Six quick points to build your network which adds long term and sustainable value
I ended up following around 5000 handles which Twitter had suggested me to follow at the time of joining in 2009. Few of the reasons behind doing so were:
-?????????I had very little knowledge about how to build a network which creates long term and sustainable value for you.
-?????????I hadn’t given a shred of thought about what I want to offer to my network, my audience.
-?????????I loved writing but I had absolutely no idea about content creation strategy; and
-?????????Twitter had a “Follow All” button under these suggestions and I clicked on that.
It took me few months to realize that I am amidst information chaos and I must get out of it. I unfollowed all the handle and followed few handles which I thought I should follow. But again I committed a mistake; I chose the cricket and film celebrity’s handles to follow. I am not a fan type who would be happy seeing his favorite celebrity’s pictures, so again I had to press the multiple unfollow button. After that I started looking carefully at the bio and tweets of the individual before following them.
I was talking to friend few months back who is a senior retail professional about his LinkedIn marketing strategy. We came to the conclusion that due to ‘consistency’ trait of our behaviour which guides us to be good all the time to everyone and don’t refuse help/invite, most of the time we accept everyone’s connection request whether that connection is/will be of any help in building valuable network or not. He told me that he doesn’t know whether to take the ‘Likes’ he get on his LinkedIn posts seriously or not because many of it seems to be by someone who just want to remain in his good books. More than sixty percent of my Facebook friend list of close to eleven hundred is from my Alma mater and barring few (not more than five), no one has engaged with my post in years. I work hard to create content on personal branding, marketing, storytelling, data storytelling, behavioural science etc., which I think is not adding value in their life and that’s why they are not engaging with it, which clearly means none of us serving each other despite being in a close network.
I talked to a friend today, who is a successful entrepreneur. He has hired a digital marketing agency to promote his company and products primarily on social media.
I asked him about their Facebook marketing strategy of his company and products. He told me that they plan to increase the number of “page likes” to a respectable number organically and then go for paid promotion. I said, “good idea....but how are they planning to take the ‘likes’ to respectable number organically”? “They have figured out the way and they will do it internally”...He replied. We took this discussion little further but quickly moved to some other topic.
Around ten years ago, Tata Docomo had solid presence on social media. In fact it was most followed brand on Facebook at one point of time. ???
领英推荐
List of “Dos and Don’ts” of building network will become very long but drawing conclusion from above examples, I am giving few quick points here:
Building network:- ?
-?????????‘Buyer Profile’ and ‘Buyer Persona’ are not marketing jargons. Your marketing journey and your network building activity starts from here.
-?????????Product you build, services you offer and content you create decides your network building journey.
-?????????Network is built by what you are offering and not by what you are asking for.
-?????????Don’t send or accept invite just for the heck of it. See whether these invites fits into your buyer profile and buyer persona or not.
-?????????Follow celebrities of your own domain. Becoming one among millions of fans of your favourite sports star or film star is only benefitting them, not you. ?
-?????????Your content creation strategy and schedule will go a long way in building your network.
I hope it helps you build a network which helps you reap maximum benefit out of it. ?Do give your input to enrich this list. ??