If you are seeking to increase leads, sales, visibility or all of the
above, the first thing you want to do is make sure everything you do
online and offline obeys these six principles, that Dr. Robert Cialdini
covers in his book Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion.
1. Scarcity: Run limited offers on your Twitter and
Facebook pages that provide attractive reasons to register, enroll or
buy right away. Offers exclusively for current or past customers can be
effective but one adding the element of scarcity is really your secret
weapon. Groupon has a countdown that shows you how much time you have
left to purchase and it certainly encourages people to buy sooner than
later!
2. The Law of Reciprocity: Are you monitoring social
conversations involving your brand, industry and products and taking
every opportunity to answer questions and interact positively with
others online? Pay attention to those who continually interact with you
and share your content. Go the extra mile to make your brand evangelists
feel good about helping you again.
I recently set up a group on a site called Triberr where I’ve invited
other social media authorities to join so we can share each other’s
content through a simple, coordinated interface. This is a perfect
example of reciprocity in action.
3. Commitment to Consistency: Are you able to
quickly sum up exactly what you do for your target market in a couple
sentences? Be sure that everything you do online resonates with that
objective. It’s crucial that you humanize and that you are consistently
responding to people and engaging with them. Social media must be done
regularly if you expect to be successful with it. It’s crucial that you
think about it as an extension of your business.
Make sure that you add a personal message to your posts so your
readers can instantly tell that the content you’re sharing is actually
coming from a real, live person that is truly an expert on that topic.
4. Position Yourself as the Leading Authority:
People need to be assured the person they are getting content from is a
leader in their industry before they decide to engage or follow their
advice. One of the most simple and effective ways to position yourself
as an expert online is through blogging.
Discover what problems your prospects are trying to solve and begin giving them solutions through your blog.
Do you think you are more likely to trust a person who tells you they
are an expert or someone who shows you they are the expert?
5. Social Proof: Social proof plays a key role in
your success online. It’s that elusive “crowd effect” that gives you
credibility simply by having an audience.
Leverage and reward your network by promoting incentives for
customers to leave comments, testimonials and reviews. Having these real
world testimonials on your website as well as on other popular 3rd
party sites will result in social proof that will give you some real
traction. You will be most successful if you manage to make things that
benefit you, benefit your readers as well.
6. Create “Shareable” Content: Robert Cialdini says
that you need to get people to like you and if people don’t enjoy your
content, you can be certain they won’t share it. Make it as easy as
possible for your audience to share your content and it will go much
further.
Strive to post things that your target market will relate to so you
can have a better chance at reaching their networks through
word-of-mouth (aka social sharing).