Online Relationships & Reputations

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Using Social Media Marketing simply as a means to blast out your message to everyone you’re connected with is not recommended if you want to build fruitful relationships with them, nor is it a wise strategy if you value your online reputation.

And yet I see people doing it all the time – tweeting, blogging and emailing ‘Buy My Stuff’ messages at irritatingly frequent intervals (they have unfortunately discovered the automated tools after all).

Fortunately, with a little forethought and strategic planning, it can all be so different.

3 Tools to Manage Online Relationships

• Email marketing – Provide valuable information and remember to keep the ratio of Information : Promotion to 70:30.  If people have entrusted you with their email address, don’t make them regret it.
• Use Twitter @ messages – Use the @ function to engage people in conversation.  If all you do is broadcast your own messages and links, you may soon find there’s no-one listening to you.
• Blog comments – use the power of the internet to engage with others and congratulate bloggers on their hard work.

3 Strategies to Build your Online Reputation

• Share – Retweet other people’s posts.  Be generous and don’t hog the limelight.
• Help – Answer questions (on LinkedIn and Twitter), add considered thoughts in the form of blog comments.  Become a respected source of wisdom and contributor to discussions.
• Inform – Share your best stuff on your blog and in your newsletters.  Give it away for free, you’ll be pleasantly surprised by what comes back as a result.

Social Media Marketing is such a wonderful way for small businesses to communicate and engage with much larger and more diverse audiences than was possible a few short years ago.  But it can be unforgiving to those who approach it with a self-serving attitude.

It’s true that developing online relationships and building a reputation to be proud of both need working at – but the opportunities that result definitely outweigh the effort!

What’s your experience? Do share in the comments below – and if you found this post helpful, we’d very much appreciate a RT or ‘like’