It’s great to see the influx of network marketers joining Facebook and establishing their online presence.
Before social media we used message boards, blogs, forums and instant messenger to pass information around. Each of these mediums had its advantages, disadvantages and most importantly, rules.
If you screw up on a forum you can often create a new account and start over. But that is not the case on social media. Your online brand is your reputation, and your word.
When I first got started marketing on Facebook I actually made this mistake, and it resulted in a lot of my friends blocking me and also and losing out on the chance for hundreds of sales.
On Facebook you’ve only got one shot, and if you’re making this mistake you could be alienating both friends and potential customers, leaving you in what we call the NFL club (no friends left).
Heads up! It’s The Hail Mary Pass
The Hail Mary pass on social media is when you throw your offer out to the general public, hoping someone will see it and purchase your product or service.
Have you ever seen something like this show up in your feed?
“OMG, this is SOOOOO great! You have to see it NOW!, if you don’t you’ll miss out on Green Leprecauns giving out gold while riding unicorns in knit sweaters, click this link here! Whoaaa, i just joined!”
I’m not saying don’t get excited about something, but this is social network spam. I would position this message differently if the goal was to promote this offer on Facebook. The golden rule for effective social media marketing is “how can I provide value”, but since this is a straight up offer I may approach it like this:
As a joke: Have you ever seen a green leprechaun give away unicorns?
As a question tied Into value: What do you think about a leprechaun that helps you get free gold? Leave me your thoughts in a comment and I’ll have his unicorn knit you a sweater.
As a private message: Hey Joe, I know you’re really into XYZ and I wanted to get your feedback on something I’m doing with unicorns, leprechauns and knit sweaters, when do you have a few minutes to chat?
How To Avoid The Hail Mary Pass In Your Marketing
I’m kidding of course, but you may well garner a fair amount of response from these types of angles (and have some funny conversations).
Seriously, The key is not only to provide value and help solve people’s problems, but to focus on actively repeating this process every day and growing the volume of people you can help, reach and influence through automation.
Avoiding the Hail Mary pass allows you to more effectively reach people, AND offers an “in” to follow up with these folks to see if they would even be interested in your event, webinar, product, etc.
If you piqued the interest of, and helped 2 people solve a problem (fix a blog problem, learn article marketing, refer them to a resource) each day for the past year, do you think you would have sold a few more affiliate products in the process? Or sponsored a few more people into your primary business?
My encouragement is to focus energy on creating value today and outlining a plan to do the same thing tomorrow. The results will follow.
What if someone throws a Hail Mary pass in your direction?
Many folks get frustrated or upset when they see the 40th post about the same affiliate offer, or get pitched via private message but this is actually an opportunity for you. Posturing is so important in online marketing and these folks are coming from a weak position for one simple reason.
And they are even telling you this by their method of contact. They need help with their social media marketing.
As a leader, do you see how this is a huge opportunity for you to help THEM? I definitely wouldn’t respond to a wall post like the one above with a straight link to my MLSP optin page but I may send reply to their message and open a dialogue.
For a step-by-step walkthrough on prospecting these hail mary marketers and turning them into paying customers, check out Module 4 of Master Sponsoring Series where Ray has a mystery guest provide a complete script and psychological walkthrough on flipping these folks while helping them in the process.
I’ve used this strategy numerous times and it works because our goal (helping this person succeed in generating leads online more effectively) is in line with their need (learning how to market on social media).
The Quality Of A Hail Mary Prospect
Another Bonus Tip: I guarantee you that the quality of leads you’ll attract through networking are of a much higher caliber than the folks that simply click a hail mary link in a Facebook post.
Why? Because the second type of leads generally tend to be of the “get rich quick” mindset and are looking for the next shiny toy to add to their library. They will not stick around long in your business and most likely not produce the results you want from your team.
The people that are in the trenches, working to solve the obstacles temporarily blocking them from reaching their goals, will put money in your pocket if you can align your products or services with their needs and wants, but you first have to find those things out and you won’t ever do that with a Hail Mary on Facebook.
I made the very same mistakes starting out Shaun. Thankfully I learned to smarten my act up before I lost a bunch of friends or worse. Great post.
You share some great value with the community Michael, keep rockin’ bro!