The ‘Who Factor’! Who are you and who are they….

If you are an active LinkedIn user searching for leads and customers you should not walk away disappointed. LinkedIn is for business and is not Facebook that mostly caters for friends and family. LinkedIn users arrive daily for one reason only, to grow their business. Are you experiencing that?

There are really only two reasons why you will find yourself in the dry land of Social Media. The first reason is: Who are you?

Do yourself a favor and look at your profile and ask yourself if you will be interested in you! So your picture is not clear and it was taken on a very bad day. Your headline declares that you are the CEO of AquaViva and you were very meticulous in listing every job you had, since you entered the job market 40 years ago. Listen we are all busy and if you do not grab my attention within 5 seconds ( forget about 30 seconds) I am gone searching for someone else to connect with.

Your profile should draw, attract others to want to stay there and learn more. First impressions last and are still valid. If you are on LinkedIn to grow your business so does others, now we have a bunch of sales people looking for leads all doing the same activity – online prospecting! To ensure that you attract attention quickly, the number one message that your profile must display within 5 seconds is: ‘I understand your pain / problem’ plus in the fine print here is why I should believe you. Being the CEO of AquaViva tells me nothing, I may not understand Latin. Plus you should avoid mentioning your solution, product or service upfront , it leaves an impression you care only about you.

The second reason your Social Media activities are nothing more than a waste of time is: who are they?

You are chasing numbers trying to get as many connections as you possibly can in the shortest timeframe possible.  Then daily you like and share their posts, you send them messages, join their groups and even publish a blog a day to add value to them. And they are just not interested in what you have, never were.

Without a clear detailed Customer Persona you should never connect with anybody on Social Media. You should understand exactly who your customers are and how you are going to find them on very busy social media platforms. Now I have seen many Customers Persona’s which is only a general keyword search and that won’t help you much. You need to know everything possible about your Customer. Their age, sex, believes, family structures, shopping habits, geographical data, online habits, online preferences etc. The more you know the more focused your efforts will be and success just around the corner.

Then suddenly your Social Media Marketing journey makes sense and delivers the results you are looking for. Your ideal customer will notice you and connect while you will engage only with those that are really interested in your business, services or products.

Of course there are more reasons for failing in your Social Media Marketing efforts but these are the fundamentals, get them wrong and nothing else matters. You will be the next Social Media Marketing failure!

So challenge me!

Hint: The more content you have online the more visible you become to your ideal customer. So leave a comment, something more than ‘Nice Article’ and build your online content; comments are content too…