Metaphor of Social Media Sign Posts
A common phrase used in social media marketing is "erecting sign posts".
You're "directing" and "leading" your prospects to you through all the sign posts you've put up on the Web.
The idea is to create profiles and content that guides your prospects over time to like you, to trust you, to want to follow you. They begin to enjoy your voice, your approach, your useful ideas, comments, suggestions, recommendations.
Over time they begin to trust that the information you provide is not blatantly self-serving, but rather is valuable to the community you've built.
Allow me to give an example:
Brad and I have created a web business of digital informational products aimed at two different markets - executive job seekers and executives/managers hiring top talent. Through a couple of hours a day of work, we are now driving 3000 people a day to our site, we're generating a massive list of individuals interested in follow-up and interaction, and we're beginning to see a decent revenue stream. Our goal is to build this to 10,000 per day within 6 months and 100,000 per day within 12 months.
Brad and I have spent 6 months erecting "sign posts", including doing a one hour internet radio program per week, and then sending that into iTunes and repurposing it for YouTube. We blog regularly and repurpose that content into articles. We feed our content into LinkedIn, other blog distribution sites, and Facebook. We have emails that automatically go out in various sequences to those who've given us permission to communicate.
What's the result? We've built a business with very little investment that is already starting to generate decent financial results. We're doing it on an international level in a broad market like job search or hiring. In just 6 short months, we've established ourselves as one of the dominant authority sites in those two niches.
Here's the best news: these concepts are even more valuable and easier to implement in a local market, such as the niche of CEOs and Presidents needing business advice and coaching that you might be focusing on as a Chair.
In future posts, we'll explore how to create these "sign posts" in your local market, whether it be Lancaster, PA or Fontana, CA.
What are you doing right now to create these sign posts on the Web that point back to you in your local market?
Barry Deutsch
Photo courtesy of jtuason
