Be A Trust Agent

Social Media is not intended to be the place where someone continuously hammers their network trying to hustle their products.  The”I Made 45K in 30 days!” and “New Business Opportunity In Pre-Launch.  Jump Aboard!”; do not bring value nor do they motivate the recipient want to do anything other than delete it upon viewing the headline.  Making matters even worse is the rotating automation software, which automatically sends these messages out every 30 minutes everyday.  The issue is that no one is behind the keyboard sending anything of value and as a result, no one is listening.

The best way to use social media to grow your business is to provide value, which is to say; connect, listen and give.  Social Media Guru Chris Brogan the author of “Trust Agents” verbalized it well when he said, “Give and provide value. Connect those that can help each other’s business.  Be on the elbow of every deal being made.  Give, give and give some more.  It’ll always come back to you. If you don’t get that, then you’ll never be a trust agent”.

The point is that if you want to gain viable connections that will funnel traffic to your site or customers to your business you need to be seen as an asset in meeting their needs.  That takes asking and listening.  The beauty of social media is that you don’t necessarily have to be the smartest person in the room to do that.  You just need to be connected with the expert and put them together to mutually meet their business need. You can also find purpose if you refer them to internet sources of information that can meet that need as well.

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Social media is not a text ad exchange and too many marketers are using social media like a text ad exchange. Such social marketing is really on the edge of spamming. As the above article points out social media is all about sharing, connecting and building up trust in your brand as someone who is offering something of value. The good social networking online marketer is first and foremost an "agent of trust". Be a "trust agent" in the social media world.