How to be a ninja!

So over the weekend I went to another conference. The most important lesson I learned was on how to be a social media ninja. The presentation was done by Michael O'Neal, @itsaboutsocial. He was focusing on how to network market through social media. Yes, this was to market an item, but marketing yourself is no different. Let's look at a couple of the key points.


Have a story. Everybody has a story about their life or what they do. Some people call it an elevator speech. Something that you can tell in a few minutes or less that shows your passion. Oh yeah, you need that too, have some passion about your thing. If you are trying to sell yourself, you damn well better have some passion about yourself.

Make sure you have a way to tell your story. Look at your business card. What is on it? The example story was a guy that Michael had met at a bar in Denver, lets call him Dan. Dan had a passion about the city and became a realtor  He knew everything there was to know about the city. Great guy who could find you a great place. You would remember this guy, but if you were just going by his business card you wouldn't remember him. It was just your basic card for a realtor. His photo and tons and tons of information. You aren't going to remember that or even talk to the guy after that if you aren't looking for a house. So what did Michael do? Made a card with a name and phone number. Then the other side said "Location Ninja" What is a location ninja? I don't know either but I bet Dan has a story for you when you ask. That is the key, grabbing the person's attention and then making them remember you.

Don't show your hand too early. Like the business card, you don't want to show all your hand up front. Make people want to come to you. You can meet them at 80 or 90 percent of the way there, make them come to you for the remaining 10 to 20 percent. The same is on social media as it is face to face. If you are telling people to go look at your resume and that is it, why would they do that? Or if you are selling a product, or yourself, don't just give people the link and expect the best to happen. If a person has no reason to click your link or view your product, they won't.

Lastly, this is the most important, do not ever post something that is simply stating "Ask me about" or "Email me if you..." Nobody wants to do that. I am guilty of doing that myself. I have since learned from that and have slapped my own wrist. If you start a post with that, you look like a salesman, and strangely  nobody wants to buy from a salesman. Look you can be a salesman, but try to remember this ratio, 10 posts from you to 1 post about what you are selling. And if you can somehow make that post seem like it is about you, even better. Trust me, if done correctly, people will come to you.

Also check out itsaboutsocial.com Michael knows his shit.


Also as an update to my last post about the company you keep. Michael had everybody walk up to a random stranger that you didn't know and put people out of their comfort zone. Well I chose the CEO of the sponsoring company. I figured go big or go home right?