Dennis Yu recently visited Social Media Dallas to kickoff a series of Special Interest Workshops. He spent two days teaching our group everything from Facebook ads and lessons learned at American Airlines, to how to save time by rollerblading between meetings.
It would require an entire book to cover every topic he shared, but I want to focus on three great points he made about building your personal or company brand. Don’t worry — these strategies don’t require you to spend more time focusing on your brand. In fact, it’s just the opposite.
Stop Wasting Time on People Who Don’t Care
If you’ve taken the time to define your niche, you’ve discovered that not everyone is a good prospect for your product or service. In fact, you probably know within the first minute of the conversation whether they’d be a good client.
The problem comes when you know they aren’t a good prospect, but you can’t stand the thought of them not seeing the value in your company. Suddenly, you’re widening your message to appeal to them and before you know it, your diluted message resonates with no one.
The ultimate goal is to get the right people in your funnel and keep the wrong people out. You’re wasting your time if you’re focusing on prospects who don’t need your product.
Remember Your Clients Are Your Biggest Asset
When we think Facebook ads, we often think about targeting new audiences. It’s easy to forget our existing clients, but nothing is more powerful than their word-of-mouth influence. If you’re buying a new widget, who would you be more likely to believe: the salesman trying to sell you the widget, or a friend of yours recommending the widget? Your current clients’ word-of-mouth influence is far more powerful than anything you can say.
Don’t ignore your biggest advocates. Use Facebook ads and promoted posts to put your interesting and relevant articles in front of them. Not only does this keep you top of mind and reinforce your brand, it also gives them an easy way to share your content.
You can apply this strategy for a dollar per day in Facebook ads. Start by promoting a post using “Workplace and Company Position” targeting.
Forget About Scaling Until You Can Do This
A lot of people don’t like the term “personal branding” because they think it sounds selfish and fake. And I tend to agree, most of it is — if you’re doing it the wrong way. Like anything else, there’s two sides to the coin.
Instead of focusing on how to make yourself look better, focus on helping others get ahead. (If that sounds like something from How to Win Friends and Influence People, it is. That book is almost eighty years old but it’s still relevant today.) You can’t reach your goals alone and no one wants to help someone who’s always focused on himself.
“How do I improve my Facebook/Twitter page?” is one of the most common questions I receive. If you want to improve your social media presence, stop trying to scale relationships and start giving real answers. Start doing things that WON’T scale.
Like Dennis said, “When you strip all the B.S. from social media, it’s obvious it’s really about humanity.” Take the time to personally respond to someone in a way that can’t be mistaken for a template.
