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Helpful Content Social Media Marketing

by Ruud Hein


When we asked how to start doing online marketing we saw that the traditional hard-sell method of one message fits all is based on creating a need (singular) while good online marketing branding works with answering needs (plural).

The time and energy we use to find and track online company mentions and the needs/questions as expressed by our users or potential clients is time we invest in finding needs vs. creating needs. As such our investment is transposed: there's no loss of time or money.

Can I Use Social Media To Sell Online?

You found someone who either mentioned your company or product or expressed a need you can answer.

Traditionally speaking at this point you would jump on the prospect, start your sales pitch, create or confirm the need and then offer your product as The Solution.

You can still do that in the new model and it certainly will lead to sales.

Why? Simply because you're there at the right moment (the need!) at the right time (now!).

But it's a one-on-one model that has no built-in growth. You're still only talking to immediate, first tier prospects and clients.

Social Media for Marketing through Helpful Content

Using the Twitter tracking tools discussed we find this tweet:

The mushroom strategy now is to turn this need into Helpful Content.

We can publicly reply to this tweet with questions like; what do you need to backup? Programs or documents? Do you need to have archived versions available?

Down the Twitter conversation line you can introduce your backup solution but beware – if another solution is better suited to her needs, say so!

You can also use the tweet as the seed of an article or blog post: "Online Backup for the Office". In it you can answer the questions you asked Ms. Keyes. What are the differences between private and office/business backups?

The key is to be genuinely helpful and put the other's needs first

Recommended follow-up reading:

Transforming a Company Blog Into a Community Destination (Elizabeth Able)
Microblogging: The Internet’s Best Brand Advocate Builder (David Snyder)
How to Build Up and Participate in Social Network Communities (Kimberly Krause Berg)
Twitter Case Study of a Commercial “Non Big Brand” (Rae Hoffmann)
Building Your Online Credibility (Celine Roque)

Images courtesy of eschipul and, via a screenshot of her tweet, Audrey Keyes

From the series: Identifying & Answering Needs

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15 fascinating comments

Awesome post, Ruud.

I think some businesses are so anxious to make a sale that they jump right into a sales pitch instead of being honest and offering the best solution to the problem. These businesses should keep in mind that social media is all about building relationships & earning trust with the consumers…this will keep them coming back to you for all their answers, products, services, etc… regarding that particular niche. :)

Enjoy your weekend, Ruud.

Shana Albert  #

[...] Helpful Content Social Media Marketing – great post on how to find people who need help through social media.  [...]

SEO, Social Marketing, and Blogging Wisdom  #

I learned to not just market on social media…but take part in others postings. Plus, if you want your post to have a chance to be popular, look on the frontpage to see what is, then write something similar to it and email it out to all your friends to check out as a favor to give it some juice to start moving up the rankings…be sure to get a text link back to your site in it.

Sweet and Outlaw  #

The merits and uses of twitter has been eluding me, however articles like this serve to enlighten me more and more…interesting idea of using a tweet as a seed…it even rhymes!

SEO Tips South Africa  #

Too often I see companies creating Twitter accounts just to shout their message. They don't realize they need to converse first and ease in their message.

Utah SEO  #

This is a great post. Will help convince my internet marketing clients that the hard sell sales copy is en vogue and that that they are better off highlighting the value for the end user.

Justin  #

Excellent point. I think in any business you're going to be better off not taking the "hard sell" approach. I spent some (unfortunate) time in the mortgage business and all my peers were pushing the hard sell. Ultimately they all went out of business…except the ones who built the trust of clients through newsletters or something like that. A lot of them are still in business because they built that relationship up over time and it's much stronger as a result.

WordPress Tutorials  #

In the world of today where instant and quick results are expected, people tend to resort to some unethical means to get the desired results. They fail to realize that the long term loss that they might incur.

Vol Cars  #

[...] Helpful Content Social Media Marketing on SearchEnginePeople. Ruud Hein with nice post here answering how to find people who need help through social media. We have decided to link ten articles per day in our link love posts. So, we can’t cover more posts and some posts are get left which worth to be linked. If you feel that your article need to be linked and our editors like them then we will add them in our next day link love posts. Kindly mail me at vikram.prashant@gmail.com [...]

Link Love – Tuesday 11/11/2008  #

Obviously, through social media marketing you can increase traffic for your site. By this you can also increase in sales. Content Social Media Marketing is the best way to dictate here by SEP. Thanks Ruud hein..

Allvira  #

Providing answers helps me to convert 'friends' to customers and prospects

Obama 2.0 Marketing  #

I agree about Social Media Marketing will probably increase sales', 'cause naturally if we succeed with our SEM it's naturally increase traffic.

Busby SEO Test  #

Building relationships is one of the kind that we need for Social Media Marketing.

fun info  #

Social Media is like a golden bird, I mean hard to catch or hold but it does pay off when it's with you!

Abdulrehman  #

More and more articles about use of social media are coming out. It is a subject everyone is talking about in IT world and I agree it has its uses. However, we can’t rely only on social marketing; other methods have to be deployed.

Konek  #

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