Hi, Victoria here from The Bookkeeper Hub, HBA Encompass, and of course author of Zest for Success. Today, we’re gonna have a chat about social media and in particular social media groups. Last couple of sessions, we’ve been talking about Facebook and LinkedIn. Now, the logic that we’re gonna talk about today is exactly the same whether you’re talking about LinkedIn or Facebook. In both stream of social media, you are able to create a group.
A group is something that you can invite people to or they can find by themselves by searching and it’s an area where people of like-minded interests hang out. Now, there are different types of groups particularly in Facebook. I’m not so sure about LinkedIn. You can have a close group or an open group. To put that in perspective, an open group is something that anyone can join. So for instance I live on the Sunshine Coast and there’s a Sunshine Coast classifieds group, I can join that and I can scroll through and find all kinds of goods to buy or sell. It’s basically like gum tree but it’s on Facebook. A closed group would be for instance the one that we have for The Bookkeeper Hub Fix-It Clients, where people who subscribe to our service can join our Facebook group and we can interact online. So you can create a group for yourself, for people of interests in your industry, or for potentially keeping a group of your clients together. But more importantly from a marketing point of view, you need to look of groups where you can add value and you can become the key person of influence. Now that sounds a bit harsh and a bit self-promoting but even in Facebook groups or LinkedIn group it still comes back to that adage that I say day in day out, we’re not trying to get people to marry you on the first date. We’re trying to build rapport. We’re trying to build a tribe so that when you do potentially have a sell or something in the group or someone is looking for your service they will come to you. So a prime example for that as an accountant and a bookkeeper and an author of a business book, business people are my target audience. So I’m a member of the Queensland Business Facebook group. Now, that is a close group. You have to join and then the administrators of the group I suppose check you out to make sure that you’re a real person and then they let you join that group. Now, some groups love multi-level marketers. Some just like them with the passion. I’m not gonna say good or bad against it but just make sure that whatever group that you do join make sure you read the rules of the group. Usually when you go to a group and they let you into their group page, you can go in and on my phone I can get on the left-hand side of my Facebook and see the groups that I’m in. There is a Facebook app for groups that you can actually download on your phone and just check in to your groups. In my situation, I run a Samsung phone and it comes up with numbers like your normal Facebook notifications which lets you know how many different conversations are going on. So I can check that in the morning or in the afternoon and see which groups got a lot of going on and go on and see if I can add value. A lot of groups actually have rules regarding no advertorial content or no blatant self-promotion. They also have different days where there are different things that you can do like Top Tip Tuesday or Accountability Monday. If you are going to post make sure that you’ve got something if they do have those type of rules that relates to whatever the day is. So for instance Top Tip Tuesday in the Queensland Business Group, I may go in and put a video there with something either that’s a Top Tip for business owners. The other thing that you do in groups particularly if they’re groups of your interests or your potential clients interest is to make your self interesting and make yourself valuable. So where people have asked questions because that’s one of the great things about groups, people can ask for questions or recommendations that you go in and you answer truthfully. You never sledge anyone. You never say anything rude. Social media, you never put anything in social media that you wouldn’t say face-to-face with your grandmother. This is my rule. So you go in and you try to become engaged with the people. If there’s a question about how do I do this or I wanna do this but don’t know how and it’s something in your field of influence, then go in and give some instruction. If there’s someone else who’s already given some instruction and you have a different opinion, you can put the opinion in but you don’t bring down the person who said something different. You just go in and say ‘Peter said this, the first part of what he said is correct but I’ve always found it easier to do XYZ…’ whatever it is that you’re changing the comment or even going in and supporting the person who said something if you agree with them. So Peter might have got in before you because in groups it’s a bit of a I suppose a race to the comment if that makes sense but you wanna do that without spending your whole life on social media. You’ve got work to do hopefully. So go in and pee together a comment on what it is and you go in ‘I agree 100% with what Peter said’ and contact that person or whatever it happens to be. It’s also about referrals. For instance, in one of the groups the other day someone was asking a question about IP, about trademarks. And my first comment is more a thought, ‘well you know what I know a little bit about them but I’m not a specialist in that area but I know someone who is’. So it’s about referring. My comment was ‘speak to Jeff Muller’. Now because Jeff Muller was a friend of mine in Facebook, it comes up as a bolded name. It means that he then gets a notification that he’s being talked about. So he can then go into the group and say, ‘Oh hi Mary, I saw your post’ and then he give the valuable information. Usually in something like that where people’s asking for a referral or help, you can put ‘Hi Mary, here’s the information you’re after. If you need more help contact me.’ You can put your contact details in or you can ask them to give you a private message and that way you can take the person out of the group to potentially close a sale or to be able to help them within your business. Sometimes, yes, you’ve got to give some stuff for free but the goodwill and the rapport that you get — it means the other members in the group know who you are and the more that you’re able to give or to help people, the more referrals you’re going to get. So treat these sources if they’re external groups as an extended marketing team that you want to get the core people that are there to know who you are and refer you.
Now back to that Queensland business group, there’s two and half thousand or four and a half thousand members in this group but when you go in and the people who are commenting on a regular basis are all the same people and they become your raving fans. They can recommend you at all times. So LinkedIn groups and Facebook group work exactly the same way. It’s a manner of being there, being present, taking part, giving, and not necessarily expecting to receive but giving with the hope that down the track if you’re there and you’re constantly helping people that karma will come and some referrals will come in your way. So that’s all I’ve got for you today about Facebook and LinkedIn groups. I suggest that you get out there and have a poke around in Facebook and in LinkedIn and YouTube that I spoke about the other day. Get out there.
The last piece of advice that I’ve got is just be careful. Don’t spread yourself too thin. Perhaps think about which social media channels is the one that you know or the one that you wanna be involved in where you think more of your potential clients will be. Learn how it works and work it well. Tomorrow we’re gonna talk about some of the other social media networks that aren’t so well known. I am going to refer to my book a little bit because I don’t use them but it’s more to give you an overview of some of the main ones that are out there. See you on the other side.