Attracting Friends and Followers

By: Dan Beldowicz

One of the principles from the book “How to Win Friends and Influence People” that should be applied to social media campaigns is simply, "Smile." This may be one of the simplest ways to influence people--the power of a smile. Babies are perfectionists at this art form.

While on a road trip with my wife and kids, ages 3, 2, and 11 months, we pulled into a Waffle House at 6 am. Now, if you have never had the pleasure of dining at a Waffle House, I highly recommend it. Eight hundred miles from home, in the middle of nowhere, we stopped to get some breakfast. My wife and I have a kid each next to us in the booth and my youngest is in a highchair at the end of the table. The waffles are fantastic and of course the kids are loving the massive amount of chocolate chips in their breakfast. But it was my youngest that was the star that morning, he kept leaning his head back to look a person that was sitting behind me. He’d sit there smiling at this person for a minute, lift his head up take a bite of waffle and lean back again chewing and smiling.

Well, it didn’t take long before the person behind me was smiling, waving and making silly faces back. This went on throughout breakfast, and I eventually turned around and started making light conversation with the man behind me.  We talked about his grandkids and how he missed them and about his work and how he was on medical leave for quite some time.

When we were ready to settle the bill, it never showed up. The man behind me had already taken care of it. He was having trouble walking, and he told us that he hoped that doing something nice for someone else would eventually come back someday to him. Now it wasn’t more than a couple of bucks, but the simple act of smiling changed that man's day. He went from worrying about work to smiling and thinking about his family. The simple act of smiling can change everything.

Social Smiling
I don’t tell the story so you tell your kids to smile at people to get them to pay for you, but to illustrate the point that even a baby knows that a simple smile can make a friend.

What does your profile picture say about you? Is it some random picture of you? Is it a picture that portrays you as an expert, an intellectual, a hippy, a rock singer, or something else? Yes, your picture should be your personality, but is it inviting to the audience you are trying to attract?

Are your profile pictures consistent? For Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and all of your other social profiles, do you maintain and brand yourself and your business? If not, you should be thinking about it. Branding rules dictate frequency and consistency, so no matter which site you're driving your followers to, they should be able to immediately identify you and your brand.

Dan Beldowicz is the Vice President of Business Development with Single Throw Internet Marketing. He is an entrepreneurial marketing and business development professional with more than 10 years experience leading national interactive marketing initiatives.