The Buyer Group PR + SEO News

By: Lisa Buyer

Did you know 1 out of 8 couples married in the U.S. last year met via social media, according to our favorite site www.mashable.com. Talk about chemistry!

As an interactive PR agency, The Buyer Group says people need a reason to interact with you on social media. It’s kind of like building a little chemistry for that first kiss. If you can’t relate by being engaging, entertaining or humorous, not only will you get the awkward “turn-of-the-cheek move” on your date’s doorstep, but your efforts on Facebook and Twitter could be all for not.

This notion was backed by my recent trip to PubCon Las Vegas. I met Jennifer Laycock, editor of SearchEngineGuide.com: A small business guide to search marketing. As a PubCon panelist Laylock summed up how to successfully relate online.

Seven Tips to Build Relationships on Social Media

1.    Listen. Find out what makes customers happy, what they are saying and what changes you can make. Get personal insights on media or bloggers, and find a common point for interaction.

2.    Be romantic. Relationships require work and effort. Use Yelp or Google Reviews to identify loyal and passionate customers. Encourage and invite these customers to take part in your business through special offers.

3.    No sex on the first date. Long-term customer relationships don’t develop over night. Invest the time, and be confident that the “score” will come.

4.    Don’t pretend to be someone else. Be yourself. Insincerity is easy to recognize online.

5.    Make yourself available. You need to put yourself out there and find a way to interact with customers. Wallflowers won’t make the cut in social media. Interaction and conversations are key.

6.    Seek out the right match. The right connections may not be available through every social media channel.  Find out which sites your key publics frequent and engage with them there.  It is easier to connect with customers on their terms than trying to attract them to a new forum.

7.    Value the long-term relationship. Accomplish this by delivering value time and time again. It is far cheaper to keep a customer than to get a new customer, so give them reasons to come back.

So forget the cheesy pick-up lines and go for quality in social media interaction. The best relationships are those developed slow and steady.

Things will never be the same…

It may sound like a break up line, but in business, it’s true. Social media and search are changing how we do business – including everything from customer service to online branding to marketing.

Looking for me this week?  Follow me on Twitter.com/lisabuyer for status tweets. (And if you’re wondering what Twitter is, then ummmm, we should talk.)

I’m a speaker at PubCon Las Vegas, a national search marketing and social media conference. You can find me on the panel “PR Experts and Twitter,” but better yet – I’m attending the coolest sessions, hand picked for today’s PR strategies.

How valuable is all this?

P-R-I-C-E-L-E-S-S – especially in this economy – forget about the way things used to be done, it’s a whole new ball game. Question is: Are you on the field or in the stands?

Check out my agenda for the next few days:

• Behind the scenes headquarter tour of e-commerce powerhouse Zappos
• Reputation Monitoring and Management
• Online Brand Management Strategies
• Using PR Campaigns to Grow Traffic
• Domain Names and Trademark Legal Issues
• Hot Trending Topics with Twitter
• Capitalizing on Twitter and Microblogging
• Killer Twitter Apps and how to apply them to PR
• Intersection of Search and Social Media
• Tracking Results

Interested in getting together to see how you can apply strategies to your biz? Let me know.

Send me a direct message on Twitter @lisabuyer or email me at lbuyer@thebuyergroup.com.

See you online,

Lisa