Have you ever been to a cocktail party where there’s always that one person who insists they speak louder than everyone else and only speaks for themselves? Here’s how to avoid being that person online.
Are you familiar with the Pareto principle?
You may have heard it referred to as the 80-20 rule, the law of the vital few, or even the principal factor sparsity. Well, the Pareto principle states that, for many events, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. If we look at Pareto’s principle from a business perspective, one could say that 80% of purchases are made by 20% of the customers, or 80% of the wealthy is held by 20% of the population. Agree?
What if we applied the Pareto principle to your Facebook or Twitter pages? We could say that 80% of the posts on your timeline are made by 20% of your friends. That makes sense right? If you have 500 friends or followers, maybe 100 of them are really active, where the others don’t post much. Would you agree?
Ok so now we have a good understanding of Pareto’s 80/20 rule. So let’s see how this can help your business when it comes to Social Media.
Small Business owners turn to Social Media to promote their business and products. But If you follow Small Business Breakthrough’s updates and postings, you know that Social Media is about building relationships, not about endless self-promotion, right? What better way is there to create a relationship with another than by sharing their content with your followers? When Pareto’s Pareto’s principle is applied to social sharing, 80% of our status updates should be about someone else, and 20% should be about our business.
How do we do this?
- First be yourself
- If you find that someone else has posted something online that can benefit your followers, share it
- If you like something that you think your followers will enjoy, share it
- If you know how to use a product, show your followers how to use it
- If there’s industry knows your followers should be aware of, share it
- Do this 80% of the time.
Then for the remaining 20%, promote your business.
- Tell your followers about any promotions that you may be running
- Invite them to purchase your products and or services
- Tell them why you are the best in the business and why they should do business with you
Remember, nobody likes a self-centered know-it-all who only has time for himself. So don’t be that guy or gal online.
What other types of things can you share with your followers that fall in the 80% of Pareto’s principle?
