How many people can you engage with on a monthly basis in your social networks? How many followers, friends, or fans are too many? While these answers will vary greatly, depending on a number of factors including product and your geographical reach, I want you to keep one word in mind: Engagement.
By engagement I am referring to the people you can reach on a personal level. I’m not referring to a tweet that may or may not reach the 2000 people that are following you but a message written, a link given, or even a video posted with the target being one person in particular. If your goal is to build a win-win relationship with people in your LOCAL market your social media success lives and dies by the number of engagements you are able to participate in on a daily, weekly and monthly basis.
Be consistent in your engagements. Listen to what others are talking about, what they are interested in and then respond in kind. Be on the look out for needs and then find a way to fill them. If you see that one of your friends on Facebook is in need of a chiropractor and you know of one, especially if it’s a chiropractor in your online social network, introduce them.
Robert Cialdini’s Law of Reciprocity states that people tend to return the favor. What this means is the chiropractor whom you referred will feel obliged to return the favor as well as the person whom you referred him to.
We can take that another step further with a question that Bob Burg says will separate the pros from the amateurs, as it relates to creating referrals, in his book Endless Referrals.
“How can I know if someone I am speaking to is a good prospect for you?”
Burg goes on to say that one of the reason why this is such a powerful question is because you have given the person the feeling and knowledge
- A MUST Read
that her success is going to increase simply by associating with you. (I highly recommend you read Endless Referrals, click on the book cover to learn more. It’s NOT an affiliate link)
If you are going to use this question, and I highly recommend that you do, then make sure that you mean it. After all engagement is all about building relationships and the best kinds are always win-win.
Be Consistent in Your Engagements
Don’t be hit and miss. Be consistent while building relationships and watch your influence grow. You should spend more time engaging than you do in building the number of followers and friends you have. While reach is important, like when trying to sell a book, the quality of the influence you have with people is even more important.
If your goal is to win over your target market and to take market share from your competitors then take the time to interact one-on-one. You don’t have to spend the better part of your day doing this and you certainly don’t have to engage everybody everyday but if you get into the habit of consistently engaging the people in your social networks you will soon reap the benefits.
What do you think? How do you engage the people in your social networks?
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