Just like the song says, you gotta have friends. Friends are there to help seed your Farmville gardens and help destroy the forces of evil in your Mafia Wars. Friends are there to retweet the URL of that “not safe for work” Lady Gaga video you managed to sneak peek while the boss wasn’t looking, and you can always count on them to “like” your Facebook status every time you come up with a whimsically snarky comment about which Real Housewife of Boise is sporting fake…well, let’s say enhancements. In this age of social media, everybody has the potential to be your friend, even people you don’t know and may never meet in your lifetime.
So comes the dilemma as you approach your social marketing strategy: do you grow your Twitter or Facebook page following naturally, hoping that people you do know will recommend you and your business to others, or do you embark on the aggressive vaccum cleaner process of sucking in every profile in sight? If numbers are the only thing that concern you, there are ways to amass plenty of warm bodies. People sell services that strictly invite Facebook “friends” and mass follow Twitter users that automatically refollow. For as little as fifty bucks you could have the ears and eyes of thousands of people, but are they really paying attention?
Consider for a moment the pros and cons of the guerrilla invite. We’ve discussed this topic before, but it’s one worth revisiting as ideas on social networking change. If you don’t switch gears as you promote, it means you haven’t grown in your strategy, and it’s good to weigh all options. With the blind follow of Twitter users, for example, you could match your follow count to your followed by as many as six figures if you wish. If those followers boast the same volume, there is the likelihood your tweets are lost in a sea of other updates, but one can also argue that by following a good number of re-follows there is the possibility your message will be seen by people who wouldn’t otherwise follow you naturally. You had to find them first, then they become interested.
Same goes with Facebook and even LinkedIn. With the latter, there are groups solely designed to connect “open networkers,” people who will connect to you regardless of your industry. As a writer and social marketer, it might benefit me to network with as many people as possible because ultimately every industry will need marketing help, right? Gaining more connections increases my chances of finding work. However, for the niche business you might not benefit as much, unless one connection happens to know of somebody interested in what you do.
Where Facebook is concerned, triggers are in place to reign in your mass friending activities. Unless you know one of those magical loopholes to gain five thousand friends in one fell swoop, you might be better off approaching people slowly. To be certain, there are accounts created strictly to sell and spam, which won’t do you much good when you try to sell. However, in a sea of kelp you’re bound to catch a few fish.
So, how do you approach networking? Is it better to throw everything you have against the wall and see what sticks? Do you take out a thinner brush and draw out a more thoughtful plan? Look at what you’ve done to start, and if it hasn’t worked you might consider bolder measures. Experiment with different lighters to see what sparks the fire in your campaigns.
Please check our Social Media Pricing, Reputation Management Pricing andSocial Media A La Carte Pricing to choose the right social media strategy for your profile or business.