mari smith – relationship marketing specialist & social ......let’s have our hashtag be #smm...

and Carrie Wilkerson, The Barefoot Executive™

Mari Smith – Relationship Marketing

& Social Media Business Coach "Important document. They have been placed there to keep you alert. When you notice them & find

A lively conversation between Mari Smith

Specialist

Note: You will find strategically placed typos and grammatical errors in this

yourself becoming more alert, you will know they have done their critical job…"

How to Monetize Social Media by Mari Smith, Relationship Marketing Interviewed by Carrie Wilkerson, The Barefoot Executive

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© 2007-2009 Mari Smith | www.marismith.com | www.twitter.com/marismith | www.marismith.com/fanpage

Carrie: Make sure you have something to write with and are settled in because I know the energy of Mari Smith, and I’ll tell you, I’m one of the only people who can match it. Between the two of us on the call and our very distinctive and lovely accents, you might have a challenge keeping up. Make sure you are comfortable and you have some time to devote. If we get a chance at the end of the hour, we will open up for some questions. Also, if you are on the Instant Teleseminar webcast, you can submit those questions. I cannot promise on a lunch hour call that we will get to those because I know that Mari has a lot of information to share, but we will try if we have some time at the end. Buckle up and get ready. Mari will be with us in just a second. Again, I’m Carrie Wilkerson, the Barefoot Executive.

I guess we should make up a hashtag for this for those of you who are going to tweet while we’re on the call. Let’s have our hashtag be #smm for Social Media Money, how about that? If you want to tweet that you’re on the call, don’t give the actual link to the playing call. We would prefer them to register so that we can send them some follow up information and kind of track who is here, but if you want to tweet, Mari’s Twitter i.d. is @marismith, and mine is @barefoot_exec. That hashtag will be #smm for Social Media Money.

I’m actually doing this call from San Antonio, Texas. I’m from the Dallas/Ft. Worth area, but my husband and I flew down a few days for a workshop. I am actually being Mrs. Wilkerson this weekend. He’s not being Mr. Barefoot. We’ve swapped roles. We have a beautiful room overlooking the Riverwalk, so what I love about the Barefoot lifestyle, and you’ve heard me say it before, it’s not about the shoes, really. It’s about designing a life where you can have free time to spend time with who you love and kind of work on your terms whether you have on shoes or not or dress up or not. Whether you have a ponytail or your hair is done…however you want to design your life and spend the time doing what’s most important to you. I’m not saying it’s not work. I work very hard and put in hours, but then on weekends like this when my husband wants to go to a workshop, I can spend some much needed time away from the four kids with him and still be working my business while I’m here. I’m so glad that you’re here.

Social media is something I’ve added to my toolbox this year, my arsenal. I hope that we can eliminate some of that for you, too. Mari, do we have you on the line, yet? Hi, Mari! How are you?

Mari: I’m excellent, and yourself? Carrie: I’m doing awesome. I’m always doing great, especially when I get to talk to you.

We had a call together yesterday with Adam Urbanski and then we’re sharing a stage, if you will, again today, so no matter where Mari and I are we can share stages all over the place. We have designated a hashtag to this event because you taught me about hashtags. We’re using smm for Social Media Money because you’re going to show us the money today. How about that? Okay, I’m going to go ahead and jump right in.


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We’ve got hundreds of people already on the line and several more will join us. We have almost 1,100 people registered for this call, but no pressure. For those of you who have been hiding under a social video rock, let me introduce to you one of my favorite social media rock stars and that would be Mari Smith. She’s been dubbed the Pied Piper of the online world by FastCompany.com. She’s a Relationship Marketing specialist and I have seen this in person and online experienced it myself. There is none other like Mari Smith. She’s also a Social Media Business Coach. Through her consulting and training business, she helps independent professionals, entrepreneurs, and business owners like all of us, to accelerate their business profits using an integrated social marketing strategy with a particular focus on Facebook and Twitter, which I love. Those are two of my favorites, too.

She has a really strong background in the world of relationships and Internet technology making social media her ideal arena. Absolutely. She shines with lots of sparkle here. She’s passionate about showing fellow professionals how to develop powerful, profitable relationships using social media. She currently has over 8,000 friends and fans on Facebook and a loyal following of over 22,000 friends on Twitter. I know you’re giving a standing ovation for that. That’s no small feat. It’s because she’s so authentic and real, which we’ll talk about in a minute.

What I love is that after applying her proven social marketing methods, her clients (and these include me and some of the people in my inner circle) typically experience a significant increase in web traffic, subscribers, clients, affiliate partners, lucrative strategic alliances, and targeted media attention. We all need that, yes? Everybody’s nodding their head, Mari. Mari and her clients have been known to land $30,000 contracts and earn as much as $40,000 in one week - even $16,000 in one hour. Do I have your attention? This was all from Facebook or Twitter.

She’s an in-demand speaker who travels the U.S. and internationally to provide social media keynotes and in-depth training. As a matter of fact, in a few weeks Mari and I are packing our bags and heading to Ireland together to speak there. She’s Canadian by birth, Scottish by heritage, and currently lives in San Diego, California. Whew! Mari, that’s a mouthful even for a fast talker like me. I have to tell the Barefoot audience that they know I don’t bring just anybody and everybody to you. You know I am so picky about the professionals that I put in your space. I am so picky about that because I know you trust me. I don’t take that lightly. I also don’t bring trends to you, flash in the pan strategies, or the next instant fix. I am serious about business and serious about what works and is profitable. This is why Mari and I blend so well. We can have fun like nobody else. We have a high energy level and we have a loyal following partially because of our energy and our enthusiasm, but we are also business women. Do not let the


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blonde hair fool you. We are serious business women. We are not playing unless we are getting paid.

I know I’m being bold and speaking for us both, but I really like to highlight the point that we look like we’re just having a lot of fun in social media, but the fact of the matter is, it’s a strategy that we use in our business. It’s not a business in and of itself. It’s a strategy that we can absolutely monetize. I said to Mari a few months ago: Mari, we know the how to Twitter and to Facebook. We know all the technical stuff, or maybe we don’t, but what we really need to know is why this impacts our business. Please come talk to my people about how you can monetize this. Here are the important two words: with integrity. How can we monetize this with integrity? So Mari, we know that social media, social networking is not just for kids anymore so tell us some ways that we know that. Tell us some of those incredible crazy statistics that you have about social media and why we need to be involved. Then we’ll get to the nitty gritty of the money. How does that sound?

Mari: That sounds perfect, absolutely wonderful. Is the quality good to hear me? Well, I

love to start off with Facebook and a little bit about Twitter, but these facts and stats, when I’m doing presentations, people just sit up in their seat and say they had no idea! There’s this misconception among a lot of adults and the business population that Facebook is just for kids because maybe if you have teenage children and they spend an inordinate amount of time on there goofing around and sharing pictures, it’s like: How could I use it for business?

Facebook currently has close to 200 million active members. They are predicted to be at 500 million by 2011 or sooner. I’ve actually been saying that for about 18 months and the rate that they are growing…approximately 1 million new members a week…they’re bound to get there sooner than 2011. In fact, if Facebook was a country, it would be the sixth largest country in the world. The average age on Facebook is 35. The fastest growing demographic is 30. Another fast growing demographic is women age 55; in fact, the boomers are on there.

It’s the largest photo sharing platform on the web…it’s actually not Flicker, it’s Facebook. It’s got about 28 million photos a day uploaded. It’s one of the most powerful apps because you can tag people and people comment on it and it goes viral through the feed. Of course, a picture says 1,000 words. It’s very good for what I call ‘viral visibility’. You talk about one of the strategies… The audience is a little more mature…the demographics show that education…more people on Facebook have degrees than certain others like My Space, which is more for a teen audience. Some people do well on business on there though. Then also the median income is higher than average on Facebook. Money!

Carrie: Wahoo!


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Mari: Love that. So Facebook is the largest social network on the planet. Twitter is the fastest growing. It has over 8 million members. It grew over 780%, I believe, in the year 2008. Interestingly enough, now you’re a master at Twitter, we’re going to talk a little bit about that today, too, Carrie, but even when you look at Twitter compared to Facebook, Twitter looks like it’s simpler. You just go to that box that says: What are you doing? 144 characters… But it is infinitely more complex to understand how to use effectively.

There’s really a right way and a wrong way and you need to know the difference. We’re going to talk about that today. The way I look at it is that if you’re not active on social media, especially these two giants, (I know that YouTube and LinkedIn are great, but we’re going to focus on Facebook and Twitter today.) because they work so well in conjunction with each other for me. I really think people are missing out hugely because that’s where the audience already is and the conversation is there.

Carrie: One reason I think that social media is so huge…everybody knows I’m pretty new

online. I’ve only been online about 18 months, and I am an online marketer, but I’ve only been involved in social media about half of that time. My first half of my time online I spent looking for people to bring to me. Then it seems like with social media, like you just said, I found where the people were and just kind of like rescue aid in times of war where we go drop the stuff in the middle of the war zone…It’s like you can drop yourself in the middle of these self-selecting communities. You can go where the people are. It’s almost an unfair advantage. You go fishing where the schools of fish are and social media allows you to find the schools of fish.

Mari: Exactly. That is so true. I love that. A little bit you mentioned in my bio…thank

you for that introduction. Really, for the last ten years or since ’99, I‘ve been in the world of relationships and studied as a relationships coach and got my certification. I worked predominantly with singles and couples. I always had this other track. I love computers. I just have one of those personalities that’s very technically adept as well as I’m a people person.

I’m pursuing these two paths and doing very well, but I always felt like I had these two little parallel careers. I went on to work for T. Harv Eker for a few years as a success coach, and then in 2007 I got invited to be on the Alpha team of a Facebook application to test it out for the CEO of the company. I was so excited at being approved. I’m like: What’s the big deal? I’m on LinkedIn and MySpace, Variety, Academy, you name it. I’m a natural networker. I don’t need to platform on the Internet to help me network, but when I went to Facebook.com in June of ’07 and signed up for an account, I thought: Wow. Something is magical here.

I literally fell in love with the platform and immersed myself into it and very quickly got mastery within a month or two and set up my blog. Somebody’s always saying to me: Mari, why should I be on Facebook? From there it literally


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felt like coming home. It felt like finally technology had caught up with me because I had these two tracks…relationships and the Internet…and merged them into one. I’ve never been more passionate about my business than in the last two years.

Carrie: That is fun when you can find some of those gifts you have…some of those

brilliances you have…and sometimes they’re conflicting, like being a relationship person and being a technical person. Those we tend to think of as being very different things. But when you can merge them like you have and like I have in so many ways, then that really helps you shine in your platform and shine at the gifts you can bring. Okay, let’s talk a little bit about why it’s important…we tend to have several schools of thought on this. I know you work with offline businesses, as do I, as well as online businesses.

There tends to be two different schools of thought. The offline people really believe in diehard Chamber of Commerce and events and business cards and the Internet is a bubble or a fad and it’s going to burst. Then there’s the Internet people who think they don’t need face to face contact. I know you and I believe in a blend of both, but why are people absolutely missing the boat if they don’t do online networking?

Mari: Well, there are a couple of reasons. Number one that we alluded to earlier is about

the conversations that are already happening and the other thing to keep in mind is that even in a soft economy or a downed economy, whatever you want to call it, it’s not like all of a sudden money disappears and nobody has money. People still have money. It’s still circulating and flowing around abundantly. The distribution certainly may be a little bit off and my heart goes out to those who may have lost jobs and things like that, but the thing about it is, I came over from Scotland in ’99 and was always an employee. I always had a j-o-b, but I’ve been an entrepreneur since I stepped on American soil in ’99. I love the fact that we can run our own business. I know we probably have people from all over the world and different circumstances, but with social media, it is worldwide. It’s International. I have people from all over the world in my classes and programs and connected through Facebook and Twitter. So it’s where the people are at anywhere and they have money and people will be willing to spend it if you have a product or service that really helps them to meet a need and helps them to make their life better in some way or help their finances or career or marketing. That’s a primary reason. The secondary reason is…my mind just went blank. It’s gone. It will come back. It was real important.

Carrie: That’s okay. It’ll come back. We were talking about why it’s absolutely vital for

them to be online. Mari: Oh, thank you. It came back. Reputation. You have to track and monitor. You

must track and monitor. I see big companies getting in here and doing it well but others….Like I had an incident yesterday. I was really frustrated with that


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particular company and they wouldn’t grant a very simple request. You and I really don’t gripe about something or be negative but maybe 1% of the time because we like to spread positivity. I just put out this tweet that I wasn’t happy with this particular company and could other people give me some references.

It was amazing. I was floored that within seconds dozens of other sources where I could go and take my business to and too bad on this other company. So who knows if this company is on Twitter or Facebook and monitoring their reputation, but I just love the company that stepped in. For example, Facebook Fan Page…we can talk about that. You can set up Facebook Fan Pages specific for your business…it represents your business. You can have multiple fan pages different from your profile. You can have only one profile. The number two Facebook Fan Page for some time (Number one is Barack Obama. He has almost over 6 million fans now) is Coca Cola with 3.5 million fans, but Coca Cola did not set up the page. It was actually two raving fans in a - I do not drink soft drinks but I was just really impressed with how Coca Cola handled this very recently. They stepped in and approached these fans who set up the pages and are partnering with them. I’m like: Two thumbs up. I want to see more things like that.

Carrie: Let me give you an example of reputation management. I had with my email

marketing, a list I was going to migrate to a new service. It’s kind of a big deal so I contacted one company to do this and they took my money and I jumped through all their hoops, and then they had some employee who were then very derogatory and negative and vetoed my application with no explanation. They were very unprofessional about it.

So I tried to contact a couple of other people with the company with no results. I tweeted and said: Whooo. I’m really not impressed with (company name). If you are looking for email management solutions, I suggest you keep looking. Within 30 minutes I got a direct message from their VP of Operations who contacted me. We still didn’t resolve it because he still wanted me to jump through all those same hoops again so we didn’t resolve it. I still chose to go with a different company.

We were just at that conference in Washington, DC, a few weeks ago…you and I. The president of that company was there as a speaker onstage. The company that I still work with, Aweber, was there. I was walking through the halls and the Aweber team introduced themselves to me. I was teasing with them and said: Well, I boycotted the other speaker just in support of you guys. They said: Yeah. We knew you had some issues with them. Do you want to expound on that at all? They also monitor their competition through Twitter? So they gave me the cell phone number of the owner and said if I ever had any problems or issues to please call them because they’d rather resolve it on the phone than on Twitter. And I’m having lunch with them in Philadelphia next week.


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So I think it’s also key that you can monitor your competition or see what customers are unhappy about and you can provide that service. Reputation management, damage control, all those kinds of things are just so important. Let me ask you if you had to choose just one Facebook or Twitter to use for social media marketing, which would it be?

Mari: That is such a good question, and sometimes people ask me that on Twitter.

They’ll just put me right on the spot because they’re trying to make a decision for themselves. I say to them: You know, I started out with Facebook. I was on there maybe 3-4 weeks before I got on Twitter. Facebook I really see because you’ve got those 5,000 friends on your personal profile.

The way I see it is that I have been at that 5,000 max since last fall and I currently have 1,700 pending friend requests. I have heard from a reliable source that Facebook will be lifting that limit later this year. It’s the hardest thing to ignore on friend requests when you really want to be friends with a person. You have to shuffle around and do some housework and housecleaning and let a few people go. Twitter is wonderful because there are no limitations on Twitter in terms of how many people. I refine my Facebook friends frequently in terms of I only want people who absolutely resonate with me and we share the same values. I want them in the community and I love seeing their name and face go by on my news feed. So Facebook is like this foundational platform for me where I actually develop over time these solid relationships. I have got Seven Money Making Strategies for you today using social media. We’ll get into that in a moment.

Twitter can be used in conjunction and harmony with Facebook to further develop those relationships. A lot of the times there’s this wonderful term called ambient awareness. That means you might be on Facebook and/or Twitter and you take in little micro nuggets of people’s lives and businesses. You may not always have time to tweet back or comment on a photo on Facebook but it goes into your subconscious mind. You might say: Oh, yeah. Carrie just rode to San Antonio this morning. John over there is going out to dinner with his wife tonight. Little personal and professional nuggets….Oh, look! They just won an award on the front page of whatever.

It just helps you in those relationship terms to be able to …I call it my mental Rolodex. When somebody’s looking for something you can refer them. I couldn’t use one or the other, honestly, but if someone on the line here is just getting started and are brand new to social media and have no clue. They’re not on Facebook or Twitter, I’m going to recommend they start with Twitter because Twitter.com and forward slash (whatever your user name is…if you want to grab your user name and it’s already taken by somebody else, unfortunately, just like the domain name, too bad. Whereas, Facebook it doesn’t matter if somebody else


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has your name. You can have your own name over there.) Twitter’s just a little bit faster to get set up and get moving even though it’s a little more complex. We’ll dispel some of those complexities for you today.

Carrie: I want to give an overview and set up some of the precepts behind what we’re

talking about because this isn’t intuitive to everybody. Some of us who have even been on 6,7,8 months forget how new we were when we started. We forget the learning curve that we had. Here’s a question that I get asked a lot and want to defer to you. Is there a right way or a wrong way to use social networking for business?

Mari: I’m not really a pushy person, you know that. I can have opinions, but I’m not the

kind of person who will really get kind of adamant about ‘you must absolutely do things this way’. At the same time, I’m very much an evangelist for best practices. I just love to be able to lead by example. If my style resonates with other people…terrific…awesome. Try it on for yourself.

I will tell you that in Facebook if you decide to every single post or comment that you’re going to tack on your signature file so you’re putting all your content information and your web. I see people putting a 17 line signature with a two word greeting. I think for me personally, it doesn’t quite send the right message because in social networking you have to keep in mind that emphasis farce is on socializing. It’s on relationships. People are not necessarily in a business mindset.

The analysts say that when marketers move into social networks, the members move out. I don’t use MySpace much but I hear people say that that has or is happening over there. So one of the secrets is to be a member. Just be one of the peeps…the people …that people relate to you and don’t feel like you’re pushing and always doing one way broadcasting. You’re taking time to engage and relate. That’s one thing that I feel is not necessarily the right way on Facebook because you don’t need that signature file at all.

Everywhere you leave your mark on Facebook whether it’s commenting, wall posts, links, videos, your name and your familiar avatar is hyperlinked right back to your profile where people can find all your information there. The thing with Twitter is there’s a balance, a ratio, there’s no specific science to it. You find your own balance between broadcasting and promoting and relating and engaging. Something that you and I both do very, very well is there’s no difference. There’s no: Oh, here’s Carrie doing her marketing. Here’s Carrie just hanging out and relating. The two are seamless.

This is really what I love to teach my students and clients. You don’t get out there and tweet: I’m doing a teleclass on How to Make Money in Real Estate. Click here to sign up now. I’m so - that’s so old school marketing. You might see, and this is my style and I don’t suggest people emulate my style. You have to find your own groove and style and be authentic and have your own voice. I might say


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something like: Woo! OMG. I just got my 500th person to sign up for this call…link. I’m not even doing a call to action. I’m just sharing.

I saw you doing that this morning where so many people were registered for this call. I just love that because it’s exciting. You’re just sharing a little nugget of your life and going: Oooo. Look at this. People are like: Wait a minute. That was intriguing. What’s going on over here?

Carrie: Right. It’s curiosity marketing. I just made that term up. Somebody write that

down. Curiosity marketing is first of all: Why is Carrie hanging out with Mari? What are those two up to now? I see them talking back and forth. Then they think: Money with Social Media. Wow. Is there really a way to earn money with social media? Then they say: 500 people can’t all be wrong. What are they listening to? So really, it’s curiosity marketing, but the fact of the matter is, you and I are just how we are anyway. We don’t say: Oh, I’m going to go and promote the call right now. We’re going to go say: Hey, we’re having a party online. If you want to come, here’s where to find us. We’re the same onstage as we are in person, as we are online, as we are you and I in a hotel room by ourselves. We know that because we’ve experienced that. We’re the same across all platforms.

You can be authentic and open, which I think social media is brilliant at letting you do that and then people are more responsive. If I for the past 3 days had said: Hey, go sign up for this call every hour and some marketers do that…then the fact of the matter is I would have less of a response rate. But part of what is so great about what I think is our style in media is that you and I are really passionate about this.

If it’s our pond, and we love to fish in the social media pond and hang out with the other peeps in the pond, then we want it to be a happy place. We want it to be intriguing people. We want to see people successful. We want to see people having fun. How better to do that than to say: Hey, let’s all get together and chat about this topic. We’ll just tell you some ways that we’ve gotten to over 30,000 followers and the ways that are working for us and the ways that are profitable for us. We’re not even going to charge you to do it. Just come and hang out.

It’s just a different style of marketer and a different style of marketing. Curiosity marketing is really effective but I don’t know that it’s a strategy that you can be calculated about or if it’s just part of our natural fabric. What do you think about that?

Mari: The natural fabric for sure but interestingly enough because of my background in

relationships and human psychology and I studied the behavior assessment in-depth-many of them, a huge array of them-the motivational aspect and the natural skills and traits that we have…I would observe myself. People would come in the early days two years ago when I was first getting started in social media and would say: You’ve got to come on Facebook and check this platform out.


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The FastCompany called me the ‘Pied Piper on Facebook’, and people just draw a blank like: I don’t get it, Mari. It sounds like a fulltime job. Why would I want to sit around and chit chat? It was tough to enroll people who had a different personality into seeing the benefits of social media. So what I’ve actually done is put my observer hat on and say: Why did I just post this request? Why did I just post this and not that? What made me do this and not that one?

I would observe and document, observe and document. That’s how I created a lot of my training and products and programs and strategies and checklists and just some of the formulas for making social media work in terms of business and monetizing because I knew that a lot of these skills didn’t necessarily come naturally unless they’re a part of the natural fiber of who we are.

There are people out there who have more of a propensity toward the technical side of life than necessarily the people of engagement. Maybe these people are more introverted or naturally chatty…it’s just not their style. So that’s where people like us can lead by example. We can also teach others what we do naturally to be able to be more skilled at it.

Carrie: I know we could talk about the fact that there are no rules all the day long, but

there are some best practices and those kinds of things. It’s the same in a lot of ways in business, but let me ask you this because I’m a listbuilder. What that means for those of you unfamiliar with that term is I have a large email opt-in list of prospects, customers, and those types of things.

I like the double opt-in list for permission based marketing. Then all of a sudden social media comes on the scene and we’ve got “I think I’m going to break 20,000 Twitter followers in the next few days.” My Facebook is growing but not like yours is growing. Does one replace the other? Should I just take all of my permission based marketing to my friends/fans/followers, or should I stick with the email? Is it a combination of both? What are your thoughts on that?

Mari: Brilliant question. I’m so glad that this is coming up because here’s the number

one thing to get about this. Social media, whatever channel you’re deciding to use, and we’re talking about Facebook and Twitter today but there’s also LinkedIn, YouTube…all other kinds of platforms out there and there’s in person. That’s very important to do.

These are all channels or mediums to bring people into your fold, your tribe, your community, your direct control. What happens if all of a sudden you lose your Facebook profile or all of a sudden Twitter is a company fold? That’s not likely, but if you put all your eggs into one social or two social media baskets and something happens to those sites or your profile, you want it to come right back to your control so you can with the click of button keep in regular contact and land right back in your inbox.


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Email marketing is never going to go away. It’s just shifting a little bit. Direct marketing can blend right in. You’re good at this, too, Carrie, sending people things in the mail, which a lot of people say is a dying art. You’ve got to use a blend of multiple touch points and multiple experiences of you and your business.

Carrie: I agree. It’s very much a blended approach. It’s like a basket. When people say

don’t put all your eggs in one basket, well, I’m all about let’s weave the basket with lots of different strands and fibers and I call that blended marketing and coming at them with different touches. I think that comes with my background from being a teacher and also the mom of four kids who learn all in very different ways. Some are readers. Some are listeners and some are watchers and some are touchers and doers.

If you are only using one strategy to touch your audience, then you’re leaving about 80% of your audience untouched. Even if they’re paying attention to the every touch, statistics say they have to hear a message 6-8 times before they respond and take action the way you want them to. I think all the strategies are good. Why would you just have one when you could have layers?

I think that Lee and Robin Collins are really great at this. They’re both on Twitter and have what’s called Hybrid Marketing. They definitely advocate digital marketing, electronic marketing, mail marketing, and social media marketing. Don’t think that one strategy is the be all/end all. I’m glad to hear you say that because I don’t think email marketing is dead but I also don’t think that social media marketing is the replacement for that. I just think that it has to be a combination. It would be like me saying that websites don’t work anymore and we’re only going to use social media.

Don’t be rash. Let’s incorporate a lot of different strategies. One technical thing before I get to affinity building and then we’re going to get to the seven strategies because I know the audience is like rabid and drooling to find out about your money strategies. Is it a good idea to sync your tweets on Twitter with your Facebook page?

Mari: I want to be able to provide an answer that will meet everybody’s needs, if

possible. In my opinion, no, especially if you tweet a lot…that could really affect your Facebook account…you’re bringing in a lot of data into your feed through the Twitter account. You go to Facebook and you install the Twitter @ and pull in your tweets not just your @ Replies but your tweets.

The thing with Twitter is that you’ve got all of this language - the tw words. You’ve got hashtags and at signs and goofy language that people on Facebook contrasts the difference of 200 million members versus 8 million. They’ve got a little ways to catch up, so there’s a lot of people on Facebook who have no clue what Twitter is and they don’t want to understand. They’re confused and see these


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things going by in their feed, and they’re like: What is that? I don’t know what it is. What’s worked well for me is to be able to cultivate different relationships with different audiences.

There is absolutely an overlap. You guys can make a note of this to install the selective Twitter updates. It’s an application that you can go into a search for it in upper right and if you’re already importing your tweets…if it’s working well for you, you can always survey your market. You can always put up on your Facebook status update saying: Are you enjoying my tweets coming into Facebook? And people will comment. They’ll let you know. The name of the app is Selective Twitter Updates.

Now when you are on Twitter and you want to update your Facebook status, you want to set this up and you have to disable the main Twitter app on Facebook, then you want to update your Facebook status from Twitter, all you do is end the tweet with #fb for Facebook. I found this just the other week and I started tweeting about it. People are going nuts. They absolutely feel like it’s a solution for the challenge. You don’t have to do them all. You can do them selectively. That’s my answer to that one.

Carrie: I get asked that a lot and I really didn’t know. I knew some people had gotten in

trouble for updating too much, but my old thought was they are two very distinct ponds. Saltwater fish do not swim in a freshwater pond and vice versa. So my whole thinking there was I don’t want to confuse people. So I just stayed away from it for that reason, but that does sound like a good work around.

What I know is when I got on Twitter I found you. I saw somebody tweeting

about you or to you or something, and I looked at your numbers and saw that you were a Facebook teacher and I thought: Okay, she’s got good followers. She seems very engaging, I’m going to follow Mari and see what’s she’s doing and why. I don’t know if you even remember this. It was late summer. So I did.

I watched what you did and modeled what you did and didn’t even ask too much why because I just kind of intuitively picked up on some of those things. We’ve since met in person several times. We now mastermind together. We’ve spoken on several stages together and I have loved the rapport we have and the relationship we have.

Now here’s what I want to know…something I’ve never asked you. What is your secret, or is there more than one about how you build a loyal following on social media?

Mari: There is. You can’t fake this. People can tell if it’s real or not. This is where it

doesn’t matter if it’s in the fiber of your being or you’re born with it. It’s not skill. It’s a mindset. It’s part of who you are as a human being. That is to absolutely with a passion and authentic, genuine conviction to care. You just have to care.


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You care oftentimes….I put myself last often to the detriment of my own self-care I care so much about my friends/fans/followers and people in my community. I just care about them so much. That’s it.

My whole motto is relationships first and business second. So that is where the loyal part comes…when people can absolutely…People will ask: How do I do that? They want to go to the strategy. How do I show people? How will they know that I care? They will know by demonstration.

Following people back, in my opinion, is very, very wise to follow your followers back on Twitter because what it says is thanks for caring about what I have to say. You know what? I care about what you have to say even if you never read all of their tweets. You can’t read all of their tweets. You will see them from time to time and then engaging with the replies…to be able to actually engage and then going the extra mile. For example, people have birthdays on Facebook. I’m sometimes sporadic and sometimes miss an important birthday, but my systems are being refined all the time. I just refuse to delegate.

I have 5 VAs on my team and I don’t delegate my voice. I will not. You see me writing or speaking in first person, it’s me. I love to give a little gift on Facebook and write on their fan page or their wall and on their Twitter, just make them feel real special on their birthday. Just little things that go the extra mile and people go: Thanks. You really care.

Carrie: I was overwhelmed on my birthday. I think people can tell that I care and that I’m

authentic. On my birthday, this past week as a matter of fact, it was like an all day long social media affair. I got over 500 tweets about it…hundreds of Facebook notes about it. I got send out cards and boxes of brownies and bouquets of flowers, and I don’t mean Facebook application gifts, I mean gifts, gifts from friends/followers/fans/associates. It was really almost overwhelming to me to receive like that; whereas as grown-ups our birthdays tend to pass with just our immediate circles recognizing that, it was really very overwhelming and at the same time very humbling. It was such a blessing to me for lack of a better word.

You’re right. You cannot fake that. We have seen and watched people in social media be pretenders. There used to be a term that my grandmother used: social climber. Well, now there are social media climbers, and we have seen that in practice, too. The fact is, even if people are attracted to that initially, I think they see through it pretty quickly.

Social media is not looking at people through binoculars as much as looking at people under a microscope. Gary V always says it’s not that you become bigger and bigger, it’s that the more people who are looking, the more you become under the microscope. You’re more magnified and your flaws are bigger. Your good traits are bigger. Everything is bigger. Your laugh is louder and your smile is broader.


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I think you are absolutely right that they don’t care how much you know until

they know how much you care. When they know you care, they can forgive you an awful lot. In business we love to do business with people that we know. It’s the likeability factor as Tim Saunders says. They like to do business with people they know. Now we want to know. This is your fulltime business and you know how to monetize social media like nobody I know. I think I’m pretty good at it, but I think I kind of accidentally stumbled onto you.

I’ve got my pen and paper ready. I want to know your Seven Strategies for Monetizing Social Media. Everybody raise your hands if you’re ready. Guys, I don’t want you tweeting all seven of these things. This stuff I want to keep in the call. Let’s leave some mystique to it. Let’s do some curiosity marketing here on behalf of Mari’s time. Let them check it out for themselves later because the benefit of your being on the call live or on the Replay, I want you to keep the Seven Strategies to yourself. Okay, everybody ready? Scouts honor?

Mari: I’m set. I’m going to tell you what each one is. I’m going to go into a little bit of

depth. I’ve got as many examples as I can. The very first one is a term that I coined some time ago called Radical Strategic Visibility…RSV for short. What I mean by that is you’re essentially seen everywhere but it’s not all random and willy nilly and scattered. It’s very strategic. I always say this to people: Anything you see me doing online and offline and in person, you know my branding is turquoise. If I know I’m going to be out and be photographed, I’m going to wear some shade of turquoise or blue or whatever. There’s usually some bling and sparkle there. If I know I’m going to be photographed and my photos are going on Facebook, then that’s part of my strategic visibility.

So part of being seen everywhere in the right places by the right people at the right time, you want to make sure that your audience (when I say your audience, I mean your Facebook friends and Twitter followers and YouTube subscribers) is made up of key influencers. If you’re just starting out, you want to search for these people.

Make a list of your top 25-50 key leaders/influencers in your industry. Find them on Facebook and find them on Twitter and follower them and friend them and you’ll be amazed at how many people are there that you can begin to get that top of mind awareness in their minds by focusing on the one thing that you do best…the thing you absolutely love and that you’re passionate and make money at, ideally. I think that is the downfall of people on social media. They get out and get a little scattered. They don’t have a strategy. They think the name of the game is getting bazillions of friends, and then they’re trying this latest network marketing company and over here trying something else and they’re a massage therapist on the side.


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I tell you what…I don’t mean to be facetious, but I love to refer people business. You’re the same way, Carrie. We come in contact with so many people and it’s so easy to do an email introduction on Facebook. I just send two people an email introduction: You guys need to meet because such and such…or on Twitter I’ll send out a such and such because I know what they do. It’s clear in my mind what these people do so you can actually connect them up.

Now on Facebook and on Twitter if you’re just starting out, once you get to about 500-1,000 Facebook friends and Twitter followers that what I call the tipping point. You’re going to start seeing some traction and some results and some follow through of people coming to your blog and people signing up for different offers you might have, so you’ve got to be consistent, congruent, and laser focused.

All seven of these strategies I’ve used, and continue to use some a little more than others. It’s really a holistic approach, an organic approach. I don’t necessarily zero in to only use one, but you could. So that’s the first one Radical Strategic Visibility…that you’re seen everywhere. It’s not just on Twitter and Facebook. You’re seen in comments on people’s blogs and at events and networking.

Take your picture with well known people and upload those pictures to Facebook. Tag those people who are ideal or your friends. I have an album on Facebook that I love called Famous Folks. I love that. Anytime I meet people…I actually met Larry King’s wife, beautiful tall blonde. People think we look like sisters in this photo. IT was one of the highlights of that album actually. A quick tip for you on Radical Strategic Visibility…make sure that you have your headshot, your picture on Gravatar, which stands for Globally Recognized Avatar. That means when you go to comment usually on a WordPress blog, instead of all the little silhouettes or graphics or nondescript avatar, you’ll have your picture there. That’s part of Radical Strategic Visibility. People see you everywhere.

Make sure you have accounts on My Blog and blog catalogs so when you visit these other blogs…anyway, this was one of my most exciting ones, so that’s why I put it Number 1.

Number 2, I’m going to use Carrie as my example on this one. This one I call Focus on the Path. Back in the day…you know the saying: If you build a better mousetrap, the world will beat a path to your door. That is not accurate to say that. You could have the most beautiful, perfect, gleaming brilliant mousetrap in the world and if there’s no path to find you, nobody knows where you are, they don’t know how to get to you, and you’re sitting there focusing on that mousetrap….Flip that around and focus on the path. You need little breadcrumbs and footprints and teasers here and there like you’re seeing curiosity marketing. You add that value and engage.


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You’re one of my best examples of this. I always do it myself, too, but just being seen around the Internet as someone who is fun to be around, who is engaging and there’s a lot of excitement. One of the things, too, is to be passionate about what you do. If you’re really doing work that you love, love, love, that leaks out all over the place and people see that and want to come and be in your environment. With these two, Radical Strategic Visibility and Focus on the Path, the monetization part comes from the relationships. Really, that’s all of them but these two in particular, it comes from people beating a path to your door because they’ve seen you and come to know you as the obvious and recognized expert in your field and they want you on their calls and to speak on their stage and to consult with them. They want what products you have because they see you out there getting results and other people raving about you as well.

Carrie: The Focus on the Path strategy is the one I liken to Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz

because she’s focused on her path and what does she do? She attracts other people with her because she seems to know where she’s going and she seems to know what she’s talking about.

Mari: Fantastic. Yeah, that’s you. You’re Dorothy. Carrie: There you go…Barefoot. Mari: Barefooted on that Yellow Brick Road. Carrie: Okay, so we have Radical Strategic Visibility, which I think to add to that, be

consistent with your brand. Mari is consistent with her turquoise and with her facial shots. She changes her tiara and those kinds of things, which I love, but it’s still her same basic shot. You need to be recognizable. She’s not short hair in one place and long hair in another, turquoise in one place and orange in another. She’s very consistent with her branding and her Radical Strategic Visibility and Focus on the Path. That leads people to what I call drawing traffic to them instead of driving traffic. What about your Number 3 strategy? It intrigues me a little bit.

Mari: Social Ads with Secret Sauce. This is on Facebook. There’s this whole

misconception around Facebook Social Ads. We were talking about it yesterday on Twitter and a blog post went out with an interview of Director of Monetization inside of Facebook. People were a little disgruntled. I saw people going: Oh, yeah, $1,000 a Facebook ad, and it never worked for me. But the challenge is if you try to do Facebook Social Ads with direct sales. It’s very tricky. There are a few people out there…I know Matt Basac has an ad saying he must have lost his mind. He’s offering $5,000 training for a dollar. He’s very relentless about that. That’s an example of consistency over time. The secret sauce card of social ads on Facebook is that you can use the ads, but you direct people back inside Facebook. You don’t try to take them out of Facebook.


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An example is a Facebook Fan page. What social ads are…they’re very similar to Google AdWords. You can get really specific with targeted demographics right down to ‘Women in San Diego, age 22-29 who are fans of Oprah.’ You can get very specific with your demographic and geographics. If you’re doing a local event or seminar, you can fill a seminar room, but you want to direct them inside to a basic fan page, a Facebook group, or a Facebook event.

The social aspect of social ads is that when people on Facebook interact with your ad, i.e. become a fan of your fan page, that person’s name and picture will be bolted or piggy backed right onto that ad, thus endorsing: Mari Smith just became a fan of—then there’s the ad underneath it. Plus the fact that that’s Radical Strategic Visibility, I love different visibility strategies on Facebook with the feeds and then the ads because as a user I can interact with the ad in such a win/win. I can help promote the person and give two thumbs up.

So you want to be careful when you’re interacting with ads that it really is something you endorse and then as an advertiser, when you’re advertising something inside of Facebook…I want to give you an example on this one. A friend of mine, Kay Buzz has a marketing firm set up Facebook pages for the company, and one of their clients was realty…six person, relatively small renting luxury lofts in Manhattan. The price may be $6,500-8,500 a month. So it’s pretty high end and they wanted to reach their target market of bankers, lawyers. Print ads not working and business dribbling in and they just couldn’t afford the prices.

Kay set up a Facebook Fan page for them and they recruited fans to the fan page by placing ads that targeted employees and specific law firms and businesses and C level executives in the New York market. They built up their fan base and by the end of 2008, their business had increased by 200%. Isn’t that amazing? So whatever industry you’re in, experiment with ads. Like I say, the conception is that Facebook ads don’t work, but to try to do direct sales, no. Just bring them back.

Keep them inside. That’s the secret sauce. You’ve got to keep them inside -Facebook initially when you’re building up your fan base or in your case the fan page. With Google the people’s mindset is in search mode. Social network’s people are in social mode first. They’re not looking for stuff. They’re not going: Oh, there’s an ad. I’ll click on it.

Carrie: Right. They’re not searching so much as they are hanging out and nesting. Mari: Yeah. They’re just hanging out. It’s literally like the office and you’re chit

chatting at the water cooler and all of a sudden somebody comes by with a megaphone going: Special offer! They’re like: So what? Get out of here. But if somebody just comes and chit chats and says: By the way, have you seen that? Oh, yeah. That’s cool. It kind of blends in.


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Carrie: So you’re telling me then that on those ads (this is a strategy that I’m probably going to look at myself really soon. I’m not trying to convert them into a sell, I’m just trying to get them to a Fan page or an opt-in or something there that then I can lead them to something more of me?

Mari: Correct. Not an opt-in even just a simple quick through to your Fan page. They

may even click on the ad or someone like me … part of that Strategy Visibility is I watch the ads like a hawk. I know some people dislike ads and actually will narrow their browser view to chop off that right hand column. I’m like: No! Don’t do that. Watch the ads and look for who is advertising. I want to know who is advertising because I can tell by what it says: Carrie Wilkerson just became a fan of…or just rsvp for this event and you’ll see one sponsored ad on the Home Page and then you usually have a strip of three down the right hand side of profile pages and events and whatnot. I want to see who’s advertising so I can go and become a fan of their pages and assuming I really do endorse them, then I continue back on their ads. That’s such a win/win.

Carrie: I was wondering that. I saw a bunch of people I know were fans of Tide or

something. I’m thinking: What in the world are they doing? These are business women like me, and yes, we have to do laundry, but I’m just wondering what in the world they’re doing friending Tide, but that’s why. Then they get on the social, the right side navigation panel of Facebook. That was strategic. Wow.

Mari: I’m a fan of hundreds and hundreds of pages because of that. Then not just the ad

but also you can have visibility over on their fan page. So in terms of the strategic move to pass up and set aside a budget and pass up the ads to bring them over to your Fan page…On your Fan page you’re going to have content there that people can engage with. You’ve got discussion boards and you can have video or your own html. You can have your own opt-in box with an app called Static FBML. You can have multiple alterations of that app. You can see across the top it goes with tabs.

People can come to my Fan page-marismith.com/fanpage and check that out and get some ideas. I use a lot of these strategies. I have not done a whole lot of ads so I use someone else’s example. I know they work. I’ve been studying them. I interact with them as a user, but I keep my marketing budget pretty low. There are so many free ways to market. So if you want to most definitely experiment with Facebook social ads.

Carrie: Okay. That was worth the whole call for me right there. I’ll be doing that this

week. Now talk to me about Strategy Number 4. Mari: It’s what I call Big Ticket Sequence. There’s a specific science to this one. You

have to have a lot of the other pieces in place first. You can’t put the cart before the horse. If you have a high end event or a big ticket program that you are ready to enroll people into, set up a group. An example I’m going to use for this is two


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people…primarily my mentor last year, Kevin Nations. He bought a domain called BigTicketMastermind.com and he set up a Facebook group which has its own URL. Then after he got to that tipping point of about 500 members, he set up a free teleclass just like this to focus on high quality and giving value. He offers a free strategy session to people who qualify. You always get a lot of people on the call, and you can’t give away all your time…but free strategy sessions for people who qualify. On those phone calls (I’ve used this model as well and it’s very effective.) you enroll them onto big ticket programs. Kevin’s actually made as much as $40,000 in one week using this model.

Another example is Eva Gregory, she’s one of my students and clients. She has made $19,000 in a week using this model…the big ticket sequence. Like I say, have some of the pieces in play first, but people love groups. Events are a powerful Facebook app. Do a free call. Get them to opt-in. You’re building your list. You give value. You bring them into your system, and enroll them in your training.

Carrie: I love that. The fact is I think that this strategy is going to be- I know that some

people have been doing this strategy since even before social media was so popular, but I think this is going to be even more effective for them now because now when they get on the phone to do their strategy or coaching session, they already have rapport built with social media. They’ve chatted online or tweeted back and forth. Then they had their groups, so they know there’s a natural affinity there. It’s just a very natural progression.

People who don’t really resonate with you online aren’t going to get on the phone with you. They’re only going to get on the phone with you if they really think you’re valuable or have something in alignment with their core business strategy or values or if they’re interested in what you have to offer. So I love that strategy. That is surely one for coaches and people with the bigger ticket packages and those kinds of things that typically we have seen only sold from the stage. Now you need to think of this as your social media stage. I love that.

Okay, now talk to me about the Advanced Keyword Search. I promise to focus today and not glaze over.

Mari: Number 5 is Advanced Keyword Search. There are two distinct places: Facebook

and Twitter. We’ll start with Twitter because that’s real easy. You’re going to go to twellow. It’s like Yellow Pages for Twitter. You’ve probably used this, Carrie. The Advanced Keyword Search is where you search for keywords related to your industry or people you want to follow that that’s in their bio. So that’s where you’re finding people to build out your network. This is for people just getting started or they want to know how to find people to follow.

You can grow a lot faster on Twitter, as you know, there’s not anywhere near the limitations or restrictions as Facebook. Of all the social networks out there,


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Facebook is so rigorous about their terms of use in addition, they have regulations which they don’t even publish and will deactivate your account if you cross those limitations. So, it’s one of the little Achilles heels of Facebook.

There’s a way to start doing Advanced a Keyword Search in Facebook, and there are several key strokes to find it, but the easiest way…I’m just going to give you a URL which Facebook.com/advance.php. That brings up something most people don’t know exists. It’s a whole forum that has all the different fields that would normally show up in your profile. The About Me section and interests and activities and work but the one thing that’s always going to search people in your existing friends, if you don’t have a lot of friends it won’t be that many, but if you have a lot, it’s a very handy forum. It also searches your existing network.

If I was looking to build up my network in the San Diego area, locally that’s a great place to start segmenting your friends. From there, from pulling your advanced keyword search to finding people who are very targeted in your network on both Facebook and Twitter, you build relationships and apply the 80/20 rule because I’ve got 5,000 friends and I guarantee that only 20% of them are people that I really know and have a personal relationship with, met in real life and maybe connected with them in some way, shape, or form. The other 80% I’m just seeing peripherally. I get so excited that I could just talk all day about these strategies. I just want to give you guys big ideas here.

Carrie: I love it and I’m taking all kinds of notes. A lot of people will come to me with

social media questions and I’ll be the first one to say that I’m not a social media expert. I’m a business woman using social media to leverage my connections and my credibility and content eventually for compensation. Wow. I’m learning so much from you, Mari. Twellow is one of the sites you mentioned. Also, Facebook.com/advanced.php. That was the Facebook for keyword search. Okay, talk to me about Two Part Killer Joint Ventures.

Mari: That’s Strategy Number 6. This is my number one source of income from last

year. I learned the hard way. I must admit that I learned how to not do joint ventures. I came to the table with all kinds of convoluted ideas of how it’s going to work and percentage splits and all kinds of interesting ways to present a joint venture. The very simplest two part model that works like a charm is that person A brings the audience or traffic, and person B brings the content and the close or offer. It keeps it super clean. Someone promotes the call. Someone leads the call with their content and makes an offer…similar to what we’re doing today.

Carrie: It’s exactly what we’re doing. I brought the audience through social media,

through my opt-in list from my newsletter. I brought my audience and said I trusted you and I can learn this from you because I’m not an expert in what you’re talking about. I positioned myself then as the person to gauge whatever information I felt like is important for you and what information I want you to have and what I think is valuable for you. I make sure Mari gives us as much


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good information as possible. The Barefoot audience knows and you know this, Mari, from being in my space, I don’t bring fluffy, hypie calls to my people. I just really don’t.

If you haven’t already taken pages of notes today, I hope it’s just because you’re driving because there is so much good information here that even though Mari will extend an offer for you to work with her because I asked her to. She will have a tremendous offer with discounts and all those things and that’s wonderful, because of this joint venture, but here’s the thing, you can walk away from this call with pages of stuff to implement without ever spending a dime. That to me is a great joint venture and that to Mari is a great audience and quality audience and will leave the quality people for her to work with, too.

My mom is my transcriptionist, Mari, and she always calls me when she’s transcribing and says: Do you really want to tell them that? Do you really want to tell them they’re in the middle of that business model? You know what, Mom? I have no secrets, no hidden agenda or strategies. This is a joint venture call. I brought the audience. I said: Mari, come teach them, and then we can absolutely offer them an opportunity to work with you because I trust you that much. That’s just the bottom line of it right there. I don’t want it to be a surprise to anybody either that we’re going to have a killer offer later. So somebody brings the offer and the content and somebody else brings the audience. I love that description.

Mari: Exactly. People go: Could you promote this to your audience? Then that gets a

little weird. I don’t want to get into specifics, but that just makes a lot of sense to people and keeps it clean. Here’s a question: If you have someone coming to you with a JV offer and they’re proposing all kinds of convoluted proposals, you just ask them the Dr. Phil question: How’s that working for ya? Have you done it before? Be really sweet. Say: I’m curious if you’ve actually implemented this model before and did it go well? What were the results? Don’t be afraid to ask what the results in the past were. Good. Then: Let’s do that offer…that structure.

Carrie: Right. You have to have results. Especially when you’re a business person,

leveraging your time, you don’t want to be chasing your tail on hopes and promises. You need to have some measured results. Like I said, Mari and I love to have fun but we are absolutely business women who are profitable. She knows that I can bring a thousand people to a call and we can not only educate on social media, but I have the cream of the crop in my circle, and if there are people who choose to keep working with her on a more personal level, she knows those are going to be excellent people to work with. Our Number 7 Strategy for monetizing social media ?

Mari: I call it an FTY Combo Deal which stands for Facebook/Twitter/YouTube. You

could do LinkedIn, but YouTube is dynamic. Video is hot. You could produce a 1-2 minute, max 3 minute video and if you speak it into the camera or I do a lot of Camtasia screen capture videos, and so utilizing a lot of the strategies we talked


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about with your Facebook profile, your Facebook Fan Page, building up your Twitter following, and having at least one YouTube channel and putting up good content, then using your blog and embedding those YouTubes into your blog, and use your tweets.

An example I’m going to use for this one is Perry Belcher who came to our Mastermind in January and built a phenomenal following on Twitter in a very short period of time. He also uses Facebook and YouTube very well. He uses a few other sites, but Perry has done extremely well with this FTY Combo Deal as I call it. So just having that blend of the multiple touch points…the nice thing about bringing YouTube into this combo here is that people can engage with you more and get a sense of who you are if you’re doing some of the recording ad some of the camera.

For example, I made a video one time back in January about hashtags…explained about hashtags…and it got picked up by Steven Frye, a funny English comedian guy out of new York. Actually there is a lot of confusion about what hashtags are and on Twitter because the vast majority of people on Twitter are new…they only got on in the last 2-3 months, those people start to see hashtags go by, which is pound signs. You said at the beginning of our call, Carrie, that we would use ssm as a hashtag. So I made this video. You know what that’s like. You have to fix your hair and put makeup on and make sure your background…I do anyway. I’m also envious of Gary Vaynerchuk. He’s another one who’s done so well.

Carrie: Just shave your head and get your face in the camera. It’s so unfair. Mari: This video of hashtags on video has been watched over 10,000 times. It’s become

like the defacto video on what hashtags are. Carrie: I know that Sharon McPherson is on the call. Sharon, if you could do a twitter

search and find the hashtag video and circulate it with the ssm hashtag, we’ll get that going in the viral stream so everybody can see what Mari is talking about. I love the video and the combination of Facebook/Twitter/YouTube. Those are my favorites, too. Again, nobody taught me that. I stumbled on them.

We have a dear mutual friend, AskMrVideo. What I love is that you’re Facebook, I am Twitter, and he is very much video. The fact of the matter is, any single strategy is not as effective in that trifecta. Our friend Tim Schmitt would call it a trifecta. If you look at a Boy Scout rope - It’s like a really woven cord that your social media strategy will be that much stronger and that much tougher to break and more effective.

Some people are video people. Some people are Facebook with the longer text and articles and things, and some people are very interactive like twitter. If you want to think of that strategy that Mari just gave you, the FTY Combo, as she and Mr. Video and I working together on a social media package, that’s a really clear


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picture to me about how you can have a really incredible presence online. I know that when I started integrating those really easy video strategies- and I know that you chatted with Mr. Video, too, even before you met him- that video makes a huge difference. Brief little content videos like you talked about but even ones like you talked about of your face with your Flip camera where you’re just chatting or giving a little tip…so they can see your eyes and your authenticity and hear the tone of your voice. You’ve got this really amazing accent and such great made up language. We all have this great colorful language. We’re social media linguists, I guess. We have this own language that people can hear. Then what happens …this is what I call the magic…after you see a video or hear an audio or hear this call, you go into Twitter nad when you see my face or Mari’s face or read our tweets, you read it in our voices with our accents and inflections. Am I right?

Mari: That’s true. People say they can hear my Scottish/Canadian accent in tweets. Carrie: It’s true…and your inflections and your enthusiasm. It’s absolutely magical

because other people are streaming by and you recognize their face but when one of us pops up, you hear us or know what face I’m making because you’ve seen it in a video. The video is magic. Facebook is magic. It’s really a great strategy. I love the combo deal there. Tell us how you monetize that, Mari. How do you monetize the combo? What’s the overall strategy with that one?

Mari: I’ll use Perry Belcher as an example because it’s partly the whole radical

visibility, it’s teaching, it’s giving away value, it’s having a whole other layer that people wouldn’t see…your eyes, like you said…you’re engaging with them. They get a sense of who you are and want a piece of you. You can establish yourself as an authority as the leader. You can really pull the video feed into Facebook. You can pull the video feed into Twitter. It’s part of that visibility of establishing the credibility and having people go: Oh, my gosh. This person knows what they’re talking about. I want to do business with them.

Even if you’re doing an event, you can put a video out talking about the event you’re doing…talk about product you’re doing or program. You can start your own video channel on Ustream. TV is not limited to YouTube but the nice thing with YouTube is people can take your video and embed them in their blog posts, for example. That is why I think people struggle with social media. It’s like concrete specific ways to go out there and go: Alright if I do step one that’s going to put a million dollars in my bank tonight. It’s just not going to work like that.

You’ve got to put a little bit of extra effort into it and be persistent. I always say the number one key to success online and it does translate to offline is persistence…much persistence. Do not give up. You’re doing something you’re absolutely passionate about and it makes a difference on the planet. People want it


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and need it, it will make money. If you’re not, let me tell you this…you’re not charging enough. You’ve got to go and raise your rates.

Whatever you’re doing, if people are easily paying your rates, you’re not charging enough. You’ve got to raise your rates, especially if you’re selling your time. Be very careful about coaching and consulting and selling your time. You’ve got to do packages and find out ways you can do more group training and things like that.

A lot of these strategies we’ve talked about here today…people will come and ask me how to make money on Facebook. I go: Great question. Press the Pause button on that question and ask some questions about your business. If I were to purchase everything that you offer, all your products and services, tell me two things…A: How much would it cost me? B: What will I get for my money? Those are such telling questions. People go: Oh, I’ve got my $30 e-book, and I’m charging them $50 an hour for my time. I’ve got a few clients, but I want to make a million dollars this year. I’m like: Okay. We’ve got to take a closer look at your revenue model…your profit model, your business model, your final and how you’re converting that.

There’s a lot of fundamentals that we haven’t really talked about here today, Carrie, that you and I take for granted both being business women. Hopefully, a lot of the listeners are really understanding that what we’re talking about social media are mediums. Facebook, Twitter, the social networks are places to market yourself, but you have to be having something good quality to market.

Carrie: Right. It’s like having a storefront. The storefront is not your business. It’s just the

place where you market your business or make it easier for people to do business with you, but you still have to have a service or a product or a knowledge or skill set that is valuable to people. Social media is not your business. Don’t say: How can I make money here? When you don’t have a way to make money not here. It’s a magical way to market. It’s not a magical thing to sell.

Mari: People do not like to be sold, but they do like to buy. You will have people

buying from you all day. Carrie: I want to repeat a few of the URLs because it seems the questions I’m getting is

they’re having trouble with our accents. I think the Facebook Keyword Search URL is Facebook.com/advanced.php. Twellow is like the Yellow Pages but it’s Twellow. The other thing is our call is trending right now, Mari. Explain briefly what that means.

Mari: I’d love to. Trending topics is one of the most magical inventions in the whole of

Twitter. It’s like taking the pulse on what is the world talking about right now at this moment. At any given moment you can go to search.twitter.com. I use that on my iPhone all the time on the app called Tweety because I can go and click the


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little button that says ‘trending’. At any given moment I can see what the top ten topics being spoken about are right this second. We are actually number 3 on the trending.

Carrie: Love that. Mari: It’s crazy. You always know when you’ve peaked that curiosity market out there.

When you’re over in the Search Engine or it’s down at the bottom when you first look for something, and there will get curious and start to tweet: What is that? Can anyone tell me what #smm stand for? I want to know what it is. How can I get in on it?

Carrie: Right, because we want to be at the restaurant that has the crowd out front. The

one next door might be equally good, but if it has an empty parking lot, that’s not where we want to be. That’s part of the magic of social media, too. People want to be at the restaurant even if they have to wait. They want to be where the cool kids are. They want to be where there’s social proof. That’s very good. If we have just a minute…nobody’s mad that we’ve gone over an hour. The truth of the matter is, there’s never ever in the history of Barefoot been a one hour call. We always have so much information and so much interaction.

Okay, I want to ask a couple of questions and then guys, Mari does have a killer offer for you that I’m going to talk about in just a second. Hang on the line because she’s even doing a recession proof discount for you. I’m so excited about that. Let me just add to your pricing rant that you had there a minute ago…there is still money that people are spending. There is still money that people are investing. There are still sales. If you are lowering your prices just for the sake of getting business, you are devaluing yourself and not helping your business. You’re probably not getting any more business. Now an event discount or urgency offer or something like that is just part of a really great sales process, but what I mean is if you’re normally doing coaching for $100 an hour and just because times are tough you think that if you lower it to $75 an hour you’ll get more business, the fact of the matter is, you’re just not.

People are still spending on what they value and what’s important to them. I don’t need any hate mail about the recession. I know it’s real. I know the economy has some really interesting things going on right now, but whaqt I’m telling you is there are still people spending and injecting into the economy, their business, and their life. It’s just that they’re being more judicious and what they want to invest in is stuff with high value and people of high value. What you do is instead of lowering your price and lowering what people perceive as what you’re worth, you instead raise your value. Raise what you’re offering them…the personal attention or the quality. You over-deliver.

That is how you recession proof your business. That is how you maintain your personal integrity and your character in your business because then what are you


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going to do if you lower all of your prices right now? Do you think that when the economy gets better you’re going to be able to jack them back up and the customers will be okay with that? No. They aren’t. Six weeks ago you were only $75 an hour. Now do you think you’re so much better you can charge more?

Yeah, I’m ranting a little about this but as a business woman I’m really passionate about this. I don’t want you to devalue yourself, your gifts or services. You just need to make sure that you over-deliver and that you add bonuses if you need to. Add more of the caring or more special thought…I love that…secret sauce.

Val wants us to recap the seven strategies. Let me see if I can do this, Mari. Number 1 is Radical Strategic Visibility. You want to be everywhere. That ties in a lot to Number 7, in my opinion. Number 2 is Focus on the Path…leaving little breadcrumbs and traces of value. That’s sprinkling value between content and leading people back to what you have with curiosity marketing. I like to think of Dorothy on The Wizard of Oz trail bringing people along with her. Number 3 is Social Ads with Secret Sauce. That’s on the right hand bar of Facebook…the social ads where you can see how people strategically are fanning some of those ads that other people are paying for placement for.

Big Ticket Sequence is where you can entice people or use your curiosity marketing again with a call like this or with a webinar or something where you offer a free strategy session or coaching session that you can then lead them into your big ticket program. This works very successfully for people with big ticket programs because social rapport really helps break down those niche trust barriers. Number 5 is the Advanced Keyword Search. We talked about that a minute ago with Twellow. Then the Facebook advanced URL. Those are looking for specific conversations and specific areas that you want to do business with or people whose pond you want to fish in. Number 6 is the Two Killer JV. That’s a good example of what we’re doing right now….where you bring the content and the close…the offer or product. The other person brings the audience and provides the platform. That is the Two Part Killer JV. Simple is best. As a friend of mine always says: Keep it simple, sweetie. Use the KISS method.

Number 7 is the FTY COMBO which is Facebook/Twitter/YouTube. All of you

in all of those mediums…we want to see you, hear you, and feel like we can touch you. We talked about this a little yesterday. There are a lot of variations on this saying. Mine is: Used to, we always heard that it wasn’t important what you know but who you know. That has evolved into: It’s not important who or what you know, it’s more important who knows you. Well, here’s my spin on it: It’s not really important who knows you it’s who feels like they know you. You can have people feel like they know you through social media strategies like we’ve talked


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about today because people are more likely to invest and recommend other people to someone whom they feel like they know and trust and like…someone who teaches them without expectation of return like we’re doing now, who teaches you even through social media.

Mari and I both love to share content and video and quotes and aha moments. When we’re in seminars we tweet out little secret self information, and that is part of the combo. You really need to be all of you to all people who want to be in your space. That’s what I love about social media…it’s a self selecting community to people who are in your space. They’re there not because they have to be but because they want to be. So Mari we have tons of questions streaming in and we’re just not going to have time to get through them, but most of what I’m seeing are technical questions or ‘how much time do I spend’ or ‘I don’t have a VA’. Mari and I do a lot of this ourselves. We don’t have a VA handle our stuff for us because we believe it’s relationship things.

Then there are people saying: How can we learn more? Mari, tell us a little bit about what you’re offering for people to work with you today. I’m going to go ahead and send them to the webpage so they can read along with you. Is that okay? If you guys want to go to barefoot special.com, that will redirect you to the page. I’m going to get Mari to walk you through it a little bit. I’ve been doing this on my last few calls. Sometimes a webpage or an offer can be confusing. I have one question I want to answer. Somebody said they saw pictures of us together and part of the argument of social media is that it’s impersonal and distant. The truth is, we met online and then also met in person. Now we’re business associates and we mastermind together and share stages. So we have pictures together and apart. We love being in each other’s space. I would say absolutely that social media not only clarified for me that I wanted to be in Mari’s space but it also helped us circumvent that. It helped us make it shorter to a deeper relationship. Wouldn’t you say, Mari?

Mari: Absolutely. I agree totally. Carrie: If you’re at barefootspecial.com, Mari, walk us through that and tell us what you

have going on there. Mari: Okay, this is actually my ten years of being a relationship/Internet marketer

distilled into a 15 step program, basically a 25 page guidebook that you can download right away called My Social Marketing Method Quick Start Guide. It’s a 20 page guide. I’ll walk you through this.

mari smith – relationship marketing specialist & social ......let’s have our hashtag be #smm...

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