We all know them, some of us love them, some of us love one or the other, some of us hate either or both of them but which platform works best in building your network marketing business? Well, that really comes down to personal preference but I’m going to share what my personal experience has been with both over the past 18 months’ of the Covid-19 Pandemic period. As with a smorgasbord, take what you like and leave the rest.
Facebook really is a soapbox essentially. It allows people to view their opinions mostly freely with very little immediate consequence. Yes people respond but essentially there’s little consequence in the typed message so people do tend to speak their minds much more openly on Facebook and tend to say things they wouldn’t otherwise say to someone in person. Which is great in some contexts – as you really get to know a person – but in others, not so great. You see when you set up a Facebook account, you set it up as yourself – a personal profile as YOU. So things said on your personal profile don’t necessarily taint your business brand. Linked In is much, much different in this respect. You set up a professional profile so anything you say in the feed is a direct reflection of your brand – not just you. So for that very reason, people tend to discuss far less controversial ideas on Linked In. Which I find rather refreshing. There’s no ranting or raving or arguing – well not that I have witnessed myself and I am a member of 20 groups and have around 2,000 connections. I have the exact same number of Facebook ‘friends’ (maybe a tiny bit more) and I’ll be honest, I’ve blocked and banned many, many people since this Pandemic began 18 months’ ago. Facebook has just become like a megaphone for people’s emotions and frankly, it’s not helpful – not to me and my mindset but not helpful to my business either. Nor is me having a temper tantrum on the platform either (not that I do). I equally find Linked In refreshing as I’m not seeing what people at for dinner or what their kids’ are doing every minute of the day. I’m sure many find it cute, but most people just don’t care. They are on a platform for a reason – THEIR reason and it’s generally not to learn what others are eating or what their kids’ activities are each and every day. I’ve always said if you have kids’, start up a private page for them and invite your friends’ and family – don’t post their every movement publicly on Facebook because no-one cares. Sorry to be so blunt, but it’s true. Especially if you are running a business and even if your target market is other Mums. People care about their problems mainly and what solutions there are for them – that is the NUMBER ONE reason most people go to Facebook. They have a problem they want solved. Sadly, for the most part they want it solved for free and therein lies the inherent problem with Facebook. Even paying for marketing, the leads are very low quality. But that’s just my point of view – always know for yourself. I know many others having great success and I am fully aware of many top income earners and trainers teaching people how to recruit on Facebook and that is fine. My main issue is quality. I would far prefer to spend a little more time and get quality leads, than to run ads on Facebook, spend a fortune for a tonne of leads that are in effect, junk. But if that is what you choose to do, great. It’s all a personal preference.
So how do I leverage Linked In for my business. Well there are 7 ways you can use Linked In for very little cost or in fact free to market your business.
- Your Profile. Here’s mine to give you a bit of a taste: (15) Fiona J Lindsay | LinkedIn Be sure to make your profile picture the same across all social media platforms for brand recognition. And be clear as to what you do and feel free to promote freely every few days of what you do both in the feed and into groups. Make sure your profile is complete with nothing missing and get some people who know you to endorse some of your skills. People will look!
- Job Postings. Your first one is absolutely free! And from my most recent free job posting, I received 9 leads, 3 of them were “qualified” meaning they answered some basic questions successfully and two out of the three I sent business presentations to. Not bad I would say! Simply click on “Work” then “Post a job”. Simples!
- Post in your own feed. You can post all sorts of things but be sure it’s how you want to best represent your brand. For instance, write articles, share blog posts, share other people’s posts that could be interesting to your target audience, share inspirational and motivational quotes, anything that could be educational or entertaining to your audience. Don’t forget to always react and comment to at least 10 posts a day in your feed.
- Post in groups and comment and react to other’s posts daily. Position yourself as the expert – especially if someone is asking a question. Play with groups. If you are finding that no-one is responding to you after a few weeks’, change it up and find other groups or better still – start your own!
- Linked In Recruiter Lite. This will cost you money and take a bit of time once a week but again lead quality is exceptionally good. It costs $AUD160 per month and you can directly message anyone on Linked In with a maximum of 30 messages. The benefit of this is that you can really target who you want to reach out to. I search “Open to Opportunities” because it basically says exactly that – they are open to people reaching out with their opportunity not just a job. Put together a very innocuous, professional, courteous and pleasant “inmail” telling them you’ve noticed they are open to opportunities and briefly tell them what you do. NEVER mention MLM/network marketing. Then tell them you are actively searching for people and what traits you are looking for. I always close out the message saying that if it doesn’t resonate feel free to ignore and message and continue on with your day or reach back out to schedule a call. I get a great response rate and so far have got out 3 presentations over 3 months’. Not fantastic numbers but as with most marketing strategies, you have to test them over a period of time. I’ve chosen 6 months and certainly hope to increase my numbers over the next 3 months’ but again, the quality of leads has been extremely high.
- Campaign Manager. Now I will preface this with a warning – you need to know exactly what you are doing and keep a VERY close eye on your budget or else you will go through a lot of money very fast. This is very similar to Facebook in that respect, however the algorithms remain very much unchanged. Linked In Support is very good and there’s loads of training online on how to really make this work for you in targeting precisely who you are looking to work with in your business.
- Messaging your existing connections. I’ve put together a lovely little message introducing myself and sharing with them access to a free online product (and I get about 1 in every 50 messages actually subscribing). It breaks the ice and starts people talking back and once we have a conversation about what they do, what they are passionate about, where they live, a bit about their family then I ask the prospecting question. If they are open to checking it out great, I get them on a call, if not, I end the conversation and wish them well. Works WAY better and no-one has been offended by my messages yet. Do this on Messenger and you risk being put in FB “gaol/jail” or being reported. For some reason, people on FB really seem to object to receiving messages from people they don’t know very well. No idea why. People on Linked In are far more open to having a conversation and open to looking at a business – after all, that is what they are there for.
This is a very brief synopsis on why Linked In is working so wonderfully well for me right now. In fact, most of my marketing strategy currently centres around job boards in general. There are many other similar platforms to Linked In – all you need to do is ask Ms Google and let your fingers do the researching. But this is a good starting point and there are multitudes of resources online as to how to use Linked In effectively to promote and build your business. Hope this works well as a solid starting point. For me personally, I feel so much more relaxed spending time on Linked In than on Facebook so attraction will always go where energy flows. Have fun with it and love to know your results.