By Michele Scism
The Results Lady
Do you know the power of a few friends? If your a mother, a friend can save your sanity by watching your child for a little while. If you get ill, a friend will bring you medicine and soup, like my friend Peggy did for me last time. If you have a death in the family, a friend will sit with you while you mourn and if you get married, a friend will dance the night away with you and then drive behind you honking her horn as you leave for your honeymoon.
But what does it mean to be a social media friend?
If you have been paying any attention, you know that I preach the necessity of building your network of friends on social media. Whether that be adding friends on Facebook, connections on LinkedIn or followers on Twitter the key to creating success using social media is through your connections.
I know that a lot of times these are just shallow relationships; acquaintances that we know online but have not taken the time to get to know. What I want to talk about is how you can pick a handful of key friends on social media and make a big splash!
Your Social Media Safe Circle
In early 2010 I joined a mastermind group and one of my mastermind partners, Bob “The Teacher” Jenkins, shared an idea with us about a way that we can easily support each others businesses.
It actually is quite simple. You create, what I call, a Safe Circle simply by gathering a small group of your colleagues and friends, who are willing to truly support each other. I would recommend 5 or 6 people.
Then you just start sharing each others information using your social media options. If they have created an event on Facebook or LinkedIn you click the “attending button”. When you do that their event is shared with your personal friends in their news-feed. When you see them place an update on Facebook you click the “like” button or comment – both of these things will put that in your news-feed for your other friends to see. You re-tweet them on Twitter. And they are doing the same thing for you. You visit their blog and share their posts on Twitter and Facebook.
In return they are doing the same thing. If each of you has an average of 1000 friends on Facebook then instead of your blog post being in front of your personal 1000 friends it will now be in front of the combined 5000 friends (your 4 friends and you).
This is a really easy way to get your name out using social media. This is one of the things that I did so I know it works. Start making your list and make sure they understand that it is reciprocal.
Not only is this helpful for spreading the word about a business, it is a great opportunity to learn from others, with others and about others. Friendships can bloom from meeting on a social media platform.
Hey Veronica – Thank you so much for stopping by. This is definitely a great way to get the word out. Let me know how it goes. :)) Michele
This sounds a lot like a MasterMind, Michele! Is it? Or, is it a mini-mastermind?
What would you consider to be the differences?
Always grateful!
Paul.
Hey Paul – Yes this would work great with a mastermind group if it were small. When I first realized the power I was participating in a big mastermind with about 18 people in it and the majority of them were not really using social media yet. So there were just a few of us that got together and decided to do this. It might be a group of people you meet at a networking event – I am thinking about one in particular that I participate in and a few of them have gotten together to really support each other. To me the mastermind part is actually getting together and letting our brains work together. This would be a great tool for the mastermind partners to use to support each other.
This is a great way to expand your social media exposure and increase your SEO ranking. I just started one of these groups and look forward to the benefits. Thanks for sharing this, Michele.
Yea Jeanette – come back and let us know how it is working. I can’t wait to hear. :)) Michele
Thank you for sharing this method, Michele. Interestingly, three of us have been unofficially doing this for several months and it works very well. I like your recommendation of having five or six people in the group doing this. That will definitely extend the reach as you indicated.
Awesome Yvonne – I love that you are proof that this works. Please keep us updated and be careful not to make your group too big. :)) Michele
Great suggestions, I love the idea of having a small group of friends who combine to support one another on a consistent and purposeful business. I think it’s really frustrating that so many business owners neglect the “social” part of social media. It’s a big disconnect.
For example, one of the biggest things I look for when deciding to follow someone or “like” their fan page is whether all of their tweets and posts are promotional or whether they are interacting, retweeting, replying, etc. Sadly, a lot of entrprenuers are missing the mark.
Hi Cheryl – Thank you for stopping by. You are really right about the fact that so many just don’t get it. I guess that’s why I am so committed to getting the word out. LOL Thank you and I am going to check out your site right now. :)) Michele
Thanks Lynn – It has been very successful for me and I notice that you are also a huge sharer of information. I think that is why you are seen as such a leader. One of those ah-ha moments for me early on – realizing I didn’t have to create all the information I just had to find it and share it. What better way than with my safe circle. :)) Thanks, Michele