6 Rules for Authentic and Effective Social Media for Business

Imagine busting into a cocktail party, business cards in one hand, cordless credit card swiper in the other. What would be the end result? Waking up the next morning, hungover and voicemail full of unvites to the rest of the year’s social events. However if you follow  The  Six Rules of Authentic Social Media For Business, not only will you keep your dance card full, you will profit for ages to come. The rules are, with number one being the most important.

  1. Listen
  2. Curate
  3. Mediate
  4. Faciltate
  5. Initiate
  6. Consummate

I am not the first to tell you to listen but there are so many people shouting and so few listening, it leaves you with an incredible opportunity.

I will talk about the rest of the Rules for Authentic Social Media for Businesses in coming blog posts but let’s talk about number one for right now.

RULE NUMBER ONE FOR AUTHENTIC SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING : LISTEN

Listening to what potential and current customers are saying may seem obvious but so few people are doing it. The big companies are just now figuring it out.  I still test to see who is listening by putting very specific things out there and still no one responds.

How do you listen?  Pretend like I told you that in the next five days there was going to be a huge news story about your industry that would slowly break.  I am sure you would search high and low to be the first one to find it.  Well, the news stories for your business are breaking everyday.  It might not be national news, but it is big news to someone that you could help.  What do I mean by that??

People are broadcasting the news of their lives, of their businesses on the web.  People are broadcasting their needs, and surely you have or know of a service that fulfills those needs.  There are people talking about getting in car accidents, having a chipped tooth, not being able to sleep at night and way too personal stuff that I don’t want to get into in this post.

Now, I am not saying walk up to them with your lampshade on your head and tell them how you are the best thing since sliced bread.  What I am saying is offer a link to your blog post where you address that exact issue.  Don’t have a blog post about that issue?  Write one.

Now you are writing about a huge news story, even if it’s a huge news story to only one person.

I only scratched the surface of the power of listening on the web. However if you get into the mindframe of listening instead of staggering around slapping a business card in everyone’s hand, you will very quickly see immense benefits of the number one rule of Authentic Social Media Marketing.

Next up Rule Number 2 of Authentic Social Media Marketing : Curate

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