I explained on the previous page how to set up your social media marketing "listening" columns on Hootsuite. They should now contain lots of messages that include your chosen keywords. Every morning I scan the messages in my columns to find something useful that could help me interact with potential customers and eventually converting them to buy my fishing products. In the example shown below I spotted two people talking about going fishing. I set this "listening" column to try and find saltwater fishermen chatting about going to the Caribbean to try their luck catching a fish called the Permit. That did not work on this particular morning.

What I found was a girl talking about having just obtained her fishing permit and National Park pass car sticker so she could spend the next day fishing for large mouth Bass. That is great because I sell big deerhair fishing flies that are ideal large mouth bass fishing. The second tweet message I spotted was of a fisherman telling his friends that he now had his saltwater fishing permit and was now ready for the season to start. Again this fisherman was not going fishing for Permit fish but that did not matter because I also sell a lot of fishing flies for salt water angling trips.

A common mistake committed by the majority of internet marketers using social media is to try and immediately sell their products when they catch sight of a new prospect. Social media marketing is about chatting with people. You have to build a valued relationship with them before they will trust you. Talk to them. Ask them questions, give free advice. Ask them for information that you may find useful on your website as content. Even if you don't make a sale you will still obtain some benefit from the engagement you started.

I sent both these people the same message. "Where do you fish? What would be your top ten list of fishing flies?" I have then added a link to my website. Notice I have not tried to sell them anything. I have asked them two questions which hopefully they might reply to, as we are chatting about a mutual interest. After four or five messages about fishing I might give them a recommendation to one of my flies that I believe would be ideal for them. If I have built up enough trust during our conversations they maybe tempted to click the link and visit the product page containing my recommendation.