Your seventh theme for social media marketing (and the last in this series) is to let people help you.
When you ask people for small favors – that they can easily do – you are helping them feel good about themselves. And then they also feel good about you.
I know, it sounds odd – ask for a favor and people will like you better – but that works.
So ask for favors!
Just make them extremely simple and painless to do.
It’s even better if you can ask a favor where helping you makes them look good too – where they can both help you and show their own knowledge and experience.
For example, if you ask for a suggestion for a restaurant in Boston, people get to show that they know Boston and have knowledge of the good restaurants there. That’s pretty cool!
If you ask for suggestions about whether to get an iPad or one of the newer tablets, people get to show that they have a lot of knowledge about the products.
So ask for advice.
You can look for business help:
- Vendors
- Tools
- Services
- Consultants
- Equipment
- Methodologies
- Techniques
- Coaches
- Seminars
- Training
You can also ask for personal recommendations and advice:
- Restaurants
- Shows
- Hotels
- Gadgets
- Tours
- Gyms
- Camps
If there are only a couple of choices, it can be fun to set up a poll and let people vote.
A couple tips… Only ask for one favor at a time, and keep it simple to do. Ideally it should be something they can do in a couple seconds – it shouldn’t require a lot of thought. You also don’t want to ask them to put themselves on the line in any way. It shouldn’t be risky.
But do ask regularly. People love to help, and if you make it easy you will find that you can grow your circle substantially. What are some ways you’ve asked people to help?