Social "Power"

How to Become a Web Presence?


If you read my last blog post on 1990’s Sales vs. 2010 Sales, you learned a term called “Power”. Power is achieved when you have developed a reputation of being an expert.

So, you might ask, “How do I become a product expert?”

Good Question….here’s my view on it.

Today’s internet availability gives each and every one of us the opportunity to develop “Power”. Of course, you must first have knowledge of your field, which you still have to earn the old fashioned way, with training, education, and most of all experience.

Once you feel you’ve achieved your personal “TEE” (Training, Education, & Experience) level required for expert status, your next step is to create and then maximize your personal world-wide presence the internet gives each of us. In order to successfully achieve “Power” in your industry, your goal should be to have your name & profile show up on the first page or two of search engines like Google and Bing when a prospective customer searches for whatever product it is you may be selling or the industry you may be working in.

A good way to judge your current level of “Power” is to do a Google search on yourself and see what the results are. If you gets lots of “hits”, great! You’re well on your way. Next, enter the name of one of your product lines and see if you personally appear on the first page or two.

My Linkedin profile appears prominently when most of my products are searched, thus I have “Power” in my industry. If your profile appears under your product and industry, congratulations, you are doing something right and already have earned a level of “Power” within your industry. But remember…the SEO companies are constantly updating their searches, so even if you have “Power” today, without an ongoing social media strategy and plan, your “Power” could be gone tomorrow.

If your profile doesn’t appear, then you need to begin a targeted effort to develop it.

As I’ve previously stated, as a professional, you should already have your Linkedin profile established. Continue to update this profile AND work it! There’s a great spot on it where you can list your current activities which could include any new products you’re working on, projects you’ve completed, target markets you may be trying to penetrate, etc. When you update this field, it instantly sends an update to each of your professional contacts, keeping them current on your efforts. This tool is invaluable. I would suggest spending a minimum of 1 hour a day trying to expand your professional network as this is the easiest and most efficient way to spread the message of your professional efforts.

There are an abundance of tools available to use on the internet but unfortunately, we as individuals, cannot possibly spend the time necessary to take advantage of all of them. In other words, it’s nice to know where all the ammo is in the war of information but it doesn’t do you any good if you don’t have the weapons to use it with.

That’s where Social Strategy 1 (SS-1) comes in. Social Strategy 1 (SS-1), a division of ILD Corp., provides all the tools you need to manage your reputation and appearance across the internet. We have developed systems to constantly crawl the web, looking for mentions both of your own personal brand, but also those of your industry and even of your competition. Social Strategy 1 (SS-1) then creates a plan which allows you to focus your efforts on the places where you’ll gain the most benefit.

So you ask, “It sounds great, but what do I do with all the information?”

Another great question! There are a lot of “crawlers” you can use to get info sent to you (Google Alerts is one) but Social Strategy 1 (SS-1) goes a step further than the competition. Social Strategy 1 (SS-1) not only utilizes multiple sources for information and aggregates them together in a snapshot for your review, it brings a human factor into the equation. The Social Strategy 1 (SS-1) product line has a team of analysts who can monitor, recommend action, and if necessary, even engage in actions to assist in building and preserving the reputation of your brand and products. Social Strategy 1 (SS-1) can be the tool you need to not only gain, but keep the “Power” I’ve been talking about.

Once you’ve gained “Power”, you’ll start to see calls coming into your office with people looking to speak to you because they’ve seen your name on their search efforts and you must be the “expert” they been looking for. Remember, everyone wants to believe they make good buying decisions. They want to buy from someone who knows what they’re talking about.

To see how Social Strategy 1 (SS-1) from ILD can help you develop and maintain the “power” to increase your sales, contact me @DaveHanron on Twitter or email me @ dave@davehanron.com and I’ll be happy to arrange a demo for you.