Walk Like a Giant, Sell Like a Madman

12.3. Taking Advantage of Social Media Marketing

Whether or not you become actively involved in social media marketing, your clientele or prospective clients are likely to be talking about you or the products and services you sell. They will also be searching for information about what you sell and perhaps looking for a supplier of those products or services. In other words, social media marketing is going to affect your bottom line whether you choose to get actively involved in it or not. In addition, you can certainly benefit from it, even if all you do is research what customers who use your products and services have to say.

To use social media marketing to your advantage, I suggest that you take one or more of the following steps:

• Find out what people are saying about you. Use your favorite Internet search tool to find out what people have to say about you, the company you work for, and the products and services you sell. On Google, for example, you should search the Web, News, Blogs, and Groups to do a broad search of any content that pertains to you or your competition. Find out what customers like, dislike, and are looking for but not finding. Visit some of the top blogs and newsgroups in your industry to find out what people are saying.

• Identify yourself. Before customers will buy from you, they will want to know a little bit about you, so provide some information about yourself. You can do this by creating an About Me page on your blog or web site. Create a profile on ...