If you’re not making money from the power of social media sites like MySpace, Facebook, YouTube, Hubpages, or Squidoo, there can only be one of two things going on — either

1) You’re not using those sites at all, or

2) You’re doing it all wrong!

Honestly, if you’re not using them at all, just consider these few facts:

  • There are HUNDREDS of MILLIONS of people on the biggest sites, like MySpace, Facebook, and YouTube, and TENS of MILLIONS and growing on the smaller sites like Tagged.
  • You can connect with people from all over the globe based on their interests, their gender, their age group, their occupation, the books they read, the movies they like, and tons of other criteria.
  • It’s one of the last places you can go to create free leads and free traffic for your business. If you’re in real estate, network marketing, MLM, or even a local bricks-and-mortar business, it’s ridiculous to not take advantage of the ability to generate virtually unlimited free leads, isn’t it?
    and finally,
  • It’s not as time-consuming as you would think! (At least, it doesn’t have to be…)

Which brings us to the second reason you may not be making money with social media — you’re doing it all wrong!   Now, if you want to get really serious about this, and make it the primary source of leads for your business, you can get a great course by Perry Belcher and Ryan Deiss, called the Social Media Money System, or get the free videos and cheat sheets.

But I can give you the main points of a successful social media marketing campaign right here:

  • Just like any marketing campaign, know your target market, or the people who could most benefit from your offer.
  • Have a strategy and an overall plan — how many friends or followers will you attract per day?  How many tweets will you post?
  • Make sure you brand yourself.  There should be a real sense of consistency in your image as your followers go from facebook, to twitter, to YouTube, etc.

But that’s where the similarities between traditional marketing and social media marketing end.  Beyond that stuff, if you do any “traditional” marketing or selling of any kind on social media, you will be banned!  Not only by the providers for misusing their service, but by the users.  They’re NOT there to be sold to!  So here are a few tips:

  • Look to connect with people.  If your target market doesn’t include anyone you could relate to on a personal level, you have a big problem.  You can connect on anything — hobbies, like fishing or golf, favorite movies, books, whatever.
  • Do NOT send your friends to a capture page of any kind!
  • If you send them anywhere outside of your social network sites, it should be to a blog that has information useful to them.
  • Make sure you have a system for adding friends and communicating.  If you don’t, you could easily spend 10 hours a day on facebook alone, and never get anywhere.
  • Become an expert in something related to your field.  When you have, start posting helpful content all over the place, and have links to your blog and/or facebook account from your articles.

I’ll try to create another post with more details about the how-to soon.  For now, get the free videos from Perry, create your image, set up your profiles, and start making friends.  If you have any questions on details, drop me a line right here…