Facebook: Not a place for airing your dirty laundry, or selling me your scammy business opportunity.
Ok friends, we have a lot to cover here. I promised you all a blog about social media and so here it is.
Facebook is an incredible anomaly for my generation. Through the use of the Internet Facebook has literally changed the way in which the world communicates. Some people may or may not know this but Facebook and it’s ability to allow people to communicate quickly an uninhibitedly has been an integral part of successful revolutions in 3rd world countries. It has allowed people to organize, trade and share ideas and basically made the world smaller and more accessible to hundreds of millions of people all over the world.
Personally, I love it, and I spend a probably an hour or two per day on it. It is how I stay connected with the friends I have met all over the world. It is a place where I can introduce new ideas to my network for validated learning and feedback. It is an experience where I can share about my life with the world and make real connections with real people. Not to mention it is the best way to “vet” a new person that you are dating or to find out a little bit more about that new business acquaintance you are thinking about getting in to business with. Bottom line, it is how the world communicates. 500 million active members, 50 percent of whom login each day. The average user creates 90 pieces of content each month, and the average user is connected to 80 community pages.
So what happens when it back fires???
In the last week I have been hypercritical of Facebook posts coming through my news feed. I was watching very closely to see how much of the content was negative bullshit where people were just complaining about non-sense. Sometimes I wish more kids from Cambodia or South Sudan would post about the problems they deal with on a daily basis because that would put it all in perspective. This video conveys it well.
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vN2WzQzxuoA
Do us all a favor, and start updating your status with positive and uplifting things not to be confused with ridiculous self-affirmations to the world (aka Facebook). Affirmations only work when they are backed up with real action.
I mean for this post to be a reality check on what is really important. Just think to yourself, if you didn’t have Facebook, would you really go in front of a room full of people who are your friends or that you are acquainted with and say something like “Do you remember when there was only 1 Angry Birds game? I feel like a hoarder with the sheer number of these games sitting un-played on my phone lately.”
Well, no I don’t remember, because I thought angry birds was a game that little kids played on their parents phones, but thanks for that insightful and profound contribution.
Look, if you don’t know what to say, you could always find someone well-known like Albert Einstein or Tony Robbins and just quote them. I Guarantee you will get more likes than if you write some bullshit about what happened on American Idol last night, and the people looking at your wall might even get a little smarter, more enlightened or maybe they will even start following you because you are posting good content.
Now about Spam
I have worked in the Multi-Level Marketing space for about 6 years now and nothing, and I mean nothing screams that you are an Amateur MLM 1st timer by posting something like this on your Facebook or linked in page:
“I just got involved in a multi-million dollar international company that’s rapidly expanding and looking for motivated people to fill positions of this ground floor opportunity. If your interested, please private message me.”
NO! NO! NO! Just stop your whole life. If who ever brought you in to the business told you to do this, run away from that person because you will NEVER make an income in our industry with bullshit pick-up lines like the one above.
This is about as lame as saying something like “Are you tired, because you have been running through my mind all day “ trying to pick up on a girl who you met at Starbucks. It’s embarrassing, misleading, and it gives our industry a bad name, not to mention, it DOES NOT WORK.
You would be better off standing on a street corner flipping a sign that read “Join My Pyramid Scheme, Positions at the top available, call 555-5555 to find out more.”
Look if no one has taught you anything about prospecting, Facebook should never be the main source of new prospects or lead generation and posting scammy posts on your wall will make you lose friends quicker than Sarah Palin lost the 2008 election. Keep it real, and keep it classy.
I have always thought of my Facebook page to be a virtual representation of myself. What I mean by this is that instead of trying to make myself look better on Facebook, I try to do better in real life and then post my results on Facebook. When people see the results that I am having as a result of what I am doing in my life it begs the question of “WHAT ARE YOU DOING????” When a person asks you something like this specifically, than you now officially have permission to talk business with them.
People have always joined my network marketing business because of me. At the end of the day, if the person does not like me or trust me, than they will never get in to business with me. No one likes to be sold! No one likes to feel pressured! People like to feel special and treated with respect, and if I am just throwing nets out in the general public to try to convert a couple of cold leads, you are in for a very hard road in an MLM or any direct selling or marketing career. Instead, trying going for quality not quantity. Think about what got you in to the industry, did you feel like a number, or like someone actually took and interest in you and gave you the time of day to build a friendship/business relationship with you before they ever spoke about the business.
Here is a short little video of MLM legend Tim Sales explaining this subject
httpvh://youtu.be/A6E3SL3ePRM
Now that you understand that (hopefully), what did you take away? I hope what you took away is that there is no such thing as a cold lead, or prospect that will ever follow you or join anything that you do just because you simply made it know that you do it. You must engage that person, find out what he or she likes or dislikes and warm them up to the idea before you can even get in to talking about any kind of business. This formula is true in any kind of sales or customer acquisition business. When you post linear scammy business posts on Facebook, you forget that everyone who is seeing it knows you, and if they know you as Johnny the kid who delivers pizzas and makes 35K a year, they will find it comical that you are talking about making a 100K + income.
You would have been better off telling the truth. Maybe something like this….
“I hate delivering pizzas and making 30K per year so I went out looking for something better and met _______________(a successful person) who makes way more than I do and seems to have all the time freedom in the world to do what ever he/she wants to do. I am going to a meeting this week to learn more, anyone interested in going with me???”
And the truth shall set you free.
I hope this was helpful, now go out there and apply some of the things you have learned here, and if you see someone posting some ridiculousness on Facebook, please do us all a favor, share the link of this blog post, and send them to school.
See you at the TOP!!
-Steve