In most markets worth being in and with most sustainable business enterprise models, sales is not a single event, but a process. You firstly need to create awareness, then from that base, build trust, and only then finally make the sale. Do all 3 happen at one time for some people? Sure, but probably not for the bulk of customers.
A common issue with all the hype around social media is that most things that are popular on social media sites do not actually build credibility, and that you’re going to have minimal success building your brand if you start by concentrating on these broad 3rd party communities instead of YOUR TOPICAL COMMUNITY.
I can actually remember when there was no Digg. If you can make yourself comment-worthy many other people suddenly think you know what you are talking about and that you are trustworthy.
That perception of trust, audience, and personal-brand that someone else has spent years building can in some way be part transferred to you. Are you as well known as they are? Of course not, but while sites like Digg have an audience they tend to miss that perception of trust and personal-brand that channels customers to your site and converting them to sales.
Whenever someone who has trust and a broad base of readership recommends you that creates immediate sales. If you get featured on social media web sites it does not extend to many sales. Perhaps that exposure leads to awareness, which can further be heightened by writing about that community, buying banner ads from sites like Lead Back, or by writing other create subscription-desirable content, but broadly in article editorial, links from a trusted expert creates more sales than exposure on a nearly automated social news site.
If your site is new to the market and you need some exposure you have two options
- write a leading 10 step how-to guide on how-to polish widgets, or
- create things that people INSIDE YOUR COMMUNITY will find useful
One of those strategies will get you irrelevent interest , the other will make sales.
Filed under: marketing | Tagged: social bookmarking
