Businesses are always asking me how to build relationships with their prospects through social networking. Building a relationship with your prospects can be done by spending some time with your prospects in social networking. The great thing about social networking is that when you use it to connect with people as people, you can reach amazing heights. Or you can treat people as a revolving doormat where you can manipulate them through pop up ads, constant bombardment of annoying promotions, and other unnecessary marketing shenanigans.

How To Build Relationships With Prospects

1. RT your prospects, so they know that their thoughts were not thrown into the social networking desert. I hate when I do a post and it just feels like no one read it. You get that why I am talking to myself feeling again. RT your prospects, so they know someone read their posts.
2. Answer their questions on LinkedIn. One of the things that I need to start doing again is to start answering more LinkedIn answers. They are a great way to meet interested prospects, and also an amazing way to send referrals. I like to go into topics that I know little about: accounting, law, etc. I then recommend a referral partner to answer the question. The referral partner is grateful of the fact that I am introducing them to new prospects and the prospect now has a recommended expert that they can talk to about their challenges.
3. Create amazing blog articles just like the Social Networking Schmoozer. One of the reasons that I started blogging was that it was not enough anymore for me to tweet away the hours. Instead, I needed a place to share my thoughts and ideas with my growing network. Blogging seemed to be a natural extension of social networking, where I could share new thoughts and ideas with my prospects and referral partners.
4. Send follow-up emails with your prospects just to say hello. Remember back in the nineties when that hot piece of technology was the…email. Well, it is still around, and it is one of the most effective ways of communicating with your clients to this day. In fact, because email has such a huge adoption rate among internet users it is even more vital today in staying connected. Send follow-up emails, drop a quick note, say hello.
5. Ask your prospects what social networks they use and then go to that social network to connect with them. Ever go to a networking event, and think to yourself that there is no way that I am going to be able to follow-up with all of these people. Now, you take a look at their card and connect with them on the social networks that they use for their business. It will not work with everyone, however, you will stay connected with more people than you would believe from this method.
6. Create a Youtube video about your clients. One of the most creative and talked about video campaigns of 2010 was from Old Spice. The Old Spice man did over 100 Youtube videos that were sent to top Twitter users with a personal hello message. Talk about a cool use of social media.

How To Build Relationships

In the end, you answer how to build relationships with your prospects by thinking of them first, and finding different ways, like above to connect with them.