Once you have made the all important decision to use social networking platforms as part of your online marketing strategy for your internet marketing business. However first of all you must plan your strategy in great detail quite simply because when you do anything new you have to understand the rules of the game which in otherwords means you must understand your new internet marketing platform in order to produce an effective result when engaging with the others on the social networking platform. When the marketing platform is different your style needs to be different from your other marketing styles.

In the past with commercial marketing you will notice when the television commercial came onto the television the volume of the commercial marketing would always be much higher than that of the television program that is being shown. The reason for this is to make you stop what you are doing and get your full attention. However if you where to employ this marketing strategy on a social networking platform you would quite possibly end up accused of spamming. You see social networking is not about selling to people however it is about networking and builing relationships which is why relationships will have to be the main focus of your new internet marketing strategy allowing you to take full advantage of the mraketing opportunity that awaits you.

At this stage you now need to start thinking about preparing your buyer to take action, if you are utilising social networking properly it will build very strong relationships with your future customers therefore letting you prepare your customers to take much more action. Social networking should be looked upon like a community where you treat it almost like a sales funnel and start making friends with like minded individuals interested in your product or service. Of course the ultimate goal is to get these prospects signing up to your e mail marketing list once they have become your friend on Facebook. The idea then is everytime you correspond with them your relationship should develop further. Once they have been interested in yourself along with the product you offer for a while then they should be almost ready to buy which means they have now proceeded further into your sales funnel where they will either buy right now or take some more time.
When interacting with prospects on a social networking platform you need to look at gaining an understanding of your prospects buying habits. Now this can be done simply by comparing a purchase that you have made by just looking at what you wanted and what made you buy it right there and then. Then you should take a look at another time where you did not buy straight away, possibly because you had un answered questions preventing you such as “Can I afford it?”, “Will this be right for me?” and when you can match these buying habits to your prospects they will move further into your sales funnel.

It is at this point that we now look at who is interested in buying your product or service and also those who are no longer interested in buying. The people who are no longer interested in buying are definetely not going to go fully into your sales funnel purely because there would be no real purpose to it. However when it comes to those who are still interested in buying you must further build relationships with them, treat them as your community that have a great interest in you and the product you are selling. Those people are valuable because not everyone on a social networking platform will be interested in your niche which is why you have your sales funnel to sort out the proper qualified leads from those who are not. This process will now continually bring you an abundance of qualified leads on a regular basis which means alot of potential customers that are with you on your social networking platform everyday. Overall this will make it easier for you to build relationships therefore bringing them closer to saying yes to you and your product once you ask them to take action.

Potential buyers usually need to know several things before making a buying decision. They usually like to know all about you which comes also with self branding, if you are self branding properly then they will come to like and trust you which means they are not ready to make a buying decision. When it comes to filling the above criteria it is very easy with social networking because the relationship is started on the social networking platform which means you are continuously interacting therefore they start to like and trust you without feeling at all threatened by you. The only thing you need to do is continue to self brand yourself simply by being yourself and continue interacting with your prospects without giving them a sales pitch. Lastly just keep inviting people into your community so you can get to know them.

Hopefully now you will have an understanding of why Social Networking will benefit your online internet marketing business and with the internet constantly evolving it really is time to get involved. Create accounts at MySpace, Facebook and even twitter and simply spend time connecting with like minded people.

Regards Always

Mark McCulloch

http://www.AmazingExtraIncome.com – mark@markmcculloch.com

Internet Marketer and Entrepreneur, Committed to creating success

(UK) 07875 647 867 (Call Me Anytime), Skype – mark.mcculloch1