One of the things I work on with clients is online platform building. In my view, an integral part of any online platform is the seamless integration of social media and blogging. I believe giving due care and attention to these two ‘layers’ of your marketing funnel is crucial in developing an ongoing relationship with your audience, which ultimately results in generating business over the long-term.
Unfortunately, many clients who come to me for help have yet to learn how to make this dance between blogging and telemarketing data social media work. Many have been exposed to the philosophies of ‘old school’ Internet marketers, who encourage aggressive marketing strategies that are based upon numbers, manipulation and formulae rather than on people, conversation and relationships. Still more have become victims of marketing scams, such as promises of a guaranteed number of ‘followers’ on their list or social media accounts…for a fee, of course.
There are many so-called ‘marketers’ (although calling them ‘marketers’ is tantamount to believing the proverbial ‘wolf in sheep’s clothing’ is actually a sheep) on both Twitter and Facebook who claim they have a genuine database of people who are ready and willing to follow, like and love you. They will tell you they have all kinds of advanced algorithms and blah, blah, blah, designed to target valid leads to you. They promise you that $250 (or whatever amount) will get you, say, 1,000 new followers, and $500 will get you more.
Now, I’ve been doing book and product launches for the past 8 years and I can tell you unequivocally that there is no way on the face of the earth that you can PROMISE a fixed number of people will opt in to any offer – free or not. There are simply too many variables. Some of these include things in which I have little or no influence, such as company branding and the rapport between the client and their audience. If the client’s branding and rapport are not cohesive, consistent, qualitative and engaging, it is unlikely any kind of marketing campaign is likely to ‘inspire’ others to follow them. While I might set a target to get 5,000 new followers on my client’s social networks or mailing list, there is no way anyone can ‘guarantee’ this will happen.
