A guest blog by Sean McPheat, who is an Amazon best-selling author and managing director of MTD Sales Training.
Social media plays a huge part in building and progressing the modern day business, but there are still companies shying away from it simply because they have yet to see the bigger picture. Platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube can be fantastic tools to help you reach your target market and engage with the modern day buyer in a way that appeals to their social nature – so don’t dismiss the concept before you have seen its potential.
There are a lot of misconceptions about social media, and then reason so many sales professionals and business owners give up on their social media activity after just a couple of months is usually down to one of the following 3 myths.
“You Have To Be Good With Computers And I’m Not”
Actually, most of the people on social networking sites have no background in computer technology.
If you can open your web browser and respond to your emails then the chances are that social networking will be a breeze for you.
“I Already Spend Hours On A Computer Each Day. The Last Thing I need Is Another Online Time Waster”
If you’re like me then you already spend hours a day at work in front of a computer, so why would you want to spend even more time online just for the privilege of commenting on people’s photos and updating your status?
Well, this simple answer is that regardless of the type of sales you conduct, real people are involved in the transaction. Like you, these people are busy and view any change to the status quo as much more work for them.
When faced with a purchasing decision, these people are likely to head online in search of reasons to either work with your company or ignore you completely. To the modern day buyer, finding nothing about you is as much of a reason not to work with you as finding something negative is – so it really is important to be out there and ensure that you are portraying yourself and your company in the right way.
Plus, social media doesn’t have to be time consuming or a major hassle. All of the big social networking sites have mobile applications which can direct your updates from Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn to your smart phone – so you don’t even need to be near your computer to join in the conversation.
“I Value My Privacy. Social Networking Could Violate That And Leave Me Exposed”
Privacy has become a major concern for people using online networking sites, but as long as you understand the privacy settings for the sites that you use then this should not be an issue.
Most of the sites, including Facebook, have a way for you to restrict access to your personal information so that only those people who you grant access to can view it. You can also block people that you feel have been acting inappropriately towards you.
You just need to monitor what information you share on your social networking sites and simply use social media to tell the story you want people to hear.
Sean McPheat
About Sean
Sean McPheat is a best-selling sales training author and has been featured on CNN, BBC, ITV and has over 250 other media credits to his name. He is the managing director of MTD Sales Training who have delivered training to over 50,000 people around the world. Please visit Sean’s Sales Blog for more tips, insights and techniques on how to improve your sales or download his 6 free sales training audios