Know-How Exchange : Social Media

Dear stlubahn,

Until the effectiveness of advertising ANYTHING on Facebook has been proved by someone else, I wouldn't bother.

Think about it: if schools are blocking Facebook ads and your main customers are school teachers, paying to reach these people via Facebook is a waste of time, effort, and money.

A better bet would be to start a blog, connect it to your main site,
and drive traffic to that site from Twitter and YouTube, and from a host of other social media sites SPECIFICALLY for teachers.

You'll find a list of such sites here: https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&q=social+media+for+teachers&a...

However, the critical thing to keep in mind is that social media is NOT about buying anything. It's more to do with being SOCIAL.

So rather than drive sales messages, create and deliver stories that connect to your product range. People LIKE stories. But generally, people DO NOT like advertising. So, use stories to create compelling visions in people's minds—vision that do all the heavy lifting of the pitch for you you.

Tell people how this teacher used a certain supply range in an unusual way to achieve a certain goal; tell people how this child or that child accomplished A, B, and C using this or that.

This is the kind of chit chat that gets batted around and remarked on at cocktail parties and if social media is anything it's way closer to a cocktail party than it is to an out and out selling opportunity.

The story tactic creates interest and intrigue and those things in turn are then projected onto the screen of the imagination. Whether it happened or was witnessed first hand or not is not what matters. The vision leads to people SEEING themselves take the action, to them placing themselves in the picture to get the same result. And it's THIS vision that leads to people taking action because it's all closely connected with social standing and desired outcome.

When people see other people like themselves taking a certain action or achieving a certain result, whether the action or result is real or imagined, those individuals seeing that result are far more likely to then take steps to make the thing they've seen in their head a reality than they are by not having had those images placed in their minds.

Imagination makes the reported action "real" because the
brain cannot tell the difference between something that has been witnessed first hand and something that has been projected on
the screen of the imagination.

Want proof? "The chattering tropical waves lap gently on the golden sand as you and your sweetheart walk hand in hand beside the crystal clear waters of Necker Island. The stress of everyday life melts lazily away as the delicious warmth of the Caribbean sun on your skin lifts your spirits and eases your mind ..."

You're still in the same place you were a few moments ago but there, briefly, you were strolling along the beach of Richard Branson's private Caribbean island. That's the power of a story: your mind makes it real.

So, focus on being social, not on selling. I hope this helps.

Gary Bloomer
Wilmington, DE, USA
Follow me on www.twitter.com @GaryBloomer