A lot of people are trying to figure out how to leverage social media, how to montenize social media, or how to simply use social media to their best financial advantage. There's books, webinars, ebooks, social media experts, independent experts, and pundits who all have their own advice and opinions about how social media works. Some people make it sound like a complex web of formulas and rules, when in reality social media is simply people.
To understand how best to leverage social media you only need to know how best to leverage people. For me, I like to use the illusion that everyone has pockets full of "good will" currency. Now, just like real life, some people are born with more currency than others. The good news is that you can garner more if you have none. Everyone in social media goes around giving and taking from each other based on the exchange of entertainment value, favors, help and etc.
Let's put this into an example. Mary wants to get news out about her Etsy shop, but she's not sure how to do it in Social Media. So she joins Twitter, Facebook and starts a blog. Currently Mary's social cash is pretty much $0. Now if she has some friends she knows already outside of her social media connections, she's coming in with around $5 for each person. These people are willing to indulge her for awhile and retweet her links and possibly tell friends about her Etsy shop. Every time they do so, Mary uses up $1 from their $5 and she's now at $0.
This is where most people make a fatal mistake. They figure they need to get more friends to get more $5 people. The more the merrier. What Mary (and others) don't realize is that Mary had already invested into those people and strangers aren't worth the same amount as her friends.
How Social Media Banking Works...
Now, let's start over. Mary has 5 good friends on Twitter, who (without her doing anything) are worth $5. Mary doesn't mention her Etsy store, but instead starts posting links, photos of her day, and answering hard questions that her 5 good twitter friends have asked. She's investing more into each of them so now they're liking her and valuing her Twitter stream. Now, her friends start talking with her and genuinely enjoying her and other people catch on that Mary is a good person to follow. So more people follow Mary.
What she still hasn't promoted her store?
Finally Mary tweets a link about her Etsy shop - she's got the social media cash to spend. Her followers are worth $50 to $5 (depending on how much she's helped them out, entertained them, or deposited in their accounts). So now they start looking at her store and maybe buying thing. Then Mary spends more time building up her follower list, helping people out, participating in # conversations, donating some of her twitter space to promote or evanglize other people (and their websites/causes/etc).
Go Mary!
Pretty soon Mary can spend less time helping others, and more time promoting, she's got the Social Media street cred to ask for big favors (like having other people promote her store). Mary has the ability to leverage her Twitter followers in such a way because she's established a relationship with them. But now Mary has to be careful because, as anyone knows, it's a lot easier to lose money than it is to get it. One wrong move, one lie that's found out, or one stupid remark and she can lose all the social media money she's got in other people's pockets. And the worst part? Once you've gone into a negative balance with someone it's 5Xs harder to build that back up.
People who are content creators: Actors, Writers, Producers, Celebs - already have a pretty big bank. They've given us entertainment value so we'll do a lot for them. But just look at how quickly public opinion on Tom Cruise went from valued to devalued - the same idea holds true for them.
Okay, then why isn't everyone doing this?
The main problem that most people have with the Social Media banking method is it takes time. A lot of time and energy. The results aren't immediate. But once it pays off, it pays off in a big way.
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