Social Media Tips : How would you market your product online ?

Marketing is all about making people like you. The best marketer is the guy who sells a refrigerator to an Eskimo. We all have been in either situations, of that of the Eskimo and the marketer, right ?

And Social Media is a much twisted, mis-interpreted and wrongly defined term these days. In fact, I don’t even want to try defining social media, because I realize its a different thing for each person. Like Guy Kawasaki once said, its like how the telephone was, once upon a time. Though it was made initially for personal communication, some people use it for sales calls while some use it for personal communication.

So its all about creating a comfortable zone that delivers your requirements. And any social media tool, be it Twitter, or Facebook, if they gets you closer to completion of this demand bridge (requirement – demand), then that’s the best tool that works for you. However, the same tool may not work for another person with the same success rate.

So my question is – How to make a company “likeable” through the social media. Is it really possible ?

Take for example all the so called “spam” on Twitter. “Success mentors” , “Dating help” , heck.. “Social Media Experts” even. Why do we call them spam ?

Personally, I think anything that I can’t relate to or identify with is spam. I think success mentors (mostly) are fake, so they’re spam. I don’t think I’d require any “Dating help”, so they’re spam too. I could be wrong, but I guess this is the case with the most of us. We consider anything that we don’t require and being “pushed” to us as spam. Fair enough.

So let’s say you have a company that sells mobile phone calling cards. (Like wqn – They are my clients, clever huh ? ) So how does your company use the social media to boost its business ?

Of course the first thoughts would be to set up a Twitter account and may be to even set up a facebook account, isn’t it ?

Sounds silly ? Well in fact, that’s what many of the “social media experts” do. They set up all the social media channels and manage them. Alright, so you set up a Twitter account and start tweeting. Most probably your first tweet would be something like -

“The cheapest calling cards to India – Check out our Asia section.”

Oh dear, how better can spam get ?

And as a second step, you go follow anyone you find, in the vague hope that they would follow you, and in the end you end up with a profile that looks something like -

Following 643, Followers – 6 (Your staff), Updates – 167

So how do you crack it ?

The idea is to re-package yourself / your product / your company.

While it is true that social media is an excellent way to reach out to more customers (possibly), it isn’t equally true that you can just barge in and grab everyone’s attention. If that was the case, every company would have a twitter account and a facebook page and they could smile/laugh their way to the bank.

The reality is that “Social Media” is nothing but a bunch of genuine people.

Call them whatever you want but they are intelligent people who’ve learned what’s spam and what’s not. You can’t take them for granted. So unless you give them something to enjoy, they’re not going to even bother you.

“So you’re saying that setting up a Twitter / Facebook account is not about Social Media Marketing ?”

Of course not. I highly recommend channels like Twitter, but it should be a well studied and well planned approach. Not just a “Set up – tweet – and wait for them” kind of thing.

If you have a product, see if its got elements that people will like on the Social Media. They are not dumb people out there, they probably are the most intelligent ones, as they’ve seen the best stuff out there. So you have to be clever enough to give them something extra ordinary. Something that will make them say – “Hey this guy’s cool. haven’t seen that before !” That’s when you become “friends” with them – the social media.

So essentially, Social Media Marketing is not an utopian concept. Its about making your company / product likeable on the Social Media.

And please…when you say “Social Media”, it isn’t any random set of people out there just trying out Twitter or Facebook for the first time. They are a bunch of genuine, intelligent and much clever people than you. They may be impatient, but that is no excuse to push in with your sales pitch and get away with their money. They’re ruthless, they’d kick out spam with no mercy. But befriend them, give them value and help them out  – they’ll love you for what you are, what ever that you are.

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