The BIG Thinkers Blog

Facebook Essentials: Become a Thought Leader

One of the most advantageous ways to accomplish this using social media is to purposely position your self as a thought leader.

Using social media, and in particular Facebook, you are able to engage and connect to more people and your target market than ever before. This has a direct impact on the ability for you and your business to market yourself in new ways. One of the most advantageous ways to accomplish this using social media is to purposely position yourself as a thought leader, which not only gives you credibility and visibility directly, but also gives enormous credibility and exposure for you and your business.

Achieving this “Thought Leader” and “Social Influence” status using social media is valuable in several ways:

Highly relevant content:

Providing interesting and highly relative content is the top way to get noticed by your target market. Rather than usual broadcast ways, answering questions and contributing to public forums provides people with information they find useful. Connecting and engaging in this way is much more valuable and gets noticed by social media communities. With the amount of people on Facebook you have opportunities that were unheard only a few years ago. I heard the number is getting to be around 600 hundred million people give or take a few.

Spotlight:

Getting active on a variety of outposts, and providing valuable insights allows you to connect with many more ideal people and networks than traditional marketing allows. Increased traffic who will buy what you have to offer.

Involving yourself and providing others with relevant high quality resources that are situated on your other properties can increase traffic to your branded digital properties. The more traffic, the better your ability to be in the spotlight, and the higher the possibility that your ideal clients will engage you or your services after being directed there.

Know, like, trust and willing to buy:

Becoming well known and creating social influence on numerous outposts as someone who is insightful, relevant, fun and knowledgeable will not only help position you as a thought leader and create social influence, but make you a trusted source of information while being an authority in your own industry. Ideal clients and potential ideal clients will not only read your answers, but also seek you out for expert advice, helping to increase the number of potential ideal leads you obtain systematically. On the whole, it will increase your personal and business brand credibility, social influence, and authority in your area of expertise.

Spreading the word:

Never take too lightly the impact of others ‘spreading the word’. Being positioned as a thought leader and social influence in the eyes of the social media community, and the related trust that goes along with that purposeful positioning, makes you present and staying at the top of the minds of ideal clients regarding your topic of choice. These potential ideal clients and others will in fact advocate and refer you to others who are seeking information and advice from an authority in your industry.

Standing out This kind of connection and engagement helps you, and your business, stand out amongst a very busy marketplace. Being seen as helpful, useful, relevant, credible, knowledgeable and easy to approach will put you a BIG step ahead. Your ideal target market will see you as less likely to market at them, but rather as a helpful, relevant resource.

Speaking out:

If you become well known and informative, and often take a bold position on particular topics, you will be sought out for many opportunities, such as joint ventures, tele- seminars, interviews, speaking engagements and this is just the beginning. This type of activity allows you to network face-to-face and showcase your own ideas as well as your company’s abilities.

SEO:

Adding more vibrant, vital and current information will increase your search results in your target market. And this includes links back to your other properties, (for example in your signature, or as a resource) and it increases links in and out for those properties as well.

The more that ideal clients see you, hear you, listen to you, buy from you, refer you, and talk about you to anyone and everyone, the more likely it will increase your social influence and you as being seen as a thought leader using social media and in particular Facebook.

Facebook Essentials: Beyond Engagement, Build Influence

Not all of these contacts, interactions are deserving of my time. What makes creating social influence on Facebook worth it?

True Confession: I’m addicted. Signs of my habit hang on my back like carrying an elephant. Evidence is posts, comments, and my private messages. My eyes have dark rims of circles, and I’m distracted while at work. It’s really true: I’m a social media to build thought leadership and social influence junkie.

It all started fairly innocently. In my building my brand fly by the seat of my pants strategy online, I would randomly comment on Facebook three or four a week – hoping to become an authority and have credibility in my area of expertise; randomly using Facebook for personal development (hoping have links to thought leaders in their different areas of expertise) and networking.

I knew my habit had escalated from casual thought leader information and content in my industry to devotee, but until I sat down to write this article, I didn’t realize how my addiction had grown. I estimate that in 2010, I spent at least 15-20 hours a week commenting, providing useful articles, link to blogs, provoking and sending hundreds and hundreds of private messages. Maybe the latest celeb in Hollywood and I can be roommates on Dr Drew’s Celebrity rehab clinic? I hear he takes people who aren’t celebrities at all The obvious conclusion is that not all of these contacts, interactions are deserving of my time. But what makes creating social influence on Facebook worth it? In my opinion using social media to build thought leadership in your market has to include two things: social fun and actual relevant learning.

If you are going by those standards, they maybe some people on Facebook who are terrific, but you don’t learn much. Maybe there is too much grandstanding and not enough real conversation, which is what sometimes happens when someone wants to build credibility fast and lacks the authority in their target market.

Fun for a while, but what does it do to your business in the long run? Going cold turkey isn’t an option for me. Some of these interactions and comments are healthy for me and good for my business growth too. But which ones to consider? What are the criteria?

Determine if the one you’re considering is a valuable and effective use of your time.

1. People.

The relationship with your friends and followers is:

a) talk once or twice quarterly

b) open to anyone, but some of the followers that you have are entrepreneurs you are dying to meet in person or offline

c) open to anyone but focused on a niche topic you’re an authority in, so you might build a solid connection to a few other people

d) the equivalent of a buffet in Vegas: open to anyone, cheap, and a somewhat dirty.

2. Relevant Information.

The information that you provide:

a) has consistent high value content

b) you give
before you start to receive

c) you hold back and don’t give your best stuff d) fear being bold and taking a stand and position.

3. Timing.

The interaction on Facebook will take place:

a) an hour a day, five days a week

b) at the end of the day or at same time each day to create a habit or momentum

c) during the time you were to meet a new potential client for a strategy session or meeting

d) during your lead generation time talking to potential clients on the phone.

4. Price.

The information that you provide is:

a) comes with different price points, offerings and services

b) you cover just the basics and only have one level of access to your deeper level of information

c) kind of pricey

d) going to require a second mortgage and a right arm.

5. Your position.

You are:

a) a thought leader in your industry

b) like any other entrepreneur on Facebook – similar and don’t stand out in any way

c) hoping to become a thought leader having social media influence by showing up once in a blue moon

d) encouraged to be seen but not heard.

When you considered these points where you ready to fire up Facebook, give your best content and say look out world here I come? You realized that to grow your business, you need to be seen and heard in a very crowded marketplace, and you know it’s worth doing.

Here are a couple of tips to maximize the benefits:

If you’re on Facebook on a regular basis, watch the conversations that are taking place. Be the leader who offers advice, compliments, where to find or get information and pulls things together. Look at the time line on Facebook in advance. What are people talking about? Make a list of the people you’d like to get to know better, whether as a friend, potential client, joint venture or just someone of interest — and schedule the time to comment and interact with them in advance.

Are some of you sitting back and saying that creating social influence isn’t what you had in mind when using social media? You can invest your time and money in better places more suited to your availability, resources, and skills. You may need a reality check; in business you go where your target market is hanging out. You build thought leadership by be relevant, reliable and read, and oh—I forgot you improve your client attraction, client retention and your bank balance.

Facebook Essentials: Become a Client Attraction Magnet

The path to becoming an ideal client attraction magnet on Facebook is paved with ongoing learning, engagement, relationship building, continuous observation, practice and consistent use.

Success in finding the way through the popular relationship building and business networking site, Facebook, and using it to meet building and engaging relationships, and monetizing your time and energy works under the same idea. For the last several years, I have worked with hundreds and hundreds of entrepreneurs and salespeople to help create ideal client attraction and fascination strategies for their Facebook profiles, designing customized Facebook sales and marketing strategies, and rendering their efforts on the site into positive ideal client attraction results. My utmost joy is taking someone new to Facebook and helping them grows and develops into a self-assured, confident communicator and social networker – in other words, an ideal client attraction and fascination magnet.

Who is the Facebook ideal client attraction magnet in my way of thinking?

What do they do that is different from the casual user? I know for sure that the Facebook client attraction magnet doesn’t visit the site every now and then. They have a specific action plan.

I identify the Facebook ideal client attraction magnet as one who attaches high value to the time and energy spent on Facebook, presents very well on the site, respects best engagement and business practices in using it, and fully believes this work to be an essential part of daily ideal client attraction for the long term. In my opinion, people who are on Facebook but maintain they don’t have time to work on it, have not made the decision to discover its possibilities fully. It could be that there’s something else holding them back such as a lack of faith or understanding of what can do for your business, or a fear of technology. The Facebook ideal client attraction magnet has triumphed over these psychological barriers to success sees the enormous possibilities and is empowered by big thinking and a positive mindset.

To the Facebook ideal client attraction magnet, everything done while being on the site is strategic. All the responsibilities become easy breezy. They are flexible, open to ideas and keen to incorporate new thinking and behaviours. Facebook is agrowing platform that rolls out changes and enhancements without any notice. This ideal client attraction magnet is aware of those changes and proactively incorporates the new tools into their strategic action plan. I never view any aspect of Facebook work as chore, nor should you. It is BIG opportunity calling.

Lastly, and most essentially, the Facebook ideal client attraction magnet is ready for success on Facebook. They have their profile, and content filled with compelling content, one that clearly has a unique value proposition and permits for deeper, more meaningful relationships and engagements. There are inbound and outbound links to all relevant Web sites and blogs that are easily located, a professional (current) head shot, and clarity as to the nature of their business offering, services and programs.

The Facebook ideal client attraction magnet profile goes well beyond good marketing; it is, in essence, a means through which personal brand builds and credibility, and visibility is lifted by referrals from clients, colleagues, and centers of influence.

The Facebook ideal client attraction magnet is always connecting, collaborating, communicating, and contributing. It simply just means that on a social networking site dedicated to engagement, relationships and business, these people are generating business.

Do you have what it takes to be a Facebook ideal client attraction magnet?