We can learn a lot from nature. In nature, few things grow extremely quickly. Things have their own pace and rarely spike in terms of growth rate.
As you are growing your LinkedIn Connections, Facebook Friends and Twitter Followers, remember nature. Remember that slow and steady wins the race. And then remember that Social Media isn’t a race.
Be leery of the folks who tout offers to “Grow your followers by 50 bajillion in 5 minutes” and crap like that. Be very leery. How unnatural.
Yes, Social Media enables us to communicate with more people and much more quickly. But remember that relationships aren’t rushed. And effective Social Media is all about relationships.
I don’t know exactly what ‘organic’ means, although I heard the word used a lot in business over the last few years. It’s one of those buzz-words that’s in style right now.
I’ll use the word ‘organic’ to mean ‘nature-like’ or ‘natural’. In my simple thinking, this makes sense and as in most things we should follow nature’s example. Don’t rush the harvest.
Grow your connections, friends and followers naturally. Connect with people, offer value and be friendly. Don’t make it more complicated than that. All things being equal, people do business with and refer business to people they know, like and trust.
Yes, your networks can grow to some staggering numbers, but the most effective people realize that it’s grown one by one. Which is very natural.
Comments 2
Did you know that in Sao Paulo Brazil it is illegal to post advertising in public spaces. This means no signs, no billboards no flyers, nothing. If you were to ask a business owner in Sao Paulo how they get the word out about their business they would tell you that they rely heavily on referrals. In other words they have been forced to re-think how they treat their customers so that they get more word of mouth referral business. Could you imagine if we all had to re-think they way we got business like this. If all business owners had to start re-working their marketing plan to include exceptional customer service and products people love, wouldn’t that be something…
It is important that when businesses use social media that they look at it as a communication tool. A fantastic way to communicate with customers, potential customers and the the people who may have never even heard about them. In this respect we need to start thinking of social media as a way to build relationships, gain more happy customers and build our referral base. NOT an advertising platform.
Maybe if we think of social media as a relationship tool rather then an advertising platform we will be able to organically grow our client base. As you had said in your posting, “But remember that relationships aren’t rushed. And effective Social Media is all about relationships.” The people who we take the time to build a relationship with, give excellent service to and provide a product of excellent quality, those people will come back over and over again to do business with us. They will tell their friends and you will find that slowly but surly your business will grow and be stronger then ever before. It takes longer but I guarantee is will cost less in the long run to build relationships and increase referrals rather then focussing too much on promotions and advertisements.
Remember Facebook likes do not equal people or customers for that matter. Relationships do.
Author
Thanks for your wonderful comments, Kelly! 🙂