I have been involved in Network Marketing for about 10 years now. I have had pretty good success but I found myself wanting more, more, more. After all, who doesn’t enjoy getting up whenever you want, going where ever you want and being the master of your own time. No one puts time restrictions on me and I love that!

I have read every self help book, written & rewritten my prospecting list, ran through my memory jogger again & again, attacked my warm market, called leads, followed the 3 foot rule, did 3 ways, duplication (make it simple), watched webinars, did thousands of conference calls and so on. Sound familiar? I was what you would call, a traditional network marketer. Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with the old system and it still works today for many people including myself. I still prospect the traditional way, that will never leave me but, I have added an additional prospecting tool…the internet. Here is how that happened:

I had begun to get stale with the old style prospecting and started my search for new ways to reach large groups of people. After all, I had become one of the most well versed people in my company about my products & leadership but, I needed to be able to share that with the masses.

I met with a local Chamber of Commerce group called SCORE. SCORE is a group of retired business people that were/are highly successful with their ventures. They take a look at what you are doing and they give you ideas on how to achieve the next level of success. Weirdly enough, I was the very first network marketer that they had counseled with. Even so, they really dug in and came back with a smart business plan for me.

They told me that I needed to position myself as an expert in my field, someone that people wanted to feature at meetings or on websites etc. That would be easy enough…I had giant knowledge on my product, I love to get in front of a group of people and I had become a leader that people respected. They told me that as I was positioning myself as an expert in my field I needed to begin Social Networking. I was unaware of that term at the time but soon after that I began to read about it everywhere. They mentioned that I needed to get very familiar with social websites like MySpace & Facebook. I needed to learn their rules and begin networking…as an expert…on those sites offering more than just my product, there are millions doing that. I needed to offer them something different than all of the others, an experts view with useful information. Attraction marketing, attracting prospects to your expertise and/or useful information.

Wow, I was excited! I was going to go right out and get myself in front of the masses…right? Hold up, not as easy as it sounds without connecting with someone who really knows about exactly how to do it. Time went on, I searched all over the internet for information on how to begin my quest at Social Networking. Luckily I found Ann Sieg’s 7, Great Lies of Network Marketing, which lead me to a couple of e-books that I bought that were exactly what SCORE had been talking about, how to get into the social network. I read both of them front to back, highlighted, turned pages down, underlined and basically destroyed the books. I was even more excited now, there were so many ways to do social networking, I was going to be an overnight success.

As I began my research on a few of the avenues, I became highly overwhelmed, there was so much to know! So much that I sat back and said…if I, of all people, am having trouble absorbing this and even knowing where to begin…how in the world am I going to get my team members to duplicate? Roadblock!! Or, so I thought. All I needed to do was learn all of it and then put it in a simplified version to all of my interested team members, right?

Many late nights of studying this type of marketing for prospects continued to solidify in my mind, this IS going to be the way to go, I must learn. I just need the right coach…someone who has positioned themselves as an expert on this info. I am going to become the expert in my field but to do that I needed the help of an expert in another field…makes sense. Just what the SCORE group said, I was beginning to believe that they actually knew what they were talking about. Wow, good advice for free, how uncommon.

There was a ton of information in the e-books I had ordered and the companies that I bought them from followed up with great emails about Social Networking. I was jumping all over the place trying to compile as much info as I could when BINGO…there it was!

A Social Marketing University, right there in one of my books. A University that I could join for only $40 a month that would teach me everything I needed to know, and in the order I needed to know it. They basically took my hand and guided me like I was a kindergartner through all of the different avenues I could use to market. They walked me through a step by step tutorial on setting up anything I was going to need to become successful at this. They also hooked me up with the right resources (priceless) that I would be using, and they taught me how to do all of this at a very minimal cost to me…most of it is free. They even taught me how to make money with some of these sites while I was prospecting so I could recover some of the costs I would incur, including the $40 monthly membership…this is called monetization, very powerful. Thank You Ann Sieg for leading me there!

Yes, it was time consuming to go through all of the modules but, when I think of the time & money I saved myself by letting them guide me through it…I am amazed. (not to mention I probably would have gotten too bogged down with my research before I succeeded, and put it on the back burner).

They set me up to succeed, which is exactly what I am doing. With my knowledge I can market how ever I want. I can market my product, my self and my opportunity all in a way that people come to me for these things. The days of talking someone in to joining my team are over! I have people that want to join my team that don’t even know what my product is. The University taught me that too. Like I said, a priceless tool.

Social Marketing is just the answer I was looking for, SCORE told me that for free and now I am doing the same, sharing good information! Nothing comes without some work but, the effort you put in up front with this program will certainly pay for itself over and over again. I love this quote…it makes all kinds of sense: If you get a chance, take it! If it changes your life, let it! No one ever said this would be easy, they just said it would be worth it.

Social Media Marketing Strategies – What You Need To Know

Like with running a marketing campaign elsewhere, you need to have a clear strategy when running a marketing campaign on social networking sites. Running a marketing campaign on social networking sites without a strategy will certainly not produce desired results. Ideally, it is the strategy that should drive your marketing campaign. Your strategy should be well thought out and be effective.

The first thing that you need to appreciate when it comes to setting your strategy is that it what will guide your marketing campaign on social networking sites. It is sort of a plan that shows you the correct path you need to follow in order to reach out to acquire as many business followers as possible in addition to driving social media users to your traditional business website. Failure to have a well thought out strategy in place simply means driving your campaign without any direction and you remain not sure on how your marketing campaign will end up.

The first step toward developing an effective social marketing strategy is in establishing your social media marketing objective. You simply will not be able to attain our marketing goal without establishing your goal. Note that your objective can be to generate new leads, increase number of followers on social networking sites, event promotion, attracting social media traffic to your traditional business website or promoting offerings.

A critical part of your marketing strategy should be to appreciate any effort (however small) your social media followers have made in sharing your marketing posts. It is very important that you employ an innovative way of appreciating your fans/followers for their effort. Use of analytic tools should allow you to ascertain successful conversions and amount of revenue you have generated.

Another critical part of your social marketing strategy should be how to measure your success. Unlike with other marketing channels, marketing on social networking sites is not for the purpose of making sales. This is so because marketing on social media sites is all about social networking. Social media users never visit the sites to shop for goods or services bit to connect with their friends. Your strategy should therefore aim at increasing awareness about your business or driving social media users to your traditional business website.

There are several ways through which you can effectively market your business on social media sites. A strategy you employ should be one that is not only cost effective but also very effective in yielding your desired results. You may need to appreciate the fact that developing an effective social marketing strategy can be a big challenge especially when yours is a small business. This is when the service of a social media marketing company becomes valuable. Although there are many such companies, you need to undertake careful search for the right company capable of developing an effective marketing strategy. Engaging the service of a company does not however mean leaving everything to the company. You need to work closely with a company you choose to engage in developing your strategy.