[video] Perry Belcher Makes a Great Explanation of Social Media “Marketing”

I thought that was gonna be the dumbest video Ever. Go watch it first, then read this. You’ll be glad you did no matter how much of an expert or newbie you are.

I thought it was gonna be, “how I market on social media sites, blah blah” – after all, the title was How to Make Money with Social Media.

But I gave it a fair chance because it was on Ryan’s site. And I’m glad I did, because it was fantastic.

(Minus the crazy perception that women are these mysterious beings who don’t conduct business the same way men do!? Gotta love Perry. Hilarious.)

It’s a gold mine of information to people who don’t get social media. It also said everything I’ve wanted to say last week about social media and marketing, in an entertaining, brief way.

Social media marketing is not about marketing your products and services At All. In social media, you market by networking. You don’t shove your products or services in people’s faces constantly. First, that’s advertising, not marketing.

Second, Marketing is the science of encouraging INTERESTED prospects to buy, to paraphrase Robert Allen.

Science, not guesswork.

Encouraging, not manipulating.

Interested, not people who don’t care.

Prospects, not people who haven’t opted in to your message.

So yes, marketing does take place IN social media, in that sense, but not in the traditional sense. No matter how you force it, it’s not going to happen.

Gretchen, stop trying to make Fetch happen.

In other words, you can’t force a trend. It catches on or it doesn’t, based on whether people like it or will accept it. You can become a trend setter, develop an eye for things that will go hot, and emulate them– it’s still hit and miss. But back to social media and marketing.

If it was to be compared with anything in the outside world, it would be business networking. And anyone who tells you business networking doens’t work is not just a liar. They are A Damned Liar.

Sidebar: Can we all all get over the perception that “didn’t work for me” and “I didn’t do it right” or even “I don’t much care for it” and “I don’t really get it” means, that something doesn’t work?

For example, spam doesn’t work FOR ME because I don’t like doing things that are unethical, or getting arrested. I wouldn’t advise you to do it, but it doesn’t mean some moron isn’t going to eventually click a link now and then, or one in a million times, be dumb enough to patronize a spammer.

Back to our discussion…

In business, who you know, how you know them, what you can do for people, what people can do for you, in short, relationships, matter. Just not necessarily in the vicious, cutthroat way you may be exposed to from watching the films Greed or The Boiler Room.

The mini, online version of the golf course is online Scrabble at Facebook.

Floor seats to the basketball game? There’s no online equivalent, sorry. (Great way to get me to visit you though!)

Watching the game together might be compared to Twittering with a colleague during a show you both like, though. Smoke break? You Tube. Lunch meeting? Tumblr. Floating your resume? LinkedIn. Putting someone on your social calendar? Giving someone your FriendFeed link. Chitchat? Delicious or Digg.

And on it goes.

Your profile is your business card, only you don’t need to find a space in the conversation to give it – the person you talking to knows where it is. So the pressure of getting that into the discussion is removed. Though if you can find a way to drop links in a way that is tasteful, relevant, timely, and not too often, you’re golden.

It’s about building relationships – exposing Brand You. In that sense, yes, it is marketing, if by that you mean that we’re all marketing, all the time. You are marketing, but you’re marketing YOURSELF, who you are as a person, the good and the bad of you.

We buy from people we like and people we feel are like us.

No one gives two shits about some guy selling some stuff.

Fanatics have died for their beliefs.

Stop mixing traditional marketing and social media.

Yes, even soft-core marketing. I’m not saying don’t tweet your links. I’m not even saying don’t have a separate account where all you do is tweet your links on auto-pilot. I love those and follow them because frankly I’m in Twitter more than my feed reader. Which still isn’t much.

Yeah, you’ll get a few clicks here and there by doing it the way you “know”. But do you want a little traffic now, or do you want lots of money later? What’s more important, building a business based on relationships, or the occasional one-time sale?

If you’re desperate for sales right now, social media probably shouldn’t be your top priority, as traffic methods go. Advertise first, then build relationships slowly and carefully on social media. Not all of them will pan out.

But not all of the people on your list respond to every single offer you send every time, do they? If they did, you wouldn’t be reading this, you’d be coming up with new offers to send to your list. And there will be a day when you need traffic and sales right now, and you’ll be able to turn to social media to deliver. It’s a blizzard, not an avalanche.

We’ll be talking about this all week. This video will be brought up more than once, so watch it if you’re participating. And if you blog about this, please send a trackback so I can direct people to your posts.

Here’s your topic – what is your opinion on the “right” way to use Social Media for Business? Answer here or post to your blog and leave a link, I’ll come comment.