One I notice on many of the social networking sites is the number of business people who ‘hang out’ with fellow business people. As far as networking is concerned, that is fine; when it comes to social marketing, it seems pointless.
The aim of social marketing is to put your name, your brand, and/or your product out into the public domain – in other words, to promote your business. Promoting your business to other businesses is not going to increase your sales. You may increase your knowledge of the industry, but that is not the purpose of social marketing.
Don’t get me wrong, there is a need to network with others within your niche. However that should, in the long run, be secondary to promoting your business. To successfully promote your business, you need to be where the potential customer base is. This requires a little research and an understanding of which sites your demographic audience frequents, and what sort of marketing is permitted on those sites.
Hanging out with your peers is fine for networking – just remember to hang out where your customers are if you want to increase your business.
