Stop Selling! Social Media is for Creating Relationships Through Communities

Social media marketing must be approached very different than traditional marketing. You should not login with the intent to sell your roofing products or hail storm repair services - instead, you should login to create relationships through communities. If people feel you are part of their community they will support you and recommend you to their peers, colleagues and friends. Word-of-mouth marketing at its very best!

Here are 6 simple tips to get you started on creating relationships using social media:

Dedicate Resources
Building relationships in social media requires resources (both time and people). You need to dedicate the time of a person (or team of people) who are responsible for communicating with your network. This person (or persons) should read status updates/Tweets, read blogs, manage friend lists, write comments, join groups, upload photos, participate in forums, write blog posts, field questions, etc. - in other words, be active.

Be Real
Building relationships in social media requires trust. Be yourself, and let your employees be who they are as representatives of your company. Building fake profiles, writing fake reviews and blogs, lying about who you really are, etc. are pointless activities and a waste of time. Don’t underestimate the intelligence of your connections - they can smell a fake a mile away and will crucify you when you are found out.

Communicate Early & Often
It doesn't matter if you send email newsletters, write blog postings, update your status, send a Tweet, or post to a group discussion, be sure you are communicating. By communicating early you can get a jump start on topics that are hot in the industry and respond to them a lot earlier than your competitors. Communicating often helps to build relationships with your audience that they can trust you will be there and will inform them of the valuable information they need or are looking.

Get Involved
Don’t just post links to your blog posts, website pages or press releases. People will start to ignore you because it’s not a two-way conversation. Get involved with your community - if people are looking for assistance, point them in the right direction. If someone posts something funny, interesting or personal, Like it, comment on it, re-Tweet it, etc. That will gain you much more respect rather than slapping a link to your website that isn’t related to what they asked.

Reward Your Audience
As much as you are involved in building relationships in social media, so is everyone you are connected to. Your audience is also spending time and effort to post updates, leave comments, write blog posts, do research to answer questions, establish new connections, and so on. Reward them for their time and effort by personally thanking them for doing so.

Remember to Listen
Building a relationship requires that you listen more and talk less. As much as you want to spend time promoting your products and services, that is the last thing you should do on social media. This forum offers a unique opportunity for you to get real reactions, learn about real issues or problems as well as successes straight from your customers’ perspectives without the stigma of a focus group where people think they need to give you the answers you want to hear. It is amazing what you can learn just by listening to what your customers are saying. Take the time to read their posts, the comments they leave on your blog, their Tweets, what they say in reviews, etc.

If you have any questions about this blog post or would like to discuss strategies for improving your social media marketing, please contact Chris@RoofPal.com.