How to Turn Your Social Networking Friends Into Customers

Clearly social networking can take an awful lot of time. The question is, is it worth it? Will spending all that time doing social networking lead to an increase in sales? And the answer is, yes it can. But you need to be strategic about it -- just like you need to be strategic with all your marketing. And one way you can do that is to have a social networking landing page.

Isn't social networking fun? You get to meet all these people and connect with them and spend hours looking at their profiles and videos and photos and...

Okay, so clearly social networking can take an awful lot of time. The question is, is it worth it? Will spending all that time doing social networking lead to an increase in sales?

And the answer is, yes it can. But you need to be strategic about it -- just like you need to be strategic with all your marketing. And one way you can do that is to have a social networking landing page.

So what the heck is a social networking landing page? Well, it's a special page on your web site or blog designed specifically for your social networking folks. This special page continues the conversation you started on other social networking sites. (This is very important, you should always design landing pages as continuing the conversation started elsewhere, whether it's your prospects clicking on a Google ad or followers intrigued by something you tweeted about on Twitter.)

You see, many people send their social networking friends to the home page of their web site or their blog. And while that's not a terrible thing to do, you could definitely do better. You see, the home page of your web site or the first page of your blog is more general. It has to be. You don’t know how people are finding your site. They could be on it because they just heard you on a teleclass or read an article by you or someone referred you. You don’t know so you have to keep it pretty generic about the problems you solve and the solutions you provide (and of course, push them to give you their email address).

So by creating a landing page specifically for your social network buddies that continues the conversation already started in the social networking scene, you'll be that much closer to transforming them into eventual customers.

Okay, so what do you put on this social networking landing page? Do you try and sell them there?

In a word -- NO! Remember, social networking is all about building relationships and making connections. And, through those relationships people will naturally want to support you and become your customer. The last thing you want to do is send your social networking buds to a page and try to sell them.

(Now, that doesn't mean your page can't include a couple of links to some products so they can read more and buy, but no hard core selling.)

Instead, share more about yourself, your family, your interests and your business. Then invite them to give you their email address in exchange for a free gift from you.

By getting on your email list, you are now in a position to deepen the relationship. Along with getting your regular newsletter (you HAVE one, don't you?) which contains great information and content, you can also invite them to your free teleclasses, which also contain fantastic content but also includes an invitation for them to become a customer, or you send emails to them also inviting them to become a customer.

Social networking websites, they are all over the internet. While many would assume a large selection of networks is good, the selection often makes it difficult to find a quality social networking website. If you are interested in meeting new friends online, you are advised against signing up for just any social networking site that you come across.