HOW TO MARKET TO SOCIAL NETWORKING CONNECTIONS

Before then, you will want to create a highly targeted list of friends and followers who have the potential to follow you back from the social networking sites to your other websites. You can do this by carefully crafting profiles that appeal to your demographics and updating your status updates with information that draws attention from that demographic. As you continue to do these two activities, more and more people will find you, and you will have a wider exposure.

Getting Targeted Lists

You don't just want to build a large list of people who have nothing to do with your market niche; you want to have a list of people whose interests mean that they might want to buy your products and services later on. Social networks are excellent mediums for creating targeted lists because it's easy to see what people's interests are via their searchable profiles, and they can see yours too!

USING YOUR PROFILE TO ATTRACT THE RIGHT DEMOGRAPHIC

The first step to getting a targeted list together is to clearly project the right image and interests in your own profile. To do that, you want to fill out the profile as completely as possible. You also want to use your real name, as this profile should be as authentic as possible. For Facebook, for instance, you would want to add as many details of books or movies relevant to your market niche to attract the right demographic. In Twitter, you would want to give as many keywords that are relevant to the niche you are marketing as possible in the 140-character description of your profile. In LinkedIn, you would also want to give a good, accurate description of your interests and accomplishments as they relate to the market niche that you are marketing to.

FINDING OTHERS WHO HAVE SIMILAR INTERESTS

Once you've got your own profile filled out, you can start searching via the keywords you've used to find others who are in your market niche and invite them to follow or befriend you back. In Facebook, they track everyone with similar interests, so all you have to do is to click on the link in any of the categories in your Info tab, and you'll get a listing of people who have similar interests.

On Twitter, it's just as easy to find people who have similar interests by using the Twitter search engine and looking up keywords. The Twitter search engine is separate from Twitter and can be found at http://search.twitter.com. You won't just be able to locate people via their profile keywords, but also via their tweets.

Facebook and LinkedIn also have groups that you can join that can lead you to people with similar interests. You can even create your own group if that's something you want to do. By networking with people who are in the same group as you are, you will be able to build your list fairly quickly. People like to network with people of similar interests, and this works well when you are trying to market to a specific niche. 

The Bigger, The Better

You will want to build as big a list as possible within each network. The reason for this is that the bigger your list, the more possibilities to market to later on. Also, a big list has a magnetic effect on other people who will join just to find out what all of the fuss is about. It is easier to build a big list on Twitter than on any other social networking site, but it's possible to do it on all of the social networking sites. Here, we'll discuss a few ways to get a jumpstart on building a big list quickly and easily.

START BEFRIENDING AND FOLLOWING PEOPLE

You jumpstart every social network list by befriending or following people you know, whether they're in your niche or not. This way, you aren't the person with only a few people on your list. That's never attractive. Start with people who you already know who are online. They can be work colleagues, neighbors, friends, and family. As long as you can get them to befriend or follow you back, you have the basis of a good start. Once you have a few of those, you will start to target people better so that your list can be used for marketing purposes later.

SEARCH FOR PEOPLE TO BEFRIEND

To build your list quickly, you should expect to add a couple of hundred followers a day on Twitter and 20 or so on Facebook. You will find these people by searching for your similar interests, as stated in the previous section. Facebook is much more stringent with the number of mass befriendings you can do before they peg you as a spammer and throw you out, so be careful. With LinkedIn, you should also seek to add numerous contacts each day. They won't immediately befriend or follow you back, but eventually, about 30% will do so out of pure courtesy. That's a quick way to build a list.

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