Google_ for Business_ How Google's Social Network Changes Everything - Chris Brogan [62]
In coming to an understanding about how Google+ can help grow your business, the power plays in this chapter focus on those uses of Google+ that highlight a way to help buyers and prospects get a better connection to you and your company. The main reasoning behind this is that you buy from people you like. You buy from people you know. Using these tools enables people to get the sense that they know you and understand you a bit more. This is a way to introduce yourself to someone before you actually meet them.
To work through how these kinds of moves might work for your business is to accept that you feel your business is interested in your customers, and that you feel relationships ahead of sales can lead to a more loyal customer, who might offer repeat business at best, and barring that, might at least become the best source of referrals to you. This is the gold standard of how engaging in social networks such as Google+ can work for you. If you build relationships, these build the opportunity for more opt-in conversations, which build the chance to sell to people who feel they have an affinity for you, and which ultimately leads to customers who then offer better referrals than those who purchased in a more transactional manner.
As with all things, every one of these power plays take time. They’re not built for quick-and-fast ways to get the most from Google+ and make millions tomorrow. I’m sure someone will post that book. I’m sure ebooks are out there that seek to sell you on super-fast ways to make millions with social networks such as Google+. I’ve never seen those tactics work. Instead, taking some time and building meaningful contact with people is always in style and always brings some level of response.
Are social networks for everyone? Not necessarily. I had breakfast recently at Rolly’s Diner in Auburn, Maine. I sat beside a guy who did roofing for a living. In the space of my meal, he had three different people approach him for an estimate for a job. Three prospects found this man sitting beside me at the counter at a diner and asked him to help them with their needs. I said to him that it’s obvious his work is quality, based on all those referrals, and I asked him whether he advertised in any formal way. “I’m here for breakfast and supper almost every day. That’s all the advertising I do.”
On the other side of the equation, people are learning that the physical world isn’t always the best way to get your business to grow. Dane Cook, the comedian, visited Google headquarters for a chat with Google employees, and during that visit, he mentioned that what drove him to use MySpace (then Twitter, now Google+) to build community and share his work, and ultimately become one of the biggest names in comedy currently performing, was the realization that the other way to do it was to wait all week for that sliver of time in the middle of the night at that one comedy club, where only a few dozen people might be watching. By using social networks, he had the power to create comedy wherever and whenever he wanted, and build community by letting people anywhere in the world watch it wherever and whenever they wanted.
To me, the power of these power plays is that it gives you the chance to use Google+ as an outpost with a stage, and that you might now build the perfect blend of informative, entertaining, and useful information to drive value for prospects, buyers, and those you hope to encourage for a referral. In reviewing these moves, please seek to tie them to your larger business strategies because you want them to match with the rest of your goals and objectives. Social networking and social business performed out on an iceberg isn’t useful to the larger business. You can experiment away from the main business for a while, but ultimately, you want your goals and strategies to all be in alignment with the business as a whole.
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