Putting yourself out in the public eye as one who is having fun is a good thing to do. Trying to push a solution on someone who doesn’t even know you is never wise.

The Internet is a great information medium. Facebook is a very useful communication medium among like-minded people .

There needs to be some form of automation to sift and sort through the millions of people who may, at one time or another, will be interested in our specific business. On the other hand, it’s hard to know on the ‘Net if you’re talking to a real person or a “Bot”.

Considering the expense and hassle of trying to keep up with the latest online technology, it is more and more appealing to return to using the telephone to prospect those who have asked for more information.

Back when I started online all we had was email and the phone. We didn’t have all the social networking communities like we do now days.

We still built relationships with people we met online and that can tend to take quite a bit of time. Some people I started a relationship with did not end up as a business partner for over six years and there are some who never have. We still keep in touch and that’s the important thing to remember. It’s about the relationship. Always stay in touch and do not burn bridges with people.

It’s the same with Facebook, Twitter, etc., it’s all about building relationships.

Personally I do not spend a great deal of time on Facebook or rely on that for building my business.

What I do is post to my blog and that is connected to Facebook, Twitter and other networking communities.

If someone wants to contact me after reading my blog they do, if not it’s ok. I don’t depend on this solely to build my business. If I did I’d be broke!

What I do for people is suggest a variety of marketing methods such as warm market locally, buying leads, or getting into ad coops, and online marketing if that’s something appealing to them.

I do not suggest just using one method like online marketing only or just using Facebook or social networking for building a business.

Most people you meet in these social networking communities already have a business. The thing is, when you build a relationship with someone and they know you are a servant leader who gives value, they may just look you up if they are in the looking zone. At least to ask your opinion.

Building strictly on the Internet now days can take a great deal of time to develop an actual business contact, because it’s a very cold market. I call it frozen.

Some people tend to spend a lot of their time in social networking because they are taught that this is the big trend and do not accomplish much in the way of increasing actual business volume.

In other words, they may not be increasing sponsoring or developing their income. They are however doing a lot of socializing so perhaps this makes them think that they are doing something productive.

Bottom line is how much are they increasing their business by socializing on Facebook and Twitter? Maybe that time could be better spent by calling people who have actually expressed an interest in the business right?

People do business with people they know like and trust. So that trust has to be built up whether it’s with leads or online doesn’t it?

Live Well & Prosper!
Sue

Word is that they’ll have to develop intelligent software that basically reads your posts (like gmail reads your email) then present ads that are targeted to what you’re posting.