Ask Bob The Teacher

You may have a feeling that social networking is a waste of time when it comes to business. Or perhaps that Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc., are all “kids stuff” for showing off the inane happenings of their lives.

The truth is, you’re right - if you don’t know how to properly use online social networking sites for business.

Used strategically, both Facebook and Twitter can be very effective tools for communicating your marketing messages to a larger audience. They are also excellent for connecting you with potential customers, and like-minded business people to share ideas with. You may find some viable partnerships form out of these sites.

The key aspect that makes social networking so attractive to business owners “in the know” is

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Sometimes I’m reminded how much fun it is to teach in front of a group of people.

Yesterday I had the opportunity (and challenge) to share my thoughts on why any business, online or offline, should be using social media for increased profits.

My talk included the following outline:

The complete presentation, including a few questions at the end was about 47 minutes. I took some of the pieces and created this 8 minute excerpt for you…

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I had a great mastermind lunch with my local group organized by my local Wilmington realtor, Alex Paen.

He set the topic today as lead generation strategies and how to get referrals. Now everybody at that meeting is an offline business professional. Home security, financial planning, lawyer/legal, insurance, etc.

So to help them understand how they can use internet marketing for their lead generation, and reduce their costs of customer acquisition, I created a mindmap (you know how much I love mindmaps!).

To make it as easy to understand as I could, I focused the map on the “big picture” so they could see the overall system, and what pieces should be put into place over time. Figured you’d probably get a lot of use out of it as well.

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My Twitter friend and Master Facebook teacher Mari Smith wrote an excellent article about using Facebook for business. Here it is:

10 Reasons to Use Facebook For Business
By Mari Smith

Social networking websites, especially Facebook, have significant implications for business owners, marketers, and entrepreneurs. To keep your business current, you should at least be familiar with the latest conversational marketing techniques and viral technologies, including Facebook and its array of powerful features.

Here are ten reasons to be active on Facebook:

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