The secret sauce
I am a woman of my word and so here is the first ingredient in the Social Media Secret Sauce….YOU.
I was being tongue-in-cheek when I called it magical (you knew that, right?) because there isn’t anything magic about it except what you bring to the front with your personality.
You are the magic.
Now the question is, “how do I bring my personal type of magic to the front to help me with social media marketing?” The answer to that is, find your voice.
What is your niche? Who are you hoping to attract as clients and customers? What are you passionate about in your career? What do you bring to your clients that no one else can replicate? Where is your source of energy?
The answers to these questions may overlap or they may all be different, but they will help you to focus your attention to your “magic”.
This voice is the one you will use as your guidepost in social media. It will help you decide what blog posts are most important, who you are following on Twitter and what message you are trying to keep front of mind with your social media sphere.
The next step is the biggest
After you know what your voice is, the next step is the biggest: be tenacious. It takes time to build an effective social media marketing plan and even more time to implement the plan and even MORE time to see even a small result. This isn’t an overnight event, this is an investment in your future business that will take very little money, but lots of attention and time.
I started my journey a couple of years ago. It took about six months before I started to see some traction and it was a year before real viable leads came my way. I did this without much guidance because I was an early adopter. Maybe you can do it faster with the advice of those that come before you.
Two years into my plan, I have concrete results each week. Just yesterday a buyer called me after reading some of my blog posts and asked me to be her buyer’s agent. The results of a social media plan can be far reaching and very lucrative when you follow your voice.
Last week I had a double sided closing. The listing was a short sale and the seller found me after using Google to research short sales in Western Massachusetts and reading my blog posts. She had been turned away by two other agents in the area and was using Google to find help. I listed the home and a first time home buyer found me through my internet marketing. His offer was accepted by Bank of America (after a Twitter intervention). In the process of showing this home three buyers decided this property wasn’t the one for them, but asked me to represent them as their buyer’s agent. Last month the seller’s boyfriend has listed his house with me. All of those leads off of my blog posts.
All it cost me was some time and a lot of effort.
A social media plan isn’t something that you can set and forget. It is a change in prospecting mentality from outbound to inbound marketing and it takes dedication and determination to the effort. You won’t need to spend much money, but you will invest greatly if you want to see success.
Bippety Boppety now get to workety!
CC Licensed image courtesy of faeriequeen via Flickr.com.
