You should have built your own list….

Think about this for a second – what will happen if you get banned from your favorite social networks, the one you use the most often, the ones you use to connect with others, to network and to promote your products and services?

Will you be able to get in touch with everyone you need to get in touch with? Will you be able to update them on what’s going with you without using the social network?

And you don’t have to be banned from a social network to lose your contacts – what if you just decide to leave a social network on your own and delete your account? You will not be able to contact people through the network anymore, so unless you have other means to connect with the people you met through this network, you will not be able to connect with them anymore.

In my 10+ years of social networking, I have joined and left hundreds of social networking groups. But I kept in touch with many people I have met through those groups. How did I do it? By inviting people I meet through social networking to join my list. If you don’t do that yet, here is a plan to help you get started:

– Evaluate what you are using social networking for. If you are using social networking to get more clients and build your business, don’t rely on the social networks alone to keep in touch with the people you meet.

Spend some time now to create a plan to do that.

– Create a plan to keep in touch with your contacts. Get started with your plan. How do you want to keep in touch? Blogs? Newsletters? Some other means?

– Start promoting your newsletter. One of the best ways to keep in touch with people you meet through social networking is by inviting them to subscribe to youR newsletter.

In order to do that, make sure you promote your newsletter! Promote it in your profile, link to it from your signature, post a link to it from your “About” page, etc. The more visible you make your newsletter, the more people will get on your list, and the more people you will be able to keep in touch with even if you stop using some social networking groups.

Want to learn more about building your list? Join me for the Top 5 Strategies To Build Your List Teleseminar at https://www.marketingsalad.com/build-list.html

More social networking posts:

– What To Do With Your Social Networking Traffic

– Is Social Media A Fad?

Every once in a while I receive a question from a coach who has heard that newsletters are old news and web 2.0 is the way to go. Here is a question I received recently:

Question: Biana, I have been a life coach for about 4 years now. I have been publishing my newsletter for about 2.5 years. About 6 months ago I started reading articles and hearing from everyone that newsletters are outdated and that I should start using web 2.0 exclusively.

Did I make a mistake? Should I have been publishing my newsletter instead of starting the blog and doing social networking?

My answer: First of all, I LOVE web 2.0. Blogging and social networking has been bringing leads and clients to me for a very long time. However, your newsletter is a foundation of your marketing strategy. Before you blog, before you use social networking sites, you MUST have a newsletter.

Let me explain. Your newsletter helps you build long term relationships with people in your target market. It is your most important piece in your marketing strategy. When you meet people in your target market – in person, through speaking or networking, or online, though social networking, article marketing, etc – you need to invite them to get on your newsletter list.

Once they get on your list, they will be able to receive your newsletter, get to know you and become aware of products and services that you offer.

The best way to use web 2.0 is to use it to get more people to subscribe to your newsletter. When people are reading your blog, make sure that you invite them to subscribe to your newsletter. You can do that by using an invite in the blog header, including a newsletter subscription box in your menu, etc.

And when you are using social networking, make sure that your personal pages on different social networking sites promote your newsletter. That way you can use your newsletter to continue building relationships with people you meet at social networking sites.

So I recommend that you continue using your blog and social networking sites, but you should also find a way to continue building relationships with people you meet through those means.

I talk a lot about using your newsletter to get clients in the Grow Your List Home Study Course that you can see at https://www.avocadoconsulting.com/rlinks/znews

Biana Babinsky

If you are overwhelmed with social networking, you are not alone. Every day on my Facebook account I have new friends requests, dozens of invitations to applications, lots of new events to review and much more. And then, there are messages. Messages from people I am connected with, messages from groups I am a member of, messages that people leave on my Wall….

And this is just Facebook. If you, like me, networking through other web sites and groups in addition to Facebook, you know that there will be messages, invitations and requests from those groups as well. Lately, it seems that it is a full time job to just maintain a few social networking accounts and keep in touch with people we meet through those sites.

As business owners, though, we have other things to do as well. We have our clients to take care of, we have classes to teach, new products to create and new strategies to design. So how do you keep up with your social networking AND still have time left over for your other business activities?

I do that by:

1. Targeting My Social Networking. I have created my social networking plan and because of it I know exactly who I want to meet and who I want to network with. Because I am targeting my networking, I only spend time on targeted networking.

2. Setting Time Limits On Social Networking. Social networking can be fun and you can spend a lot of time doing it. But if you spend all of your time on social networking, who is going to work with your clients and who is going to create your products?

I spend some time on social networking and then I spend time on my clients and my marketing activities.

3. Prioritizing. I simply do not have the time to participate in all the networking groups I would like to participate in. Instead, I use my time to prioritize the social networking that I do and spend time networking in places where I can meet the people that I want to meet.

I have spoken about social networking and lack of time with my friend and time management expert, Julie Bestry. Julies has taught me about time management and she has a lot of ideas on how to minimize the time you spend on social networking, while maximizing your results. I invited Julie to do a teleseminar with me called Time Management Secrets For Social Networkers: Get Better Results In Less Time.

Julie says that if you’re suffering from Social Network Fatigue, spending hours on end posting to networking forums and your connections’ Facebook wall, twittering and following other’s tweets but not reaping the financial rewards or truly positioning yourself as an expert, there’s a better path for you. I can’t wait to hear what she has to say about all this – register to join us at https://www.marketingsalad.com/vf/zjt

Biana Babinsky

One of the most popular questions I have been receiving this year from clients, colleagues and online friends (some of whom I met on social networks) has been Is Social Media A Fad?

I even had a discussion on this same subject at a non-business event a few months ago. One of the participants found out what I did for a living and we had a great discussion of social media, how it affects the way we do business and if it is here to stay.

As someone who has participated in social media and social networking online for the past fifteen years and recently taught a social networking teleseminar, I know that social media is not a fad. However, I can see why this question keeps coming up over and over again. Social media and social web sites have become the “it” things on line in the past 6-8 months, just like blogging did a few years ago. And because of their “it” status there have been many articles in mainstream publications about social media and how business owners use it for business development.

As a result of those articles, many people who have never used social media before decide to give social media a try. But since they are new to the social media scene, they are not sure how long social networking is going to stay around for. They do not want to spend their time on something that may just be a fad, so they are looking to make sure that social media and networking are here to stay.

And from what I have seen in my many years online, I can tell you that social media is here to stay. Social networking started as soon as people started using the Internet. I remember communicating on Bulletin Boards, then through mailing lists, then message boards. I started using social networking as soon as I got online. The very first social networking medium that I ran was a message board.

Since then I have joined and left countless mailing lists, message boards and social networking sites. While the media that I use changes with time (new networking sites, new mailing lists, etc), social networking stays. While we might not use the same social networking websites five or ten years from now, we will still be using social networking. Just like I used it fifteen years ago. And this is why social networking is not a fad and is here to stay.

More social networking articles:

– Getting Results From Social Media Sites

– What To Do With Your Social Networking Traffic

Biana Babinsky

P.S. What do you think? How do you use social networking?

Lately, I have been hearing from many coaches and consultants who are experiencing a slowdown in their businesses. They are reporting to me that it became much harder to get one-on-one clients and that even product sales have slowed down.

There are many reasons for this to be happening. It could be that many potential clients are taking summer vacations instead of working. It could be that customers are concerned about gas prices and the economy and are trying to save money by not getting professional help. Or it could be the regular business cycle – there are many different reasons for a business slowdown.

I recommend that you do not concentrate on finding out why there is a slowdown. Rather, you should concentrate on how you can bring more clients to your business. Here is what I recommend:

– Review Or Create A Marketing Plan For Your Business. Summer is the best time to review your marketing plan. Are you accomplishing what you have set out to accomplish? Are you filling your marketing funnel? Are you marketing every day? Are some of your marketing strategies bringing more customers to your business than others?

A marketing plan review will help you streamline your business and bring in more clients.

If you do not have a marketing plan now is the best time to create one. Your marketing plan will help you organize your marketing actions and spend less time on marketing while getting better results. Your marketing plan is your map to getting clients and creating a successful business.

When business is slow the businesses who survive are the ones who can do more and better marketing in less time.

– Do More Of What’s Working. As you review your marketing, you will see that certain marketing actions bring in more potential customers than others. There is no reason to do things that only bring in a few customers. You want to find actions that bring in the bulk of clients and repeat these actions over and over again. So when you find something that is working for you and your business, do more of the same.

For example, if networking with your target market online brings in great results, increase your networking time or find additional places to network. When you keep doing what’s working, you get more clients, it’s that simple.

– Bring In More Prospects. In slow business times it helps to bring in more prospects to your business. It could be that in the past you were able to convert 1 out of 20 prospects into a customer. But now it could be that you are able to convert only 1 out of 30 prospects into a customers.

If you need to get 10 clients for your business, in the past you only needed to bring in 200 business prospects. In order to get the same 10 clients now you will need to bring in 300 prospects. You will be able to do that by using marketing strategies that will help you attract more prospects to your business.

The best way I found to bring more prospects to my business is by getting more targeted traffic to my web site. I will be discussing how to bring more of your perfect clients and prospects to your web site during this Thursday’s teleseminar, How To Get More Clients To Your Web Site. You can register for it at https://www.marketingsalad.com/clients.html

Biana Babinsky

I am sure that by now you have heard about social media and social media sites. Lots of people are networking on them, talking about them and using them to promote their businesses.

Because there is so much information about social media and social networking everywhere, I have been getting lots of questions about social networking from my clients, members of my mentoring program and web site visitors.

Everyone wants to know how to get results from social media web sites. And by saying results the majority of business owners mean “more clients”.

So how can you, a coach, consultant or other business professional, use social networking to get more clients for your business?

What you want to use to use social networking for is to meet and connect with your target market. Just like with any other marketing technique, you want to get your target market to know you, so that they can do business with you.

My recommendations for using social networking effectively are:

– As always, look for where your target market is and go ahead and meet it! There are tons of groups on many different networking sites, and you can start by participating in a few different groups that your target market frequents. Don’t join every single group that you see – there are thousands, if not millions of those, and you will never be able to use all of them.

Instead, find groups where your target market hangs out and networks. Increase your visibility by participating in the groups.

Everyone knows the leader, right? The best visibility comes when you are the leader of the group, so start your own group where your target can hang out and you can demonstrate your expertise!

– What’s the next step for your target market? What step should people in your target market take in order to get into your sphere of influence? They subscribe to your newsletter!

Make sure that you offer people plenty of opportunities to get on your list.

– Explore social networking sites and use the available resources. Different social networking web sites have different resources for you to use, and some are not so obvious. Some offer resources to post your upcoming events, post your articles and blog posts, etc. Use the available resources to get more visibility and exposure for your business.

I discussed many more ideas for using social networking to promote your business during the How To Create Social Networking Plan That Gets You Clients Teleseminar last month. You can get the audio recording of the How To Create Social Networking Plan That Gets You Clients Teleseminar at https://www.marketingsalad.com/social-networking.html

Biana Babinsky

You may have noticed this phenomenon as well. Many years ago it happed to a client of mine. My client joined an online networking group to promote his expertise and get clients. This was a group frequented by his target market, so it was an ideal spot for him to network and promote his expertise and his business.

He jumped right in and was fairly active in this group from the very beginning. He posted messages every other day, answered questions and networked with many members. He really enjoyed talking about his subject matter and it showed through his messages as well. He became seen as an expert almost immediately and he became to reap rewards.

As a result of his actions, he started getting traffic from the group. Every week he would check his web site statistics and tell me that he was getting a nice amount of traffic. The traffic brought him sales as well – he did two consulting projects with people who met him through this group. He sold his e-books and got quite a few people from the group to attend his seminars.

But as more new clients and commitments came his way, he did not have time to participate as much. Some of the things he was doing had to be cut from his schedule, so he decided to cut back on his social networking. He started to participate less and less in the group.

After some time he reported that he was getting much less web site traffic from the group, now that he participated less. Once he stopped participating in the group, he stopped getting any traffic from it.

Things like that happen to business owners all the time. We get busier and stop participating in social networking groups, and stop getting the traffic from them as a result.

But there is a better way! You can continue to receive benefits from a social networking group, such as leads and sales, long after you stopped participating in those groups. To do that, you need to actively promote your newsletter while you are still a member of the group. That way, some of the members of the group will get on your list and you will be able to keep in touch with them long after you leave that group.

I still get sales from people who met me in groups that I haven’t been to in years. And one of my new one-on-one mentoring clients this year is someone I met in a group that was closed down four years ago. This person was on my list for many years, she has been to my teleseminars and now she is working with me one-on-one.

So if you want to keep in touch with people you meet through social networking for a long time, make sure you promote your newsletter! Promote it in your profile, link to it from your signature, post a link to it from your “About” page, etc. The more visible you make your newsletter, the more people will get on your list, and the more people you will be able to keep in touch with even if you stop using some social networking groups.

For more help with getting clients from social networking, join me for the How To Create Social Networking Plan That Gets You Clients Teleseminar at https://www.marketingsalad.com/social-networking.html

Biana Babinsky

About Biana: Biana Babinsky is the online business expert and author who teaches coaches, consultants and other business owners how to use social networking to get clients. Join her for the How To Create Social Networking Plan That Gets You Clients Teleseminar to discover how to use social networking to get newsletter subscribers and clients for your business. You can learn more and register at https://www.marketingsalad.com/social-networking.html

Yes, you read correctly. According to the article, Google to Connect Friends Across the Web, Google is working on a service that will let any web site become a social networking site. All you will have to do is embed some code into your web site, and your web site visitors will be able to connect and interact with each other.

Imagine having your web site visitors meet each other, interact, chat. What do you think?

Biana Babinsky

About Biana: Biana Babinsky is the online business coach who teaches her clients how to get more web site traffic and clients online. Join her online business mentoring program to discover how to use the Internet to get over 98% of your clients! Join now at https://www.MarketingSalad.com

Just read an article, MySpace, Facebook: Big not always better about how Internet users like to use smaller, more targeted social networking web sites and groups.

Personally I like both types of groups. I am a member of small networking groups where membership is very targeted. For example, we have a very targeted networking group at MarketingSalad.com, my online business mentoring web site. In addition to learning about online marketing, members of MarketingSalad.com also network with each other and do business with each other on a regular basis. This group is very targeted – members are are coaches, consultants, virtual assistants and other online business owners who are serious about building profitable online businesses.

But I also like much larger networking web sites, such as Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. The key to using those really large sites is to still find smaller groups of people you want to socialize with. For example, if you like skiing, search for skiing groups. If you want to become known to your target market, search for groups/places where your target market is and start the conversation going.

It does not matter how big or small a group is, as long as you can create a strategy to increase your visibility and reach your market effectively.

Biana Babinsky

Recently I have been exploring Facebook, the online social networking site, in more depth. I have been a member for a while, but I haven’t used my account that much. By the way, if you are a member, you can search for me and send me an invitation to connect.

I have been using Instant Messaging a very long time. I have been using it for connecting and networking and I have also been using it extensively with my clients.

Now Facebook is putting the two together – you can now use a new instant messaging feature directly on Facebook to chat with your friends.

Check out more on this at Facebook: Facebook Chat: Now We’re Talking and on CNN at Facebook unveils instant message feature

Biana Babinsky