Social network marketing: Beyond business, build community
NOTE — This is the tenth in a series on social network marketing. All the posts in the series can be found here.
At its best, social network marketing leads to the formation of a community. You have to do more than just provide advice on how to get income. Your worth should be measured in friendship not dollars.
The business objective of making money must be put aside so you can focus on bringing together a committed group of prospective buyers or partners.
The good news is that profits take care of themselves as your core group of associates strengthens. As people come together, a community forms.
One of the best ways to build that community is to help those involved to become better at what they do. To become better at what they do, they must first become better at who they are.
To help them accomplish this, a personal development element must be part of your system. In some ways, it will be the most vital component.
Personal development can be blended into your blog or set up separately. Either way it must include at these these elements:
• A set structure. Everyone in the group must be able to understand exactly what they should do to grow.
• A mastermind method. Those in the community must be able to share ideas and what they’re learning.
• A common focus. Everyone should be working together as they each seek to better themselves.
• A way to interact. This might be an Internet forum of some sort but will likely work best if it’s a conference call that allows more personal contact.
Once people start communicating with each other in this way, strong bonds start forming. This makes the difference in being part of just another group and connecting with a life-changing experience.
When people are transformed in such a fashion, they are committed for good.
Steve DeVane
3 thoughts on “Social network marketing: Beyond business, build community”
Very well put. Do you have any tips in our day to day operations that would help us to build this community? By day to day actions I mean. Do you have any pointers as to things we should do daily to build this community, ie. add friends, post articles, engage in conversations, etc.
@CurtClapier.com
Hi Curt,
Great question.
There are a number of ways to put this into practice. I know it sounds counterintuitive but the first advice I’d give you is to not add too many friends. A lot of gurus these days are advocating “building a list.” I think that’s OK for direct marketing but it’s a terrible idea for network marketing. You should only build a list if you’re not going to let your list get too large. You want to build relationships with folks and you can’t do that with thousands of people at once. I say more about toward the bottom of another post.
I also provide some more practical tips in this post.
I hope that’s the kind of info you need. If not, let me know and I’ll have another go at it.
Thanks for question and the comment.
Steve
Hello Steve, Great post! Implementing the mastermind group and continually improving can be worth millions over time. Well Done!