Tom Melvin

Social networking sites give businesses the possibility of reaching thousands of people very quickly. You can use blogs, podcasts, articles, and discussion boards to engage potential customers. You will attract people to your site when you give them information they want. That’s attraction marketing: you establish relationships with your audience, eventually turning prospects into customers.

Attract, Don’t Advertise

While social networking sites are among the best ways to market a business, they are not for advertising. Each site has its own rules about what types of direct advertising it allows. Direct advertising is self-promotion, which social networking sites strongly discourage. That’s why attraction marketing is the way to use the power of social networking to enhance your business.

Provide Information with Podcasts

A podcast is an audio or audio/video file distributed over the Internet. You upload the podcast; listeners download it and play it at their convenience. Podcasts are a great tool for attraction marketing on social networking sites because:

• You can target messages to various groups of customers, prospects, or contacts.
• You can provide information your customers or prospects will find interesting, helping to establish you as a trusted expert.
• People can listen to your message while they do other things.

New services let you can create your own podcast with no technical knowledge and at very low cost. Several podcast and social networking sites (Gcast.com, blogtalkradio.com, clickclaster.com, gabcast.com, to name a few) make it easy to set up a podcast using a microphone and a PC or even just a telephone.

Blog for Your Business

A blog gives you a chance to present information and communicate with other people on an ongoing basis. On a social networking site, you can have your own blog and you can contribute to the blogs of other people. Remember that what you write reflects on you and your business. Make your posts truthful, useful, concise, and polite. Rude, spamming, or inappropriate posts will turn your customers off and could get you kicked off the site.

Blogs also play an important role in attraction marketing. Reading the posts of people in your audience base tells you about their concerns and needs. You can then craft messages that address these issues and provide solutions. A discrete link to your website at the bottom of your posts lets people easily contact that wonderful person who helped them out with great information.

You Are Your Brand

Your task is to build relationships with interested people. Focus on solving the problems they have that relate to your business or industry. People respond strongly and positively to information they find valuable. This is how you brand yourself, build trust, and establish yourself as an expert in the field.

Establishing relationships is the key to attraction marketing. Through social networking sites people learn who you are and what you have to offer. Once you have their interest and trust (which takes time, so be patient), you can tell them about your business.