Using the “V-C-P” in Social Media

If you are a business owner in the valley who enjoys receiving referrals and would like to learn how to generate significantly more, one of the absolute best resources available to you is Victoria Trafton, who owns the Referral Institute of Arizona.  Victoria has a variety of classes and programs that show entrepreneurs how to more efficiently grow their business through referral marketing.  One of the main concepts she teaches at her introductory classes is the idea of building Visibility in your target market, then earning Credibility among those folks, and finally, reaching Profitability from those activities.  This certainly doesn’t happen instantaneously, but it is the most effective way to strategically build your network so that you aren’t just running around town trying to “close deals” with new people every week for the rest of your working life.

As I build social media strategies for businesses, I always educate our clients on this concept.  Regardless of whether we are talking about face-to-face networking or building a network through social media, this concept is the most effective way to build, nurture and grow your network.

Let’s take a look at “V-C-P” in social media:

VISIBILITY – To be visible, you must be out there.  In other words, you need to be searchable and visible to your target market.  You need to utilize the right keywords in all of your copy and have a search engine optimization expert on your team.  You must also have the appropriate accounts set up, such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, a Blog and videos on YouTube.  (Reaching more people = More opportunities for your business)

CREDIBILITY – Once you have begun attracting the right people to your social media sites (your target prospects), you must quickly establish credibility with them.  Some of the ways you can do this are by using a professional looking picture of yourself, having your complete profile filled out, being on all of the major social media sites, consistently updating your profiles, interacting with “friends”, receiving comments on your posts, being truthful and genuine, not selling your product constantly and many others.  When we do our initial consultation with clients, we often see really great people making mistakes they aren’t aware of because they were never taught the proper way to build credibility online.

PROFITABILITY – What is a new client worth to your business?  What if every week you received two new clients that found you through social media?  This is the beautiful part of social media – once you are visible and credible, you will attract new business just because you are out there and have a powerful message.

Hopefully this was helpful as you build or refine a social media strategy for your business.  There is an unbelievable amount of opportunity out there; if you don’t take advantage of it now, your competition will.  Best of luck building “V-C-P” for your business!