Here’s a quick social media marketing tip for you: make a regular habit of jumping online and posting, at length, about the first things that come to mind. Just go ahead and grab that little filter in the back of your mind that tells you to hold back and crumple it into a little ball. In fact, the more personal, or damaging, material you can come up with, the better.

Don’t worry about it… your employer, business partners, and clients won’t mind one bit.

By now, you’ve surely figured out that I’m having a little bit of fun too. Most of us have figured out (and some of us the hard way) that what we post online isn’t ever really temporary. It can linger with us long after the instant we wrote or thought it in, and often without the sense of context and timing that were originally there.

A purported “guru” in social media recently wrote on Twitter: “Are you promoting your company, your brand, or yourself? All things being equal, people will do business with those they know, like, and trust. Therefore, you are more important than the company you work for, or the products you sell.” This blogger might believe that today, but I wonder if he’ll feel differently in a week, or month, when he can no longer find corporate clients willing to pay him to tell their employees to put themselves first and ignore the company mission. In other words, there’s a good chance he’s going to wish he could take that back.

Moments of extreme candor online at blogs and social media sites may not benefit you in the future. Talking about about personal issues, religious or political views may indeed alienate prospective clients or future employers.

The Internet has a much longer memory than most of us realize when we are using social media. You might think that because you’re not famous, or you aren’t baring your unmentionable parts on a webcam, that what you say or post isn’t going to follow you around. But your thoughts, opinions, and off-the-cuff remarks – especially the ones that aren’t going to look so flattering in the light of day – tend to do a good job of following you around.

What you Tweet, and what you post online, it’s probably going to hang around for a long time, or at least for a bit longer than you are going to be running wild on planet Earth. Keep that in mind, and use it as a guide to stop yourself from saying something that might cost you a friend, an account, a promotion, or anything else – now or years down the road.

As social media continues to pick up steam – not to mention hundreds of millions more users in every part of the world – a lot of small business owners are left wondering how to best take advantage of this trend.

What, they wonder is, what is the secret of social network marketing?

Like the sound of one hand clapping, the trick to getting social media to “work,” at least in terms of seeing real, tangible business results, is a mystical conundrum known and understood by few. But we’re going to let you in on the secret anyway. And that is… there is no secret.

The individuals and businesses who are actually profiting from social media sites usually aren’t doing anything special or fantastic; they were just amongst the first to get there, and continue to use them consistently and efficiently. That means they don’t logon to Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter simply to “make a few posts” – they do so every time with the intention of furthering their marketing goals and adding customers to their lists. That’s it.

Too much is made right now of what social media represents. It’s an important marketing tool, and one that continues to gain strength, but it’s hard for it to make a major impact in your business all on its own. If you really want to see the best results, you should be using it in conjunction with the other online tools at your disposal, like search engine optimization, pay per click advertising, strong landing pages, etc.

It might be a little anti-climactic to find out that there aren’t any hidden secrets to turning social media contacts into customers, no secret chants or meditations that will explode your online sales. But, as they say, it’s the truth that sets you free – or at least keeps you in business. The truth is that a Guru is traditionally an older man, exalted by his community, that has years of aged experience – a title that no Social Media Consultants in Calgary deserve. The fact is that I find the terms like “Social Media Guru” and “social media expert” cheap and demeaning. I refuse to compete on that level.

Wish you were getting more from social network marketing? See how easy it is to get help from the great team we have waiting for you – we’ve got the tools and experience to turn online friends into real world customers.  Reach out to me here, at this blog, or at our Calgary Web Design & Search Engine Optimization company.

Almost every business owner or marketer, when they start out with a social media campaign, is convinced that they’re going to have hundreds, if not thousands, of Facebook fans for their companies almost overnight. And yet, once they put up their profiles and get all the pieces in place, the result tends to be the virtual equivalent of crickets chirping, or tumble weeds blowing across dusty streets.

So the question, then, is this: why don’t you have more Facebook fans?

There are a lot of possible reasons, but over time we found that these four tend to stick out again and again:

Not enough people know about you. Few of us are same as those we think we are, or would like to be for that matter. Maybe that’s why the online crowds don’t come beating down the doors the second we open them. It takes time to build a following, so be patient and stay at it.

Your products or services just aren’t that great. In the same way, lots of us think we are a little more competitive than we actually are. We think what we sell is top notch; our customers feel like it’s middle-of-the-road. If you aren’t sure where you fall the marketplace, look yourself up on a review site, or send out an anonymous questionnaire to some of your customers. The feedback might be a little painful, but the truth will set you free.

You don’t have a great brand. This is a related, but separate, problem. Sometimes, what you sell is perfectly fine. However, because people think your company is boring, or “just another vendor,” they aren’t willing to devote the time and energy to connect with or follow you online. If that’s the case, the challenge is to develop a more interesting story and public image.

You don’t participate in social media enough. Just as most businesses don’t simply put out an “open” sign and get flooded with customers, neither is your profile going to attract followers and fans all on its own. Building a strong platform through social media takes time and patience, so do your best to chip away at it in the coming months and years.

If you need to increase the number of friends and fans – or new orders – your company is getting in social media, my partners and I have developed  programs designed just for you. Contact us today at 403-775-2230 or at contact our Social Media Consultants to find out how easy it is to get your online marketing back on track.