Social Networking for Unsocialble Internet Marketer?

All this social networking stuff is hogwash.

I tried to keep up with all that too. Result:
A complete waste of my time.
I even have a twitter account with some 6,000 follower. Have not checked it for months...

There are cases where social media makes sense:
If you have a local Pizza store for example you can build a fan page and offer special deals or if you are a chiropractor you can use a fan page to stay in touch with your clients.

But for the rest of us: not worth it.

What you can and should do:
Build a plain old mailing list. Then send out regular mailings to that list.

And it does not have to be "buy now". Just tell your subscribers what you do or can do. If you can build forums for example there might be some guys that could use your expertise.

Maybe we need to start a new trend - "antisocial networking"!

I'm in agreement with the other posters, while I have had a Facebook account since 2007 I don't think I've actually used it since then. I do have a Twitter account which has about 3000 followers and did used to keep at it, but it's been several months since I tweeted anything.

My real only form of "social networking" is the Warrior Forum, and even that I need to put aside on days when I really just need to focus on work.

Maybe antisocial networking will be the next big thing. We can all sign up for accounts and then never post anything, and put up pages for everyone else to "dislike". Should save a lot of time!



Bill

Every single piece of the SEO pie is not necessary.....it is NICE to have a prospering/growing social media network, but it is not mandatory...

And of course that depends on what genre your client is in.....

The Internet was I guess meant to be a sociable thing (communication) but it has also put a lot of people into comfortable solititude. No longer do people have to go out if they are bored.

networking is part of business in some form. social media is a great way to do it, but it is only one way. if you use forums (they are really the oldest form of social networking still available) you are doing the same thing that people do on these other networking sites.

It also depends on your niche. not all niches are viable for social media marketing.

The key ingredient for success is building a relationship with potential clients and guiding them through the process of making a decision to buy a product. Some people do this through social media and some people do it in other ways. however you choose to do it, the relationships you build are what is important, not what sites you use to do it on.

Usually I don't invest so much time on social, just add the Facebook and Twitter logos on my blog, and people visit my fanpage and the press the I like button.

My blog feed publish my articles on the fanpage via networkedblogs, I just visit the fanpage when someone makes a comment or question, and the fanpage its growing every day.

There are tons of ways to be "social" online. I got about 250 unique views today to my site, mostly from Twitter. I get more views than if I was first on the first page of Google for my main keyword. You have to spam different links all through the day to make Twitter work. I use Twaitter to schedule tweets, Twiends to get followers, and Tweepi to manage my followers.

The only way to solve your networking skills or desire for it is to just do it. If you feel it will help you in the long run then you should resist inertia and press on with changing your view of networking.

EFt,
As your second twitter follower, I can tell you are not using it for much. I have been adding 50 to 100 followers on twitter the last few days. (Currently, I'm almost to 700 followers) I've had a number of visitors to my main site because of my tweets. I've been tweeting here and there. I set up a text file with things to tweet, so I'm not stuck thinking up things to tweet. If you don't want to be social, just tweet what interests you. As people search on twitter, they will eventually find your tweets, and if they find them interesting enough, they will follow you.
The whole trick to social media is you use it for what you want. Follow your passions and use social media to find others with the same passions. You might find other people you actually find interesting and would want to interact with. From some of the replies, I'd say you've already got a head start. LOL
Even if you're a "grumpy old man hermit" you might find other grumpy old man hermits to share your complaints with. :-)
On Facebook, I have close to 2000 friends, but most are either game players, coworkers, or high school friends. I would have a hard time marketing to most of them, because they are not interested in internet marketing or most of my other niches.
What is good about social media is most of them have ways for you to automate what you post on them, so you can work once, and have it last for a while. You can even tie some of them together, so what you post on one shows up on others. When tied in with a website, this can be pretty powerful stuff. Simply put, you're leaving money on the table by not utilizing these tools and that's all they are.

I hope this helps,
Jim

EFt,
Don't think of it as "I'm pushing stuff on people", if that isn't your bag, don't do it that way. It's just as easy to say, "Hey, I've got this thing you might be interested in. If you are GREAT, if not, don't buy it. I'm just letting you know about it." It's known as soft selling. Soft selling actually works better with social media, because hard selling is viewed the same way most people view a used car salesman.

That's what social media is all about... being yourself.

Do what you're comfortable with, because at the end of the day, you have to live with yourself.

Personally, I'm not into hard selling, just look at my signature, "Feel free to visit my site" no bells and whistles saying "BUY! BUY! BUY!" just a simple link to my main site. If you like what I say on this forum, you'll click the link. If you don't, you won't. If you visit my site, there is a lot of great information (hence the name), but the monetization is mostly passive (Adsense, ClickBank, Amazon, and CJ partner links). I feel better that way. Just like I don't endorse every product that comes along. There are some products I've tried and disliked. I won't endorse them. There are others I'll happily endorse (like Extreme Niche Empires by Sean Donahoe), because it is a quality product.
What is good about social media and technology in general is that you really don't have to do a lot of interacting directly with people if you don't want to. As you mentioned, you can set up feeds to post directly to most social media, and autoresponders let you create personalized follow up messages that can feel like they are written especially for you.
With social media, you can set up a series of automatic messages or tweets of things like your favorite quotes or links to your favorite things or whatever. You can intersperse your money links into that mix, just don't do it too often. It all goes back to that old saying "Content rules!". If you can be willing to share a little of who you really are, people will be attracted to that. If you can't share some of yourself, I can't help you with that.

I hope this has been helpful for you.

Best Regards,

Jim

LOL, you came to me as an internet marketer who doesn't want to sell.

Though I do get your point.

But if you really want to start getting contacts, Just help people.

When you have that desire to really just help people, sales come
in naturally. Then friends come as well when people see that you have
a real desire to help.

That for me is how to do it. I mean start having friends, whether in real
life or in facebook.

thanks JimWaller & mary, I enjoyed reading that, it is very helpful stuff and I totally agree.

Matt, i think that buying stuff like this makes sense and I have started outsourcing a few things lately but I have not had much come from my 1000 odd followers I have manually got on twitter for one of my websites so I'm a little hesitant to pay money for it.

I actually wrote an article about this called "Why Social Media Isn't For Everyone."

You could certainly hire or outsource it if it just isn't your bag. You are better off focusing on what you do best and outsourcing the rest.

ROFL! Is anyone else wondering how much "fun" Maxwell Maltz or Eric Berne would be having with this phenomenon?