posts, as well as in the LinkedIn groups. I have tried to personally respond to all commentors, in order to continue to develop the relationship. 6. I joined Twitter, and began to try to figure out the tool. I observed more than I posted at first, in order to understand the cadence and the unspoken rules, and slowly began to add to the discussion. I searched for direct sellers and began following them. Many began following me back. I also began to follow giants in the social media world, so I could learn from them. All the while, I tried to add my thoughts about direct selling and social media, as well as helping out people in any ways I could, with all of my knowledge, whether related to direct sales/social media or not. I quickly learned that even with the little I know, I know more than some others about certain things, and so I am generous in my sharing of information. I also take the time to read the profiles and personally respond to those people that begin to follow me. It helps me to better understand what will help my followers.As a result of this strategy, I have had the great pleasure of connecting with many well-respected leaders in my field, and have helped many people with their businesses. I am learning a GREAT deal, and believe that I am helping to lead my industry into its future with social media marketing. For me, this is greatly satisfying.I share this strategy with you today because I think it’s important to really think through what you want to project, in order to make the most effective use of social media tools. I am learning everyday how to do this better, and I think that the leaders in social media marketing are constant students. Social media is a great big networking pool, and when you jump in with just a little bit of preparation, you will develop relationships that are beneficial, and that enable a flow of information that positions you as a giver as well as a receiver.Has this post helped you? I would love to hear how it has, and also how you have crafted your own social media strategy. Let’s learn from each other!For more articles on this and other topics related to social media marketing and direct sales, visit my blog at http://liajen.wordpress.com.