My 3 Top Peeves That Stop People From Connecting with Prospects and Influencers in Social Media
To make real relationships and get referrals and sales on social media, you must approach it the right way. However, too many people don’t, and then they wonder why social media doesn’t work for them.
Here are my top 3 peeves in social media that you should avoid at all costs if you want your time spent on social media to be productive:
1. Fishing: They ask a question like “What’s your #1 motivation in your business?” You leave a comment, and then they immediately message you and ask you to tell them more because they are fishing to see if you are good prospect for them.
Comments carry more weight than likes, so if I can answer a question, I usually do. But, I don’t expect that because I answered it, it gives them the right to message me. It feels invasive. And I don’t want to spend more time delving deeper into why I answered that way. It’s time-consuming and, on top of that, I don’t even know this person, so it’s annoying. It kind of feels like a bait and switch because I thought it was an innocent question when it wasn’t.
I used to feel annoyed by this and feel obligated to answer. Now I just say that I’m busy, and I prefer not to go into it-or something like that. Or, I say that I’m not interested. (When you’re really focused on what your goals are, you don’t want to waste time in social media answering these types of inquiries.)
2. Nothing to Say: They send you a message that says, “Hi, how are you?” or some variation of it. You don’t know them, and you know they don’t really care how you are, but they don’t have a clue and that’s all they’ve got. This is a non-starter for me. I’m not going to tell them how I am and what’s the point of saying “I’m fine, how are you?” If they can’t find another way to connect, I’m not interested.
3. Sales Pitch: This is especially prevalent on LinkedIn. Someone asks to connect, and then they send you a sales pitch right out of the gate. The worst are the ones that are mile long- like I am really going to read it. Then there are the sneaky ones like this one: “Ellen, you’re great at what you do. But, there are not enough hours in the day to sell. Do you feel me?” If I say yes, there will be a sales pitch in the next message.
There are also those who give a short, concise pitch, and then they ask if you’re interested. The problem is that I don’t know them from Adam, so even if I were interested, I would not be interested in getting the information from them without learning more about them. So, if they had mentioned they had something of value to give me if I were interested, and I were interested, then I might take the next step. Otherwise, they are just wasting their time and mine.
Use any of the three strategies that I’ve mentioned here and chances are you’ll burned a bridge for good! As they say, you only get one shot to make a first impression, so learn how to use social media properly and makes it count!
To learn more on how to use social media to build relationships and get referrals and sales, be sure to listen to my podcast with Jeff Hunter on How to Write Copy to Connect, Engage, and Make Sales will drop Monday, August 5th. www.BooksBusinessAbundance.com/podcast