Social marketing theory is actually quite simple. All these marketing agencies and advertisers are trying to tell you that it is a great job and that it costs a lot of money. The truth of the matter is that social marketing is about making friends. As simple as that.
What happens when you overcomplicate social marketing is that you start to piss people off. In a short time they will stop following you or they will stop being your friends because you do nothing but try to sell them. If you’re looking for mass signups, mass visits from people, mass search for friends, or anything else other than opting into email marketing, you’re approaching social media the wrong way.
The idea behind social marketing is really threefold:
- Find people like you with the same interests.
- Form relationships with those people.
- Treat everyone with respect
Now take a look at where marketing comes into that equation. it doesn’t
Social marketing theory is about being a better friend and forming better relationships than anyone else. What happens when you build good relationships is that those people buy from you, recommend you, and send all their friends to do business with you.
In fact, I like to think of social media as the simplest subscription service in the world. Instead of signing up twice and opening email clients, all people have to do is press a button to follow you or send a friend request. Now, you have entered your stream of thought. They can see everything you post for the rest of your fans.
So for everyone trying to build an email marketing list, you need to realize that social media is really just the first step. If they start following you and realize you’re an expert, they’ll start paying attention to you. Now, I’m not saying you can never promote people on social media, but do so in moderation. The ratio should be 5 to 1. Five non-marketing messages for one marketing message.
Actually the theory of social marketing is that simple. Be a good friend, treat people well, be interested, and gain a following like no other (except maybe Tony Robbins).
