Two passions of mine are golf and business. These two are very similar, especially when it comes to the on-line world. As we become a more digitally connected society, it is important to build business relationships online in the virtual world as well as the golf course. Major business deals believe it or not are  done on golf courses around the world. I have come up with some unique ways golf relates to social networking for business. I am interested in your feedback so please let me know if these are sufficient points.

1. Your business takes time to grow, just like your golf game
No one can go out and shoot 72 their first time, not even Tiger Woods did that. Just like in business, no one becomes a success overnight. It takes years of building up. Some newbie golfers go to golf camp to learn the basics or maybe a golf boot camp for the fast track approach. Just like our company in San Diego called Social Networking San Diego which gives the fast track (Bootcamp) to social media and social networking for business purposes. The same applies when doing business online. If you think its easy think again. The point is You MUST get educated on how to do business online if you are to play the business game online. Is your website generating leads for you? how is your pay per click campaign doing? Is your SEO up to par? What social video sites are you on? Are your leads converting?

2. Golfing is usually done with friends, business partners, or colleagues
I cant tell you how many times i have been golfing with people i enjoy spending time with. I have been golfing with clients, partners, and of course family and friends. The thing to understand is golf is relationship building just like social networking. It takes time and those who are in it for the short run or are looking at twitter negatively just don’t get it. Twitter is just a communication tool to build relationships online. Both personal relationships and business. Think of twitter simply as a virtual networking group on demand.

Please help vote for a Fellow San Diego Business EasyTurf as San Diego’s Best Green Product Installer by clicking here: http://budurl.com/easyturf

What are your thoughts on this post?
Cheers
Justin

4. Trust is very important. We have gained the trust of many clients by always doing what we say and communicating with them regularly and measuring the success of our social marketing strategy. We may even have to make adjustments with the keywords or messaging. It is definitely a process and takes months to lay the proper foundation. Consider it sweat equity or “building brand equity” as Gary Vee says; you are investing in the long run for big payoffs months down the road. I assure you there is no quick fix or get rich quick scheme that can help your business achieve long term growth and success online. Right now we are solving on-line marketing challenges companies are having and leveraging social networking and social media tools as means of meeting and achieving business goals. Social networking used to be just for personal use, but now we have identified how to leverage these mediums to help corporations become more competitive, more visible, and more profitable. As business consultants who happen to be very technical, this has given us an advantage to be able to leverage cutting edge technology for our clients that gives them a competitive edge. That is exactly why clients continue to see the value in working with a highly technical team who is first and foremost business minded and continues to produces on-line social marketing results.

this is a social media road map i found

I keep getting asked by fellow business professionals on linked-in discussions the following questions regarding social media and social networking for business.

1. How are you successfully using Twitter, microblogs, blogging, etc. in your corporate environment?

Justin’s Answer- personal branding, product/ service branding, customer service, industry news, trends, event promotion, competitor analysis, building BUSINESS relationships, etc.

2. How do you convince those that don’t “get it”?

Justin’s Answer- I tell them go get educated and come back to me in a year when your ready to build an on-line marketing strategy around your products or services and have it done right. Once companies wake up and start realizing 1-2% returns on direct mail and telemarketing is NOT working. Why do you keep doing things that don’t work? Stop throwing good money after bad ideas and work with an innovative marketing company. Maybe they should get educated on one of our many webinars about social networking, twitter training, or linked-in training for business. I don’t have the time or patience sometimes to deal with business people that “don’t get it”. Time is money!

3. How do you measure successful ROI?
We measure ROI for our customers with our own proprietary methods and software systems we have developed and it works great! We have paying customers, they see results, and we show them monthly reports. We have to measure the success of our clients online campaigns and report to them monthly or they wouldn’t be spending thousands of dollars per month with us!

4. I’m interested in hearing successes, failures, and strategies.

We have MANY success stores (see my blog http://www.socialnetworkingsandiego.com/blog/ or customer testimonial videos.

Failures; just know you will make some mistakes, get over it- just jump it try it, learn, and learn from your mistakes most importantly of course. You will learn, test, and refine the strategy. Try to have a plan at least. The alternative is to do nothing and fail. Need Strategies- see my blog or book some one on one consulting time with me and lets formulate an online marketing strategy together.

We even have an internet consulting team I can dedicate to your next on-line marketing campaign. Don’t have time to do all this social networking stuff yourself? No problem- we’ll do it for you. Give us a shot and we GUARANTEE we can increase traffic to your website IF you partner with us, sign up, and take our recommendations. It’s worked for these clients (see videos to the right) so maybe your business is ready to jump on board.

Is your business ready? What is your understanding of social media and social networking for business? Take the social networking IQ test here: business evaluation

Cheers
JustinRFrench twitterholic
Tweets by JustinRFrench

(more…)