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Gevril and Haurex Italia dinner during Baselworld in March 2011 with Larry Brauner standing in the background.
Baselworld 2012 March 8-15.
Jan
9
F-O-R-M
Filed Under Networking and Marketing Strategy | 1 Comment
Years ago I learned the acronym F-O-R-M standing for Family, Occupation, Recreation and Money. Talk about these four things and you’ll quickly learn what a person needs and how you might be able to help him or her.
I suggest that you use this formula in your online dialogs but with one important caution.
You cannot discuss money before you and your friend develop adequate mutual trust, since money can at times be a very sensitive topic.
Be aware that three areas of discussion that often lead to conflict are politics, religion and sexual orientation. Unless your agenda encompasses one or more of these topics, you will be prudent to leave them out of your conversations.
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Tags: Communication, social networking, Strategies
Jan
8
Tell Your Story
Filed Under Networking and Marketing Strategy | 2 Comments
Do you want to draw people to you? The right people?
Then why clutter your social networking pages with high bandwidth graphics and auto-playing videos?
These may be a form of self-expression, but they slow your page’s download and do little to showcase you as a person.
Consider cutting down on your high-bandwidth low-content stuff. Instead write a meaningful story or provide important information about yourself.
What would you like me to know about you? Use your profile page to tell me.
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Tags: branding, Communication, personal branding, social networking sites, Strategies
Jan
2
Comments, Messages, Bulletins and Blogs
Filed Under Blogging, Networking and Marketing Strategy | 5 Comments
Most social networking sites provide several ways to communicate, and depending on circumstances, one way may be more suitable than another.
Let’s discuss and compare the most common communication forms:
- Comments, guestbook entries or testimonials
- Private messages
- Bulletins or notices
- Blogs or web logs
Comments tend to be overused by most networkers. They are popular because they aren’t intrusive, they’re public, and because they link back to the poster’s page.
Comments have several drawbacks to consider:
- They aren’t suitable for personal messages which might embarass the recipient.
- They aren’t suitable for commercial messages. Comment spam is a major annoyance on networking sites.
- They can easily go unnoticed or unread if the recipient doesn’t require comment pre-approval.
Comments are great for gaining exposure and for creating back links to your page. They are also good for giving kudos.
Private messages tend to be underused by most networkers. Perhaps they’re afraid to intrude. Perhaps they’re using comments for some good reason and go on to use them for all their correspondence. Or perhaps they’re just going along with the rest of the herd.
Private messages ought to be used every time you desire direct communication. Messages will get opened and read. Do not use private messages for spam. If you have a commercial message, get explicit or implicit approval to send it.
Bulletins are useful when you have a very large number of friends or contacts. Theoretically, they allow you to reach out to all of them with one post. Unfortunately bulletins easily scroll out of view before they can be viewed, and unlike private messages, recipients can easily ignore them.
A possible solution is to use your blog to supplement your bulletins and other communications.
Spam is tolerated more in bulletins than in comments or private messages, but you should neverthelsss avoid it. Put unsolicited commercial messages in your blog, if anywhere.
Your blog is a public forum for your ideas and a place for public dialog, and your blog brands you in the mind of your readers.
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Tags: Blogging, branding, Communication, social networking, social networking sites, Strategies
Nov
20
What’s In It For Me?
Filed Under Networking and Marketing Strategy | 1 Comment
Let me restate my first law of social networking from my previous post.Law Number 1: Nobody cares what you say until they know that you care.
Once sombody knows that you care they will listen. However, they will listen with one — and only one — question in mind and that is, “What’s in it for me?”
That’s how people listen. You might say that their favorite radio station is WII-FM, “What’s in it for me?”
If you’re marketing a product or service, just about the worst thing you can do is discuss it’s features. Your listener’s reaction will generally be, “So what?” And that’s not good.
You are much better off talking about benefits than features. Discussing benefits answers in advance the “so what” question.
You will be best off if you can get to know what’s important to each person and discuss only the benefits that are relevant to that person. You will connect with his or her desires in a meaningful way, and your success is likely.
Therefore, when you meet a new person you should focus on learning what’s important to that person. Not only will he feel that you care, he will also relate to you those things that matter most to him — and now my friend you’re on the right track!
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Tags: Communication, Marketing, Marketing Strategy, prospecting, sales, social networking
