Monday, May 18th, 2009
I am sure most of you have seen the post on Mashable by Adam Ostrow about MLM Invading Twitter. I recently set up the propelhq twitter account. If you are here you know that we develop social tools for the Direct Sales industry or MLM.
Once I created my new twitter account I instantly began to receive spam followers and messages. People that I initially thought would be interesting to follow soon began to spam me with direct messages and a slew of spam tweets. Working as a Social Media/Technology vendor in the Network Marketing industry for the last few years I have spent a lot of time getting to know the industry and how social networking fits in. Spammers and scammers are horrible for social networking and direct sales.
In recent meetings with top distributors we discussed how they were using Facebook as a” tool”. Quickly the conversation went south. As soon as I heard how they were using it I jumped in. Their thought was by building out their profile and screaming “business opportunity” and “join my team” and “you have to try these products” they would attract and recruit new people. They couldn’t be more wrong.
Social networking and relationships in general are about providing value and the mutual exchange and sharing of thoughts, ideas, interests etc. Not force feeding content down someone’s throat. When I am on Facebook or Twitter I want my time there to mean something. Nobody wants to be plastered with spam and posts / comments that scream scam.
So what can you do? How can you do it right? The big question that everyone is trying to figure out is “can you build your MLM business with social networking and social media?” The short answer to all of these question is – if people are asking you for it and you are giving them something of value then, yes.
While thinking about this post today I came across a blog post from Randy Gage. I don’t know much about Randy, I have never met him, I did not read much more than this post-yet, but I think he did a great job of addressing this topic-read it here.
Here is one of my favorite paragraphs from his post:
“I believe in providing value, giving people a reason to view my stuff, and then offer options (coaching programs, seminars, books and other learning resources) where they can spend money if they like my work and want deeper assistance. So I don’t really make any sales from posting on Twitter directly, but I rake in a lot of dosh because I Twitter.”
All of these tools are a great way to communicate and network when used appropriately. I am still searching for some good tweeters and bloggers that are not going to spam me and make me feel like I am getting scammed. If you know any please comment here or find me on twitter @propelhq.
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Friday, March 27th, 2009
We always hear that communication is key. Internal communication can make or break a customer experience. The worst is jumping on a promotion and then asking an employee about it and then you get the response, “No, I haven’t heard of that. I can’t help you.”
A lot of value can come from meeting regularly with your employees and discussing new procedures, products, promos, etc. You should also keep it candid. Don’t try to rule the conversation. Chances are your employees have tons of questions and concerns. The last thing you want it conspiring behind cubicles. Keep it open. Keep them happy.
Customers often have questions and concerns if they visit your business often. Suggestion boxes are great but where is the accountability? If someone asks you a question face to face and their wallet is keeping your electricity flowing, you might want to follow up with them. Email and phone work, even if you don’t have a solution right away. Show them you care.
Facebook and Twitter can be great places for opening up a Q&A for internal communication or with customers. Ignite HQ can help you maintain relationships and execute these sessions.
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Thursday, February 12th, 2009
Ok I’m addicted to my iPhone. There I said it. For long periods of time I just stare at it. Last week I got some water damage and now it won’t turn off. Maybe it has made a love connection with me and wants to stay on all the time? If your an ‘iPhoner’ you may be suffering from the current addiction I am.
I feel like a 14 yr. old girl. Constantly checking for texts, looking at my iPhone when people are talking to me. But here’s the deal, easy touch screen is ultra awesome to use and quick to type out emails. The app store is great, I currently have 3 twitter account on my iPhone rather then confining myself to just my phone number to one account.
I’m a huge camera freak so Josh will be happy to know I have stayed up to date with the camera technology. The iPhone camera is impressive, for the outdoor scenes I want to remember, it works great.
Do you iPhone or Blackberry your life away? I use to rock the Blackberry Pearl so I’m not mud slinging, both are good pocket machines and great for keeping up to date on facebook and blogs.
Tags: blackberry, iphone
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Tuesday, December 16th, 2008
In reflecting on the growth of social media during the year, I recently dug up an article from february by business week that appropriately stated…
“Social Media Will Change Your Business: Look past the yakkers, hobbyists, and political mobs. Your customers and rivals are figuring blogs out. Our advice: Catch up…or catch you later”
It has been good to see how fast companies have begun adopting a social media strategies, including blogging, as the business week article discussed. If business week were to re-write their february article they would probably devote much more to the other aspects of social media because blogging is simply one aspect.
Hindsight is always 20/20 and this topic gets me thinking about 2009 and what my predictions regarding social media will be? Its late, I’ll save the post for another day.
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Friday, December 5th, 2008
Last week New York Times president Scott Heekin-Canedy released an eight-page memo praising the success of the newspaper’s Facebook advertising campaign, which went live in the days following the Presidential election.
“The goals […] were to increase our number of Facebook fans; raise awareness of NYTimes.com as an interactive news center; and engage the Facebook community in a conversation about the election outcome,” Heekin-Canedy premised.
According to Nieman Lab, Facebook users were invited to answer NYT-sponsored question, “What should Barack Obama do first as president?” They could also send virtual gifts: a Times front page with “Obama Wins” headlined at top.
The gift was sent to more than 400,000 people. The exposure also helped quadruple the number of New York Times fans on its Facebook page. (As of this writing, the total number of fans is 183,913 from an initial 49,000.)
Heekin-Canedy said the figure “far exceeded our 2008 goal of 100,000 fans.” But the “greatest success of the campaign […] is that our fans continue to rapidly grow […] into a powerful, free word-of-mouth network that we will leverage for future marketing messages.”
As a final touch, the paper purchased exclusive ad space on Facebook’s front page, featuring a video of Obama with an open comments section. The ad was viewed by 68.3 million users, and over 34,000 comments were submitted.
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