Five Powerful Ways to Complete the Circuit with Social Media.
Completing the circuit, closing the loop, or sealing the deal: they’re all ways to say the same thing. My clients always want to know the best ways to get the most out of social media, so here you go.
Search for Your Blog Post Title
If you’re a blogger, you want to know who’s talking about you, and where. It’s not always easy to tell on Google Analytics. But when you do a search within a platform, you can often tell right away. Not everyone will tag you when they retweet or repost your article or infographic. If you have a unique title, searching is much easier. Then you can reach out, thank, and connect with those people. Search within Twitter, Pinterest, or Facebook (or whichever platform you’re using). And search in several different ways. For instance, use both “Five” and “5” if your headline has the number in it.
Photo by perzonseo 
Develop Power Partners
Power partners are those who have similar businesses, but are not in competition with you. Find these people, befriend these people, and keep in touch with these people. They may be able to give you referrals! You can connect with these people on whichever social network they’re on. Here are some good ideas for social media power partners: Do You Have Social Media Power Partners for Your Small Business?
Follow Up
Following up is not given enough credit. Depending upon who you talk to, you need to have 7-9 “touches” before someone buys your product or service. People are busy. They might have forgotten to answer your tweet or post or call you. So contact them instead. By the way, here’s a post on follow up that you might like from Forbes: How To Master The Art Of Networking Follow-Up.
Contact People Where They Have the Fewest Connections
Say you want to connect with an author, but that author has 25,000 followers on Facebook. But on Twitter? Her audience is much smaller. So if you can, go where that person has the smallest audience for the best chance to make contact. You might like, retweet their content, then open a conversation. And don’t forget to be generous first!
Meet in Person
This might sound strange, but the best thing to do once you really know someone well on social media is to meet in person. Social media will only take you so far, and for a lasting connection it’s best to meet in person! You might like The Surprising Importance of the Offline Meeting, by the way.
How have you completed the circuit on social media? Let me know in the comments! And thanks!
Hi Carol
My most successful social media tactic is simply to engage with my target audience. My aim is not to sell myself, I just try to start a conversation and see where that takes me. Many times this leads to nothing. But sometimes I strike gold and that makes it all worthwhile.
Striking up a conversation with people who’ve shared my posts is a also good one. I’ve had some success doing that.
Great post as always!
Clement
Hi Clement,
Excellent tactic! And a good conversation doesn’t usually begin with selling, but with simple engagement. We all get tired of people wanting to sell us something. I’ve found the same thing to be true: start with a conversation.
Those who share posts have at the very least seen your headline and have some interest.
Thank you for your consistency. I’m always happy to share your posts (is that a tactic?), since you always have so many good ideas.
Carol
Love the ideas in this post! I need to work on being more intentional and mindful about “Power Partners.” So many times the most wonderful partners have found ME or we’ve stumbled into the same space and found each other. I need to work on making a real effort to find and cultivate relationships with folks who can collaborate with me. Thank you, Carol!
Hi Lynn,
Finding collaborators and power partners are one of the best uses of social media! It does lead to ROI, and I think sometimes it’s one of the forgotten elements and what makes social media so amazing! Who are your power partners? Maybe teachers or professors, once their students have graduated, could be good? High school guidance counselors? I’m just guessing here. You probably know a lot better than I do.
Anyway, you’re welcome, and thanks for stopping by!
Carol
Hi Carol,
I appreciate all the thoughtful recommendations in the post.
I also like what I’ve read in the comments.
I too need to think about the power partner recommendation.
Thanks again,
Patricia
Hi Patricia,
You’re so welcome for all the recommendations.
Let’s see, for you, maybe gift shops or cafes could use some of your items. I like your newest blog post about creating memories with jigsaw puzzles. I think some of them could even be used for people with memory loss. There aren’t that many “adult” puzzles, so that might be a niche for you.
Thanks for dropping by!
Carol