One of the keys to success in your home based network marketing company is the leaders you select to help you grow your business. But finding them can be a challenge.
In this post, I will illustrate some strategies to find people to network with in your industry. As I stated in previous posts, your goal should not be to try to sell them on your business right away. Although most network marketers work more than one business, the goal here is to develop a relationship to communicate with them and share ideas and strategies.
Since most people have hundreds if not thousands of people they are connected to on a multitude of social media sites, a good strategy is to provide value to the person you are connected with that some of their followers will find interesting enough to want to follow you and learn more about what you do.
Once you have begun connecting with people, your next step is to provide them content of value that is not directly related to your business. If you do this right, you will find diamonds in the rough that would make good candidates to ‘interview’ as potential partners in your existing business.
Here is a simple search you can do on Google to find people on Twitter that have keywords related to your niche. The odds are they are interested in what you are interested in and would be ideal people to connect with and follow.
Once you find them, post content using the @username tag so that that post appears on their timeline. People that are following them will see it and if they find value, the odds are increased they will be interested in checking your profile out and learning more about you.
Google Twitter tip: *Thanks to Mike Merrill for this tip. Note: If you drop the “location” variable, you can open up the search globally. Using the location variable is good for connecting with people in your specific area that share your interest in the same niche.
Here’s how it works:
1. Example: Say I want to search for marketers in the NYC area. This is what I would copy into Google.com
site:twitter.com intitle:”on twitter” “bio* * marketing” “location NYC”
This returned 8 pages of targeted results.
2. Example: If I would like to find recruiters in the Austin area I could use this search
site:twitter.com intitle:”on twitter” “bio* * recruiter” “location austin”
This returned 11 results.
Facbook
Search for groups in Facebook that are in your niche and join these groups. Participate in the discussions and request to be added as friends with the members of these groups that you are attracted to (not physically but hey, if that works go for it!).
When you connect, be sure to post a thank you on their wall and as they follow you back, any updates you post to your wall will appear in their timelines as well. As with twitter, people who are connected to them will see these posts and if they find value, they will want to connect with you directly to learn more.
Just like Facebook, you can search via keywords for your niche and find people to connect with. LinkedIn works like Facebook in that your updates and content will appear to people you are connected to. With LinkedIn, I find it most valuable to connect directly with people and join similar groups, posting discussions to generate interest.
Groups are an awesome way to find new people to connect with. You can also join open networking groups on LinkedIn and build your list of contacts quickly – I went from 300 to over 1500 in a little over a month by joining these open networking groups. Once you connect with someone, send them an InMail with a little about yourself and build dialogues with people you are interested in learning more about.
There are many more social media sites but the principle is the same. Just follow the above steps for any social media site or network you belong to.
Finally, I mentioned content of value multiple times in this post for a reason. One of the biggest turn offs is to ‘spam’ people with your business opportunity as soon as you connect with them. This does not work.
In fact, I recommend you setup a blog about YOU that provides valuable content people will enjoy and appreciate. Push people to your blog and offer them something free of value that will entice them to subscribe to your updates.
That’s it for now. Happy hunting!
