How You Can Apply the Golden Rule to Promote Your Business

I turn on my laptop and start my daily routine after I finish jogging early in the morning. I open

my browser and log on to my website, email, and social networking accounts. Then the cleaning

up begins. Easy, I browse my inbox, label the emails, delete some, and then I start browsing the

ones that matter. There are rare occasions that spam messages land on my inbox.

I am quite sure that you do the same thing or if you don’t have the time to clean up, you just let

it stay in your inbox and just remember the last count of your mail to see if anything worthy

came in. Don’t we all hate spam messages? I

remember replying to a message a few weeks ago

from a company representative who tried to sell me

condo units located hundreds of islands away from

me (I definitely was not the right lead to contact).

So when it comes to promoting your brand, how do

you avoid becoming one? How do you prevent your

marketing strategies waste away in the trash? How do you excite your market to read on? How

can you effectively promote your business online? These are some of the questions I will answer

in this blog post.

The key is “Do unto others what you want others to do unto you.” The Golden rule applies.

Here’s what I mean by that:

To effectively get yourself noticed in your weekly e-zine is not to post million of dollars

benefits on the subject of the mail. I personally hate subject lines such as “The fastest way to

make thousands of dollars” or something spammy like that. People have outgrown that. They

don’t buy it anymore. What you can do to promote your business online through emails is to

genuinely build a relationship with them. You have to research them. Know what they are into.

This process might take time but it will give you greater rewards since you would not have to

spend so much effort in whipping up a newsletter issue only to be deleted or marked as spam

(some people find it easier to mark the email as spam rather than unsubscribe even though they

signed up for it).

Ask for permission. Do not go about sending people your newsletter when they did not

subscribe to you. You can write to them sincerely telling them what you think you have that they

might like and invite them courteously if they are interested to receive more info about it. If they

did not respond, then move on to the next person. That only means that they are not interested.

And just because somebody handed you his or her business card at a networking event or

added you on LinkedIn doesn’t mean it’s okay to add them to your mailing list without asking

them.

When you add people on social media channels, at least send them a personalized

message and why you would like to connect. Let’s face it. Not everyone is open to connecting

to people they don’t know. I know of a life coach who didn’t want to connect with people she

didn’t know and told her VA to unfollow all those people on Twitter and delete some LinkedIn

connections because she doesn’t know them personally. She didn’t like seeing marketing

messages from other people on her Twitter feed and she thought those were all spam and that

adding people she hasn’t met in person or talked over the phone was not authentic.

Cultivate your business relationships on Twitter. Don’t use your Twitter account to just feed

your articles or post your marketing messages. Talk to people. Thank your biggest supporters,

influencers, and reply to people’s tweets. Here’s a tool that takes your Twitter relationships to

the next level.

Provide value when you write comments. Writing comments on blogs, or sites like Quora and

LinkedIn answers is a great way to get your name out there and build your credibility. Let’s say

you have written an excellent post on your blog, then later you see a pending comment that

says “Nice post! I like it very much.” I’ve received a lot of comments like this on my blog post.

Even though some of these comments are not marked as spam, they still appear spammy to me

and the truth is, they don’t provide any value. The comments section is a place to give your

insights about the blog post and although it’s a great strategy to build links to your website, at

least write a comment that other readers could benefit from. Instead of just saying “Thank you

for this very informative article” or something like that, tell the author about your biggest a-ha

from the post. Is there a tip that you can add or do you disagree with certain points? Write it in

your comment. You could help someone who would stumble upon that article later on.

We can apply the Golden Rule to the way we promote our business (online and offline). You

only do to others what you would have others do to you. You sure don’t want unsolicited emails

to flood your inbox, they don’t too. You don’t want to be added on Facebook only to be

promoted to, they don’t either.

Be respectful and sincere with the way you promote your business online by doing only what

you want done to you. In short, treat people the way you want to be treated.

I want you to tell me about your biggest pet peeve when it comes to other people’s marketing

tactics. What practices do you see that others do that makes you think they are spamming

people? Let me know on my Facebook page.

Karen May Dy is a social media and internet marketing virtual assistant

and wants you to build your authentic social brand, create a powerful

online presence, and ultimately step up your social media game. With a

passion in simplifying social media and online marketing, Karen teaches

and serves women service-based solopreneurs in using online tools and

the internet to grow their business. To grab your F.R.E.E. copy of Karen’s

social media kit through email and to receive exclusive weekly social

media coaching straight to your inbox every Tuesday, visit http://socialmediamarketinggirl.com/