Members of the Wellington Chamber of Commerce got tips Wednesday on how to harness social media for their businesses from author and social media guru Jay Berkowitz.
Berkowitz, who wrote Ten Golden Rules of Online Marketing, shared tips of the trade at a luncheon sponsored by Aesthetic & Family Dentistry of Wellington at the Wanderers Club.
The first strategy of social media, Berkowitz said, is to make “lots of friends.”
“You want to make lots of Facebook friends, who are not like our real friends,” he said. “By making those relationships, you have an opportunity to connect with people.”
A good way to find friends is to look for people with common interests by following other people in your field.
“If you’re on Twitter and you follow someone, they may follow you back,” he said. “Then they will be able to see your posts and share those with others who may then follow you.”
Having many people looking at your pages can lead to sponsorships, advertisement or other deals that can help boost revenue. It can also help bring people into your own businesses, Berkowitz said.
To build these connections, he suggested that you have to help people.
“Great networking is actually having a conversation with people, finding out a bit about them and finding what they are looking for,” he said. “Social networking carries over.”
He noted that helping others can involve reaching out to them, answering questions and much more.
In today’s media, it’s not just about having conversations. Berkowitz noted that a popular way to engage people is to create content — images, blogs or articles that other people will want to share.
“We see this is rapidly rising,” he said. “From a business standpoint, this gives us tremendous opportunity.”
Berkowitz pointed to a life coach who posts several motivational images on his Facebook page, which have been shared by thousands of people. “He has been very successful,” he said. “When you get people to engage, others see it. If someone clicks ‘like’ on the image, it will be shared on their page. It gives people opportunities to share your content.”
Another important strategy is to position your business to show up at the top in search engines. This includes adding content to your web pages or social media accounts that contains words that people would search for in your business.
He noted that a tennis pro became successful offering free online tennis videos with tips and tutorials, and was later able to monetize it by selling online courses.
“He’s making a million dollars selling tennis training off free YouTube videos,” Berkowitz said. “Videos can be very powerful. If you can search-engine optimize your videos using keywords so that you come up in search engines, you can bring people back to your web site, get them to sign up for your e-mail list and then sell them products and services.”
Berkowitz said that the key is to create a community of friends who like and share your content, and then use that to boost your business.
For more information, or for social media advice, businesses are encouraged to visit www.tengoldenrules.com.
ABOVE: Guest speaker Jay Berkowitz, Chamber President Alec Domb and sponsor Dr. Steven Miller.
