My first post: Why 98% will fail with Social Media

Hello everyone I am Alan, UK Expat, Dad, L.F.C. fan and No.1 Social media marketer in Thailand , thought I'd go straight into this with a blog about how lazy we can be:

'Social media marketing is the answer to the universal problem of finding more customers,' we are told every day.

'Forget cold calling, forget meeting boring people at business networking events, all you have to do now is; sit at home and share this and that on Facebook a few times a week and BINGO! Your house is paid for, the kids have everything they want.'

Sadly so many are still being sold on this lie, that managing your marketing and sales on the internet is easy and much more effective than anything else, it's an easy sell and if you are a immoral sales person you know how to sell what the customer really wants, whether you can deliver it or not.

As a social media marketer myself since 2009 with over 500,000 real followers, friends and contacts on the big sites I am here to tell you to get back out there to the business events and never stop letting your customers hear your voice.

Social media marketing is one aspect of your marketing, and unless you have made a mousetrap so good or a drug that has no side effects then it won't be enough on its own to grow your business.

The other lesson people learn quickly is that there is a vast gulf between most people's understanding of branding and advertising. Social media is branding.

Branding is an invisible force of nature which is how your clients and potential clients 'feel' about you, oops there we marketers go on again talking about feelings!

How can you judge how people feel about you? Well many years ago in the 80's and 90's Companies would pay middle aged ladies to conduct market research on the streets with an obligatory pack of biscuits for your time. They would accost you for 10 minutes and show you logos of Blue chip companies and then ask if you know who this company is , how do you 'feel' about this company? etc etc.

Fast forward 25 years and are we any closer knowing how people feel about us? Imagine the scene a man, mid twenties, is in a shopping mall with 500 U.S.D. he intends to buy a smart phone, he looks left there is Samsung and to his right Apple. It is at that moment that the branding war will be won as he already knows which brand he feels best about and walks into the shop of his choice and gives them $500.

As a start up or small business who cannot afford Television or Radio ads you have to build your web presence and manage your brand through the internet, as well as all the other things getting out there in person etc. I tell all my clients who I consult on social media and brand building as a UK registered mentor that they should be writing around 2-3 blog posts a week on their sites that is hosted by them.

Added to this they should be sharing their blogs to all social media sites, video sites, image based sites and bookmarking sites. I don't advise automation because in my opinion makes you look lazy and people can see automation a mile of. I also advise online press releases once a month syndicated to the top news sites to develop your brand, and also to comment on many other forums and other blogs.

Total time commitment?

1-2 hours a day

Amount of clients whom I advised not to pay me to come and help them, if they are not prepared to put in the minimum time commitment to create them a successful internet marketing brand, I have mentored since 2009:

200+

Of the 200 I trained. how many were unhappy with my service:

1, she never built her site or paid anyways!

Percentage of business owners who were happy with my training and promised themselves they would keep up their content marketing activities and actually kept up the blogging to this day:

2! Yes TWO!

Chief take away:

You can always pay for stuff but when it come to time input that's a different ask altogether, and without a trusted brand you are never going to get the trust you need to make sales.

I'm always open to help anyone here on Steemit Thanks for having me you can follow me here:

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Website : http://biz-findthailand.com