My take on this is very similar to how you get promoted in the military. I’ve known many officers and the one place they always come back to is the golf course. Promotions do not happen in the barracks. They do not happen in field exercises. They happen on the golf course.
What happens on the golf course? Bonding; most of it is simple male bonding (though it is sometimes female too). It happens through relationships.
As business owners, many people only see the end goal – the sale. So they pound on their networks with their product and why it’s so great – they advertise.
Let me ask you a question: Would you make a major purchase if someone does not know you randomly found you on Facebook and posted a link to their product? I wouldn’t either.
The missing part is plain and simple – the relationship. There’s a complete lack of knowledge that they care, legitimately, about you.
Now let’s go back to our example of someone hitting your page with their link. Is that a positive or negative event? For me personally, it’s negative. They don’t care about me; they care about them and their sale. The product is irrelevant and their brand just took a hit. Their brand is now in the hole with me.
What can they/we do better? We’ve established that it is about a relationship or friendship. I was reading Gary Vaynerchuk’s “Crush it!” and I happened across a brilliant chapter. “The best marketing strategy ever” has one word – “CARE.”
How do you really know that you have a good friendship with someone? Recently, I’ve run into a pretty good indicator – the inside joke. My current main joke is bacon. We know everyone loves bacon! So why not harris* each other with photos and related media about bacon? It makes people laugh and that is a great start to any friendship! Randomly, I will simply post “#BACON! That is all.” to my twitter feed. People reply and retweet it! However, those people are constantly in conversation. And that is where things are built – in conversation.
It is then that you can politely ask for endorsements, Facebook fan page likes, and Google business ratings. But not a moment before.
profile!