Without his extensive use of Social Media Barack Obama would not be the president of the United States Today. From a relatively unknown senator to his meteoric rise to the presidency of the United States, Barack Obama was able to harness the powerful new medium of Social Media to propel himself into one of the most powerful positions in the world. The numbers are staggering, at the time of his election Barack Obama had over 3.1 million fans on his Facebook page, John McCain just 614,000. But he didn’t stop there, his YouTube channel had over 20 million views and just over 825,000 friends on Myspace. Social Media is word of mouth advertising on steroids, how many people on these networks do you think spread the word about Barack Obama? It doesn’t matter if you agree with his politics or not, what matters is that he and his team were able to build “relationships” with people on a grass roots level that got people talking, and talking they did! In fact if you take into consideration that the average Facebook user has 130 friends then Obama’s “friends” had a sphere of influence of just over 400 million combined! If that’s not impressive then I don’t know what it. A lot of businesses try to jump on the Social Media bandwagon by converting their traditional advertising models into digitizing form by placing ads all over their Facebook profile, Myspace page, Tweets and YouTube videos. This is the equivalent of walking up to a very large group of friends, in the middle of conversation, and trying to pitch your product. What do you think their reaction would be? Social Media was developed out of our desire to be social, to build relationships and keep in touch with friends and family. Why then would you try to turn it into an advertising medium? Correct, you wouldn’t. Why do so many try?

Social Media was developed out of our desire to be social, to build relationships and keep in touch with friends and family.

The best way to harness the power of Social Media is to use it the same exact way that everybody else is and that is to use it to build relationships. Traditional advertising methods are used to get people interested in a certain brand, and it takes time to build top of the mind awareness and even more money. With Social Media you can build relationships at an unbelievable pace if you play it smart and Barack Obama is proof of that. Always, Always, Always remember that people would much rather buy from other people than from a brand.

So How Does That Help Me Sell Cars

How doesn’t it help you sell cars? Let me ask you this question, “Would the people closest to you, your friends and family, buy a car from you when they’re in the market for one?” Of course they would and you wouldn’t have to remind them every day that you sell cars either would you? No you wouldn’t. In fact it would be an easy sell because they trust you, because you have built a relationship with them on some level whether they’re a friend or a family member. That’s the same way I want you to look at Social Media, as building relationships. Find your voice, be you and make friends. Give without expecting and talk about what you do only 15% of the time. If you’re in any kind of sales, not just car sales, you are in the people business, never forget that. Being in the people business you must learn how to build lasting relationships, so all I’m asking you to do is to do what you have always done, nothing more and nothing less. A lot of people will look at Twitter, at Facebook and YouTube as a waste of time. They’ll say that you can’t make a living from spending time on these sites but I’m here to say they’re wrong! Social Media isn’t going anywhere, in fact it’s getting bigger and pretty soon people will ONLY buy from people in their network.

At the time of writing this Facebook has over 300 million users and it’s growing every day. Twitter is doubling in size every 90 days and every minute there are 20 hours of video uploaded to YouTube! This is one trend that you can’t afford to miss. Did you know that the average internet user spends 19 minutes a day on Facebook but only 3 minutes on Google? What are you waiting for, this is one big bandwagon!

Don’t let the technical aspect of Social Media stop you from jumping in and getting familiar with it. These sites are designed to be user friendly, just the other day my grandmother asked to be my friend on Facebook… my GRANDMOTHER! In fact there are many tutorials and blog posts, videos and ebooks that will teach you how to technically set up these networks. In fact odds are that you already have a Facebook Page or are already using Twitter and if you aren’t you know somebody that is and if so ask them to show how to use the service. As I said in the previous paragraph these services are very easy to use, it’s HOW you use them that I want you to be careful with. Everything you say, every word you type, every video you post is saved. It’s on a network somewhere for people to pull up and see. If you are having a bad day, stay away. Be positive, give to and help as many people as you can. Be a friend. Do what you know how to do. Build relationships and be personal.

Rule of Thumb: NEVER pitch yourself or your product before you have the right to do so. Relationships first, then have at it.

If you are ready to implement advanced social media strategies in your business, strategies that reach out to your community and builds lasting relationships that turn into paying customers, contact me HERE for a free strategy session. Want to be Alerted of Future Posts? Subscribe with your email address Below: