Social Media Marketing Tips Excerpted From the Forthcoming Guerilla Marketing for Direct Selling, by Jay Levinson, James Dillehay and Marcella Harting

Businesses are flocking to social networking sites to gather new leads, increase sales and follow up with customers. According to Jill Konrath, social selling queen, direct sellers using social selling are 50% more likely to beat their quotas, according to Jill Konrath, social selling expert.

“Social media presents an opportunity for business people to connect and know each other prior to a phone call or e-mail taking place.” ~ Jeffrey Gitomer, Author: The Sales Bible

Go forth and be social, knowing that:
• Each social site attracts followers for different reasons and kinds of interactions. It’s critical to understand the “why they are there” of each site in order to appeal directly to their interests.
• Limit yourself to posting on the two or three sites you hangout most on to avoid overwhelm.
• Brief social media posts with less than 70 characters get better engagement than longer posts.
• Post more than once a day. Use tools like Hootsuite.com or SproutSocial.com to schedule post deliverance across several sites. They also report on your post’s engagement.
• Avoid posting just to put something out there. Be helpful. Be inspiring. Be entertaining. Be educational.
• A personal profile on Facebook is limited to 5,000 connections. But a Facebook Page can draw millions of likes and followers. Over 70 million businesses have Facebook Pages.
• Posts with images get the more shares on Facebook and the most retweets on Twitter.
• The organic reach of your posts is limited. To get more viewers, you will have to pay up in the form of ads or post boosts.
• In 2016, almost 96% of social media marketers reported that Facebook brought the top ROI (return on investment) from among all social networks.
• Twitter ads got 99% percent more engagement in 2017 than in the previous year.
• When people comment on your posts, reply. The more interaction you can inspire, the more your posts will show up organically.

How frequently should you mention your product when posting socially? There is no golden rule, but a good starting guideline is post seven times to help, entertain or educate, then post a product link or video. Repeat the cycle a few times and watch what your followers do. Another suggestion is to post 1 promo for every 10 ‘giving’ posts.

Setting up profiles on a social media networking site lets you write about your personal life in all the detail you wish. You can post tips and resources for your target audiences. You can discuss products you have found beneficial. You can link to your main web site which provides more details and a shopping cart for placing orders.

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This article is copyrighted 2018 and may not be reproduced in any form without permission from the author. Excerpted from the forthcoming Guerrilla Marketing for Direct Selling

Other books by James Dillehay

If you are starting a business or even just thinking about it, there are considerations beyond costs and profits. Looking back on 40 years in a variety of businesses, there are several questions I could have asked that might have speeded my progress.

1. Is your business idea based on something you love doing? Would you do this thing even if you didn’t get paid. Or is your new venture “a bright, shiny object” that looks like a great idea, but now that you think about it, you have had similar great ideas in the past.  Good ideas can still make money. But passionate ideas are more sustainable in the long run.
2. Be very careful about sharing your excitement for your new business. Unless you have friends and family who have actually been in the type of enterprise you want to start, don’t ask their opinion. How would they know? Besides, they see you through the filter of who they have always known you to be and that lens might not include room for change.
3. Can you support yourself for the next 12 months independently of the new business? If you aren’t sure create a cash flow projection that totals all your expenses and all your income streams. I set mine up in a spreadsheet with cash in and cash out by the month. It quickly tells me where I can cut out costs that don’t really serve me.
4. Are you determined to make the new business work at all costs or are you just giving it a specific period to test the waters? A fair test is at least 12 months.
5. Do you work and play well with others? A business has a much better chance of success if you are a team player. You also need a mentor or group (mastermind) of entrepreneurial thinkers to bounce ideas off and to be accountable to for your goals.